Mozhi - Symphony of Emotions

Prakash Raj’s Duet Movies is one of few good things that happened to Tamil film industry in recent times. Mozhi again shows Prakash Raj’s penchant for good commercial cinema. The pre-release hype and expectations created for the movie was quite high and I was doubtful whether the movie would be really worth all this hype. But when the crappiest of movies in Tamil are publicized and marketed so well to create enough hype before the release, why not spend some money to market such a rare gem.

Mozhi is a symphony of emotions. It is a love story between a musician and a deaf and mute girl. With this one line as the main theme of the symphony, Radha Mohan adds more and more layers through other characters and their sub stories which are beautiful by themselves. When all these layers come as a counterpoint in perfect synch with the main theme of the movie, it elevates the overall beauty of this orchestration of emotions. Radha Mohan has come up with a neat and taut screenplay which is quite like a theme development in a symphony. The most fascinating aspect of the symphony is the comic layer which is there throughout the piece without disturbing the sensitivity and emotions in the main melody. This is quite a toll task to achieve.

First of all, the mere thought of love between a musician and deaf and mute girl is so poetic and novel, because their worlds are entirely different. Even the rooms of Karthik and Archana are designed with a contrasting color scheme reflecting their characters. The man who is into music all the time finds the music of his life in the silence of a deaf and mute girl. This contrast in characters paves way to lot of beautiful moments in the movie in which both the director Radha Mohan and Viji (dialogues) score high points. You have to watch the scene to believe its beauty in which Karthik makes Archana to feel his music. It is one of those best moments where the symphony of all the elements of cinema reaches its crescendo.

There is a positive aura, joy, enjoyment and little pain all through the movie which is quite infectious. Every character in the movie live their life to the fullest, there is so much optimism in every single character of the movie. Everybody has their own sad story but none of them seem to really care about it and they just go on with life and enjoy every moment of it. Kudos to Radha Mohan for sketching a deaf and mute character with so much energy and enthusiasm, she is a symbol of optimism in the movie. The sensitivity and dignity in Archana’s character is inspiring. Radha Mohan’s liking to tread a very different path is very evident in the Jyothika’s introduction scene; it is exactly opposite to love-at-first-sight scene we have seen so far in Tamil movies. We always sympathize with the handicapped character in a movie but in this movie it is the other way around. We pity the situation of Karthik who tries hard to enter the unique world of Archana to make her realize and believe his true love. It is not deaf and mute Archana who feels handicapped, instead it is Karthik who is handicapped because of his inability to understand her language and make her realize his love.

I haven’t seen Ponniyin Selvan but I could draw a lot of parallels between Azhaghiya Theeyae and Mozhi. Hero is someone who is in the film industry. In the former, he is an assistant director and here he is a film musician. The use of bulb and bell for love scenes is similar to the ‘Boom’ idea of Azhaghiya Theeyae. There are so many dialogues with pointers to many Tamil films and film making techniques. Even in some of the very important scenes, when a guy advice his friend to reveal his love soon, he says ‘Even the hero Murali who use to reveal his love in the climax, reveals it earlier’. Dialogues like these are possible only for a passionate movie buff who loves experience of watching movies as much as he likes to make it. There are so many dialogues like this in Mozhi also. The idea of imagining a voice for Archana’s silence comes straight out of the dubbing technique used in movies and infact Karthik gets that idea when he is doing background score for a scene. When Karthik expresses his reason for loving Archana he says, ‘When we do re-recording for a movie, why are we leaving some scenes without music. The silence there is beautiful and that is how I find the silence of Archana’. What a beautiful way to say it from the perspective of a musician who works every day in recording background scores for movies. More importantly like Azhaghiya Theeyae, the climax of Mozhi has no dialogues but we understand their eye-eye conversation very clearly.

The casting is perfect. Jyothika looks natural though she goes little overboard while getting angry. Prithviraj proves again that he is a director's actor. Prakash raj without his usual mannerisms is a treat to watch in this movie. His timing is perfect in comedy scenes. M.S.Bhaskar gives a dignified performance and Brahmanandham’s timely expressions add weight to comic moments. I think Swarnamalya was chosen for her smile and she too fits well in the group. Guhan’s camera has worked mostly to give a glossy look to the film and he keeps up the positive energy in the visual tone of the movie too. Vidhyasagar music is another character in the movie. No song seems out of place and it infact blends well with the screenplay. The background score of Vidhyasagar is laudable. I like to believe that Vidhyasagar wrote the symphonic piece which Karthik plays for Archana. Also there is a beautiful sad violin theme that runs throughout second half of the movie.

Radha Mohan seems to be gaining mastery in the art of making good meaningful commercial. This is not an art film. It doesn’t preach or teach anything. It simply brings before us some beautiful moments in the lives of some beautiful yet ordinary characters. For sure, there would be people to trash the movie in the name of reality blah blah. In the name of realism, they may comment that there is no such bulb in the doorsteps of Music World shop at Mayajaal as it is shown in the movie. Leave aside the comments of those so called intellectual critics. If you are not such a heartless kind who watches a movie with your mind, then the movie is as real as it can get. This is not a movie for your mind, it is for you heart to take home some tears in eyes and smile on lips together.