My interview with Galatta Tamil, about Dhanush, on his 41st birthday
Papanasam is perhaps the only Kamal movie where I agreed with his crying choice. I remember my mallu friend, a Mohanlal fan, saying how Mohanlal’s acting correctly reinforced the essence of the character. I agreed with that but I feel cultural differences and the star’s image is more important.
The protagonist of the movie may think that he did what he HAD to, but murder is still murder. Mohanlal like performance may have turned off many Tamil audiences, who are more likely to accept a star like Kamal getting away with murder of a non-anti-social, if he is making an emotional appeal than giving a logical explanation.
Sociologically, Malayalis belong to a smaller state surrounded by other language speaking larger states. They also emigrate a lot. Hence, they are more easily able to emphatise with Georgekutty doing what he needs to do, in order to survive in an hostile environment. Ayyapanum Koshiyum is another movie that I felt may work in a smaller state like Goa but not in Tamil Nadu.
I don’t think majority of Tamil audiences are going to identify with and root for cold, cynical and calculative people. Pudhupettai had a huge opening but fizzled out. Let’s see if Raayan meets the same fate.
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