14/11/2021
CURIOUS CASE OF DIRECTORS SARAN AND LINGUSAMY
Indian movies are popular in creating a genre called "masala" movies. Masala itself means a mix of spices hence masala movies mean a mix of genres like comedy, action, romance, and drama. These types of movies were predominantly seen in the early 1970s and took a peak in MGR and Rajinikanth movies in Kollywood, which was later carried by Vijay and Ajithkumar respectively. Many writers and directors were successful in this genre but there was some repetitiveness in those movies eventually after the early 1990s. Then came a few directors like Sankar, Murugadoss, Vikraman, Hari who used to have their style of editing and making the movie and were successful. Among these, I think directors Saran and Lingusamy could have stood out in making commercial entertainments as they had a unique way of creating a film. For example, Saran's Jemini is easily one of the best strong protagonist and antagonist characters in a masala film and Lingusamy's Paiyaa doesn't offer a unique storyline but the treatment of the movie as a road film made it a commercial success. Saran's Amarkalam, Kadhal mannan, Gemini, Jay Jay doesn't talk about a flawless protagonist who carries the entire film and saves people or the heroine from an antagonist like other "masala" movies does. And he also successfully remade Munna Bhai MBBS in Tamil as remaking a good movie is always a tough job. But Vasool raja MBBS was also a box-office success. Meanwhile, Lingusamy gave hits with his films Run, Sandakozhi, Anandham and he also introduced Madhavan, Vishal, and Karthi as a "mass" hero in the Tamil film industry. These two directors could have easily entered the elite list of successful commercial directors like KS Ravikumar, Sankar, etc but they were let down by making a few experiments in their movies lil Saran's Vattaram and Modhi vilayadu. The concept of killing both protagonist and heroine in the climax of Lingusamy's Beema is not familiar to most Tamil audiences and that movie flunked in the box office. Lingusamy's movies also have some beautiful shots in Sandakozhi (which is talked about still now), Vettai as he collaborates with sound cinematographers like Nirav Shah, Santosh Sivan, etc. If not for a few experiments in his movies by Saran and if not for Anjaan and pre-release interview of Anjaan by Lingusamy there could have been a chance for them to be a successful commercial director. But in my personal opinion, their movies were one of the few which I enjoyed for both commercially appealing and also for out-of-cliche screenplays.
