Kadal (2013) (The Sea)
Mani Ratnam
Tamil
The title of Mani Ratnam’s latest feature, Kadal (“The Sea”, 2013), conjures images of vastness, infinity and extremity. Like the sea monsters of many a folklore, it has a mythic ring to it, which is very apt considering the last half hour of the film takes place entirely in the realm of the abstract, the mythical and the elemental. There is a leap of faith that is to be made on the part of the viewer if one is to take Ratnam’s film for what it is – a leap that corresponds to a risky gambit that the film makes towards its third act. It is a manoeuvre that catapults the film from a temperamentally placid, naturalistic portrait of stunted childhood and sea-side romance to a melodrama of heightened emotions and larger-than-life stakes. The jump is grating, sure, but those willing to hold on would see that Ratnam manages to find a more cogent articulation of the misplaced metaphysical arguments of Raavan (2010), especially because he thankfully divorces his tale from political topicality. At heart, Kadal works upon the classic temptation parable, wherein Thomas (Gautham Karthik) must choose between the ways of the Devil and God, which is tweaked here to posit the tainted nature of an Absolute Good or an Absolute Evil, the impossibility of a foundational morality. When, in the end, Bergmans (Arjun Sarja) laughs at Father Sam (Aravind Swamy) hanging upside down like Nolan’s Joker – a universe cut from the same moral fabric as Ratnam’s – we discover a deconstruction of the Good/Evil binary that is more thorough, pointed and pulsating than anything in Ratnam’s previous film.
The Seventh Art 
February 3, 2013 at 7:44 pm
After many tainted reviews I willed myself to go the movie. And my opinion is very similar to yours. It needs a leap of faith. The layer of one tale of redemption constructed within the ambit of a classical clash of contradictions adds a lot of depth.
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February 3, 2013 at 8:01 pm
I feel this is something of a taking-stock movie for Ratnam. Now I’m keen to see what’s next.
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February 8, 2013 at 6:24 pm
I totally agree with your statement” The jump is grating, sure, but those willing to hold on would see that Ratnam manages to find a more cogent articulation of the misplaced metaphysical arguments of Raavan (2010), especially because he thankfully divorces his tale from political topicality”
I had the pleasure of meeting Mr.Mani Ratnam before he started shoot on this film and he had told me his next film would be about “good and evil.” Mani Ratnam along with Yash Chopra, are two Indian filmmakers who according to me are auteurs of Melodrama and use this genre successfully.
It’s very interesting to see how both these filmmakers used Christianity ( figure of Christ) to situate their ideas/debates about love in their recent films. And very apt, because existentialism is predominantly a Judeo-Christian philosophy.
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February 10, 2013 at 6:13 pm
Well, isn’t every film about good and evil?! Agree on the comment about Melodrama. KADAL unfolds consciously as a Melodrama with a capital M. Just take the very first scene, where the two primal forces and the stakes involved are introduced head on, without conceit, as is typical of many fine melodramas.
Thanks for the comment, DeeMelinda. It must have been nice meeting Mani in person.
Cheers!
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February 11, 2013 at 4:29 pm
Another filmmaker I respect deeply once told me ‘All cinema is about disappearance or death’.That keeps coming back to me.
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February 11, 2013 at 6:23 pm
Now that’s a filmmaker that I would like to talk with!
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February 9, 2013 at 12:16 am
good review
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February 10, 2013 at 6:09 pm
Thanks, Rejath.
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February 11, 2013 at 4:24 pm
But isnt Mani Ratnam becoming more the didactic “message” peddler these days? Nothing particularly wrong about that, but all this seriousness comes across as mere teenage navel-gazing at best.
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February 11, 2013 at 6:27 pm
Yeah, many of his recent films have that didactic bent that seems so at odds with the temperament of rest of Mani Ratnam’s cinema. That’s perhaps why I found myself pleasantly surprised with KADAL, which is perhaps his most unproblematic film (which shouldn’t be equated with the merit of the film itself) since ALAIPAYUTHEY.
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February 17, 2013 at 11:22 am
Why are you not reviewing Vishwaroopam yet?
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February 17, 2013 at 11:24 am
Because I don’t feel like it?! :)
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February 24, 2013 at 9:47 pm
Maybe someday, when there is an adequate of psychoactive agents. Sad to say that Kamal still hasn’t bested Hey Ram yet.
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April 17, 2015 at 7:15 pm
[…] no great external hurdles for the lead couple to surmount. Unlike in the metaphysically structured Kadal (2013), there is no place for abstract Good and Evil in this universe of nuanced morals. At the same […]
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