WHY THERE CAN BE NO OTHER ENTHIRAN - A 2 PAISA COMMENTARY

“கருவில் பிறந்த எல்லாம் மரிக்கும்;

அறிவில் பிறந்தது மரிப்பதே இல்லை! ”

Hello, Readers! It has been some time since I last wrote about cinema. There had always been a voice in my head asking me to sit down and elaborate the topics that I mentally jot down from time to time. Never had the agency to do it; nor the motivation – work and cope doom-scrolling had me squeezing every ounce of my energy. I find it personally fantastic that I opened my beloved MS Word after months to write, if not an year or maybe even more. This topic is very personal – you may think that it is not, but it is surely is. I hope to translate the raw enthusiasm that I proudly endow on this topic to the paper in front of me. How much? A lot much, I hope; I will leave it to you to answer that question.

I don’t think anybody needs me to tell them what sort of a phenomenon Enthiran was back in its day. It probably was in 2010 that I got to experience something that I had never even imagined of experiencing inside a movie theater (so far then, atleast). As an 11- or 12-year-old boy, having gotten to watch this movie twice in theatres is an absolute privilege; one that I did not know how big back then. But, my first encounter with the visuals of Enthiran inside a cinema hall was not from the movie itself, but during another movie.

 A funny backstory.

I studied in a Christian missionary school then, actually graduated from it much later too. I don’t know why I framed the sentence so, it was almost the only school that I had been in. Lots of rules there – must speak in English at all times to everyone, must have a proper haircut, must have nails cut, must wear shoes… I think you get the idea. The only fun there were the PT periods, them too, if you were unlucky, would get hijacked by your Math and Science teachers. Oh, and did I tell you that we had separate blocks for boys and girls? So, essentially, it felt like a boys’ school, even though it was not one on paper. All the fun you could imagine in a boys’ school, we had them all. All the rowdiness and indiscipline you could ever think of, we grew up with them. But, official fun? Very little. So little that when kids from other schools were going on simple trips, we stood witnesses. But there happen to be oases even in the harshest of the deserts. So came one in our dry, wretched school too – a cinema outing! (We later went on two more such outings too).

 It was supposed to be some Christian religious movie that showed something or something other, I remember none of that; in fact, none of us cared about the movie. All of us were engulfed in the experience that it was – the last-minute announcement, packing our books into our bags, leaving them in the classrooms and boarding school buses that were a little more comfortable than the ones used by city corporations to catch stray dogs, the journey and all the loud chatter on the way. It was nothing less than a festival for us that day. We were seated, the movie started, and paused for the intermission. But something happened in the intermission. As we sat chatting in those cinema hall seats, the screen that was dark so far started lighting up. Some music came on, Rajni’s face came on then, followed by Aishwarya (or the other way around?) – it was the music video of Irumbile Oru Irudhayam! I was mesmerized. The large cinema screen, AR Rahman’s music, magical, very magical visuals where robots danced and sang – I was mesmerized completely. All of a sudden, the five-minute-long music video was all the school talked about, teachers including.

Days later, when the movie released, my dad, an ardent lover of grand cinema and James Bond, took us to Enthiran. The theater premises was jam packed with very little space to breathe, even little space to walk, the chaos before we entered the hall was… so chaotic. 2000s and 2010s Kollywood craze was something else, I tell you. The three hours that followed were magic. I had never enjoyed a movie so much, I don’t think anyone in that cinema hall had. There were hoots and whistles and claps that echoed for all the three hours. A robot that looked like a human (not just any human, our very own SUPER STAR) was talking Tamil, making jokes, fighting, dancing, making its own copies, forming itself into a ball, a snake, a giant human, all while AR Rahman lit the speakers up with arguably the best OST work in Kollywood till date – OH MY GOD! The 12-year-old boy was sold. For every kid out there who watched Enthiran in theatres when it released, we are the chosen ones. Trust me on this.

I decided to rewatch this some 15 years later, and this time, the movie felt different. Very different - but with all that magic intact. Time slays movies, very few stand the test of time, and Enthiran, although bound by the technology and cinema budgets of its time, was a torchbearer. Shankar made Indian film makers dream bigger, there is no question about it. For a movie made in 2009, there was very little gap between it and other top of the range Hollywood movies (yardstick priorities) in terms of production quality. Sure, this time I watched, I could notice continuity issues, social norms have changed so much in India that we frown upon the usage of sexual harassment scenes in movies to elevate the protagonist, but within the context of its time, cheers and hoots.

Although dumbed down, or should I say simplified to appeal to a larger Indian audience, Enthiran was clever; I think I should be attributing this to the legendary Sujatha-Shankar duo, something that we have grown to miss a lot these days (should I even start about Indian 2?). Professor Bohra was right; Chitti was indeed a ‘stupid inference engine’ at that time. But tell me how many times has Indian cinema seen a term so deep and advanced scientifically for the time, used in mainstream movies? There are examples like this spewn all through the movie – something for the serious guys, I guess?

In a scene where Prof. Bohra and Chitti have a conversation about Chitti’s relationship with Sana,

Chitti: இது இயற்கைக்கு எதிரானது. (This is against nature)

Bohra: இல்ல, இது இயற்கைக்கு புதுசு. (No, this is new to nature)

I am at a loss for words to describe how intelligent this is. I don’t know which of the trio – Shankar, Sujatha, or Madhan Karky wrote this, but, so much ahead of time!

Enthiran was not only Shankar’s best work till date then, it was AR Rahman’s too! The maestro had breathed fire with this album and background score – and I can argue for weeks how this is one of the best original music works for a movie ever done in Indian cinema (the other one that I would take a bullet for is Kochchadaiyaan by the way). Just think of for how long you were humming Enthiran’s tunes, you will get your answer; 6 months? An year? Even now? I know your bones want to wiggle every time the bass ensemble and the beats kick in for Kilimanjaro. Aha Aha! We will be talking about the soundtrack of Enthiran another day. There is a lot to unpack there and I will give the soundtrack its honour of a separate article.

I believe that the selling point of Enthiran’s longevity comes from the sincere efforts that has been put in from all the sides – writing, direction, production, photography, music, action and everything else. It is not easy to mount a creation of this stature with lousy contributions from any department. The team could have very easily chosen cheaper, easier ways to make the movie, I mean, why go to the lengths that the Indian Government itself had to intervene to get a shooting pass at Machu Picchu? Why make actual robots to make a movie? Why invest so much in VFX? You reap as you sow and Enthiran is a fine example of it. Enthiran had sold a dream to Indian film makers. To imagine big and achieve them with discipline even under strict budget enforcements.

Enthiran is rightfully Shankar’s Magnum Opus. Indian cinema’s crown jewel of its time. Cinema, with its large screen format and surround sound systems was invented for movies like this. ENTHIRAN IS CINEMA.