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Kaakaa Muttai (Crow’s Egg) - Surreal Slumdog Millionaires!



With wide critical acclaim and public praise, the movie has it’s second successful week at the box-office. Even at a place like my hometown, Trichy, which is considered as a ‘B’ centre as per the trade, the movie is doing extremely well with packed houses and one could see sorry faces at the ticket counter returning home without tickets! What’s so special about this movie that was released almost a year back exclusively for some festival screenings? Was it the content or acting or presentation or it’s attempt to root itself firmly to our urban hinterlands without even entering into the preachy territory - I believe it’s a fair blend of everything! Debutant director & cinematographer Manikandan has got everything right when it came to executing a simple and beautiful script without any flaws!

Spoilers ahead.. do not read if you haven’t watched the movie as yet...

The story is about 2 brothers (big and small ‘kaakaa muttai’ as they refer themselves) who are slum dwellers, yearn to taste a pizza that is worth 300 bucks. They struggle to earn their money and trudge their way to the pizzeria where they are turned down by the authorities because of their background. The video of the whole incident is captured by their cronies and goes viral, thanks to social media. This in turn backfires for the pizza shop owner and he is forced to genuflect to the demands of the media because his brand is held at stake. The rest is about the issue being handled in a “politically correct” fashion and a brilliant climax that takes a cool dig at the pop culture that is prevalent due to a globalized economy!

The best thing about the movie was that nowhere during it’s course it attempted to teach a lesson nor it preached sermons. It was so brilliantly taken forward with the antics of the siblings from a glass that seemed to have been trained to capture candid moments effervescently! The dialogs felt so natural that at times we do not feel that a mainstream heroine like IshwArya Rajesh is acting on screen. Even a character like that of Ramesh Tilak’s which came in as a whiff of cool breeze among the steam, was naturally portrayed and gelled with the story. The satirical portrayal of the low lives of the slum dwellers, the other side of the urban life, the marginalized whose lives are so often overlooked or are just seen as faces who wash vessels at homes or guard a building or sell trinkets on the roadside or picking up rags at our backyards were placed under the microscope with their lives laid out in front of us without melodrama but with a notion to empathize on their feelings.

The drama or the commercial element that was disguised as a drama was another brilliant stroke. Who set the benchmark that such movies should have a contrived ending in order to label them as “natural” films? The movie ends with a dig at the surreal values that the middle class has to make peace with in this globalized world and what better medium to convey it than the food one consumes. And pizza summarizes it perfectly. The layer of cheese on top of a roasted bread that manages to spin out the threads as it is pulled out was so thoughtfully put forth in a dialog by a granny, “kettu pona thaanda nool noola varum” (only when the food is spoilt will it thread-out like this). It was these kind of dialogs that won the hearts of the audience. It was like the first attempt at declaring that the emperor was actually nude!

The movie also had it’s share of digs against the media and its portrayal of the “sensational” events and how they are being capitalized. The scene where the boys are shooed off while a news reporter reports while the actual news item is about the boys sums up the fact that media in our country is after TRP rather than bringing the truth out and getting justice for the underprivileged.

Technically the movie had ample doses of acumen from the director himself who doubled up as the cinematographer and ensured to capture the natural surroundings well enough that we tend to get a “fly-on-the-wall” feel more often than not. The art department deserves a cheer for the detailing, though the natural surroundings were used to capture the scenes. Music by GVP was fine and held the movie quite firmly. Editing by late Kishore made the movie feel slick as it was wrapped well under 2 hours. A big hug for Dhanush and Vetrimaran for backing such noble ventures. More celebrities need to come forward to back such attempts to unleash the latent talent pool.

The movie can be summed up as a wholesome entertainer that was thought-provoking at the same time. And for those who complain that there are no “world movies” from India, here it is. We now have a potential Oscars entry!

Verdict: Excellent!

Rating: 4 / 5
Kaakaa Muttai (Crow’s Egg) - Surreal Slumdog Millionaires! Reviewed by Unknown on 10:24 am Rating: 5

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