Abhiyum Naanum Soundtrack

Radha Mohan, Vairamuthu and Vidhyasagar have gone the ‘Mozhi’ way in composing the soundtrack of ‘Abhiyum Naanum’. With the incidents in the script as inspiration, Vairamuthu has written poetry and Vidhyasagar have composed notes to elevate the beauty of words. In this approach the music is totally dependent on the musicality of words in the poetry. In Mozhi everything fell in place perfectly. Somehow, the same magic doesn’t happen in ‘Abhiyum Naanum’. The choice of Kailash Kher and the Punjabi intrusions are also puzzling.

But after one or two repeated listening, and after understanding that this is a soundtrack that has songs that takes the story forward, I am convinced and I love this soundtrack. The melodies are very pleasant. A movie soundtrack has to be like this. These songs cannot find place in any other movie. Prakash Raj’s philosophical introductory speech (written by Viji I guess) before each song is interesting. This is a kind of soundtrack which one would want to listen to immediately after watching the movie for reliving the experience.

And a special mention to Prakash Raj and to Duet Music for making the CD package so interesting to convince a buyer feel that it is worth every single penny and sure it is.

25 Favourite Tamil Songs from 2007

13.Kaatrin Mozhi

(Mozhi / Vidhyasagar / Vairamuthu / Balram)

The melody just floating on a soft net weaved by the guitar refrains and bass guitar, kick starts this one of a gem that doesn’t walk its way to our soul often. When such melody kept afloat for sometime sits perfectly on a seamlessly joining percussion rhythm, the amount of satisfaction one gets cannot be expressed in words. The poetic lines of Vairamuthu are perfectly put into musical notes by Vidhyasagar. The words and the music are so light and easy to listen to and yet it is so heavy and deep in its inner meaning. There always is a right singer for a right song sung by the right singer. The right singer doesn’t always mean the best singer. It is the best voice that suits the tone, theme and texture of that particular song and that voice is Balram for this song. I can’t think of this song in someone else’s voice. Not even SPB.

25 Favourite Tamil Songs from 2007

7. Mounamae Unnidam

Movie: Mozhi
Composer: Vidhyasagar
Lyrics: Vairamuthu
Singer: Srinivas

As we all know, this song is composed in the same meter as the old classic ‘Mounamae Paarvayaal’. It is a song that best defines the term ‘Genuine Inspiration’. I was wonderstruck by the beauty and simplicity of this melody and when I came to know about its inspiration my respect for the song grew further. Words and music beautifully complement each other. The song placement and the visuals in the movie further enhance the dignity of the melody. And ofcourse, Srinivas is at his soothing best.

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.

Mozhi soundtrack

Mozhi is a fabulous soundtrack.

Listen to my opinion here.
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Sivapathigaram Music

Vidhyasagar was out of music scene for sometime in this year and made a strong come back with surprising all melody soundtrack for Thambi. And now he is at it again with “Sivapathigaram”. Karu Palaniappan and Vidhyasagar combo is the next in the long queue of Tamil movie and music directors’ combo which triumphs with every other soundtrack. I would like to call this a good soundtrack than a good music album.

Parthiban Kanavu had one of my favourite folk songs “Vadi Machiniyae”. The same combo comes up with authentic folk numbers in this soundtrack. The traditional rhythms, melody, Urumi melam, strings, flute, the vocals, lyrics are all so earthy and rustic which we heard only in Illayaraja’s folk numbers before. Good melodies come so easily to Vidhyasagar and so are the folk numbers. By saying folk numbers, I didn’t mean the dappanguthu numbers; it is literally traditional folk numbers. After a long time it was Vidhyasagar who came up with an authentic folk number “Putham Pudhu Pattu Vandha Thandavakonae”. In my opinion, it is one of the master pieces of his in the lines of “Malarae Mounamaa”. Everything fell in place in that song. Similarly, there is a song in this album which instantly made me go crazy. Interesting lyrics and catchy beats makes “Mannarkudi” song instantly likeable. In the second interlude when the percussions lead us to the Shehnai theme bit, it just pushes up our energy level. Equally good are the other situational folk numbers which brings the shots from some Bharathiraja’s movies to our mind.

One more USP of the album is the choice of the singers. He has used some real folk singers which add to the authenticity of the song. Besides, in the romantic melodies, we have got Swarnalatha and Sujatha two rare talents whom almost every other composer has forgot. Though Swarnalatha struggles at higher ranges, she has a magnetic voice and her expressions are too good in “Chithirayil” song. Sujatha in lower ranges is equally great in “Attrai Thingal”. No need to mention about the beautiful orchestration and haunting melodies in both the duets. Sainthavi is one new talent who has got great potential to make it big. I think it is again Vidhyasagar who uses her regularly. Listen for her voice in “Poranthiruchu Kaalam”. T.K.Kala, a regular in Rahman's folk numbers is here again leaving quite an impression in a folk song.

There are two other songs which add to the variety in the sound track. “Kalloori” though sounds pretty ordinary, has got nice melodic lines in between. Vidhyasagar has been often trying to do something in the symphony format (tried to some extent in Chandramukhhi background score) but his symphonic style of orchestration is meaningful, brilliant and befitting for the Bharathidasan song “Kolaivaalai Edada”.

The lyrics by Pa.Vijay and Yugabharathy for this movie prove that there is no point in blaming the lyricists for the insanity of the lyrics in Tamil songs. On the whole, this album with its variety and earthy sounds must be an appropriate soundtrack for the movie.