Nadodigal:Corny as Usual

‘Love’,  the only thing that has kept the Tamil film industry afloat.  There have been numerous stories revolving around this thing called ‘love’ that we have been convinced it is the only human emotion/feeling that is worth living for.  But the irony is that this concept of love which is a deity in all these movies is nothing but superficial.  The characters popularly known as ‘hero’ and ‘heroine’ are forced into it no matter what their personal takings are with respect to relationships, education and so on.  The other thing that has always been emphasized in all these kind of movies is that ‘love’ is a constant just like the universe which begs the question ‘Why should or would it have to be a constant?’  Unlike the scientific explanation to universe being a constant this one doesn’t have any sort of explanation as it has been proclaimed to be ‘divine’.  Movie after movie is being churned out around this concept and the people just don’t seem to grow tired of this stale concept. Every movie being made is claimed to be something different and the only difference that one can find is its difference to reality and ingenuity.

On this note came another movie revolving around ‘love’ called ‘Nadodigal’ which was dubbed as a path breaking movie and there is word doing the rounds that its going to be made in various other languages.  The cliché in all these movies is that if it had to have ‘love’ then it should have ‘friendship’ which goes beyond anything is another story all together.  Now in a lot of movies we all have come across these groups of friends who nominate someone in their group to ‘love’ who apparently is the ‘hero/heroine’ and act as an advisory committee in this regard.  This ‘friend’ analyses the lover and recommends and to an extent persuades them to fall in ‘love’ which sometimes quite intriguing.  But this gives rise to another predicament wherein the lovers are forced on to a relationship which would even jeopardize their ‘friendship’ as they were persuaded, aided or coerced into it by their ‘friends’. Would this happen in real life is another question altogether but is this reel life being forced on into the society is a question worth pondering on.  Anyone would agree on the impact of movies on Tamil society and this is the cause of concern as the movies do not depict the reality of life and even the depiction of reality is totally lopsided.  This has created and is creating a generation of youngsters with shallow thoughts on relationships and emotions which would or has already created a phoney society which embarks itself on a load of platitudes to assuage its short comings.

The movie on the whole is realistic in its representation of its characters and their life but fails in its mission by justifying their immature understanding of love.  True that they went a long way to secure their friends’ relationship but they should have the maturity to understand that ‘love’ is a human emotion which can also fail. ‘Familiarity breeds contempt’ is a popular adage which can apply to this movie and the ‘friends’ should have the capacity to understand that just because they were part of the ‘unification of lovers’ shouldn’t compel the lovers to paint a rosy picture for eternity.  To cut to the chase the movie lacks any kind of maturity with regards to its approach to ‘love’ and ‘friendship’ which are relative terms in their own right.  To glorify this movie or to celebrate it as an eye opener is just a sham that is being promulgated by the media whose only interest lies in exploiting the sentimental nature of the rustic audience to reap profits with minimal effort and concern.