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| Sunday, 7 September 2003 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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South Indian cinema : Maniratnam dances into the hearts of fans How has Maniratnam become a cinematographer of international repute? What are his credentials? Though not all, the majority of his cinematic creations danced into the hearts of the fans. That his films might fail to achieve the targeted income is no problem for him, since they are assured of a place in the international arena.
Maniratnam's father, Venus Ratnam and his brother, P. Venkateshwaran who committed suicide recently were gifted producers. Having passed out as a management graduate from Madras University and Bajay Institute Maniratnam was employed for sometime as a Management Consultant. Despite his academic achievement his forte lay with the cinema. For any critical review of his films one has to categorise them into Pallavi Anupallavi, Unaru, Idaya Koil and Pagal Vilan, the first ever films, the six films from Maunaragam to Talapathy and post Raja. Maunaragam and those that followed it capped his efforts with success. Naturally his cinematic creations differ from sentimentality filled movies of his South Indian contemporaries. Maunaragam shown for the first time at international film festivals was Maniratnam's magnum opus.
Maniratnam experimented with Raja by replacing the old artistes with new, the new producer was K. Balachandar, representing the avant garde of South Indian cinematologists. 'Talapathy' was the film that propelled South Indian cinema into the international limelight. Translated from Silumina |
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His films are shown at 'international film festivals held in Montreal,
Cannes and Venice for acknowledgement by the public.
Here the story is centred on the life of a underworld bandit named Velu,
who was eventually shot to death. Surely the film is likely to have drawn
some inspiration from Francis Ford's God King, but Maniratnam was careful
enough not to imitate it outright! Gitanjali, Prjalee and Talapathy
followed Maunaragam. Tamil superstar, Rajanikanth, and his Malayalam
counterpart Mammun's superb performance featured well in Talapathy.
