Kandukondain Kandukondain
I visited sassiefin tonight to watch Kandukondain Kandukondain (or I Have Found It in English) together with her. Since we both like Jane Austen's works, both of us had been dying to see this film ever since we became Bollywood fans a few years back, but for the longest time, it was impossible to find a DVD copy of it with English subtitles.
This film is a Tamil adaptation of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. Though the story is modernized, it stays essentially pretty close to the book. I quite liked it, though it was a bit uneven at times.
Young Aishwarya Rai stars as Meenakshi (Marianne - I think this was one of her first film roles) and Tabu as Sowmya (Elinor). Sowmya's love is a struggling young film director who has promised to return to her and marry her after he directs his first film, while the object of Meenakshi's passionate love is financial swindler Srikanth.
I quite liked it how they made Srikanth a more sympathetic character than Willoughby is in the book. His motivations for abandoning Meenakshi and for marrying the minister's daughter were quite believable.
The Colonel Brandon chacter, Major Bala (Mammootty), was also very well developed, as was Meenakshi's slowly-developing love for him. I loved the scene where a very young Dino Morea shows up as a prospective bridegroom, arranged by Bala, and Meenakshi rejects him because she says she's in love with another man.
Though the songs by A. R. Rahman were nice, the picturisations were completely out of this world. The title song, especially, was completely cracktastic. I don't think the director was aiming for the ROTFLMAO reaction with it, but that's what my/our reaction was. I mean, a Scottish castle and knight in shining armor imagery, sword waving, faux-mediaval clothing, etc. The dancing was hilariously bad and all that was missing was him showing up in a kilt XD. Hilarious!!!
This film is a Tamil adaptation of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. Though the story is modernized, it stays essentially pretty close to the book. I quite liked it, though it was a bit uneven at times.
Young Aishwarya Rai stars as Meenakshi (Marianne - I think this was one of her first film roles) and Tabu as Sowmya (Elinor). Sowmya's love is a struggling young film director who has promised to return to her and marry her after he directs his first film, while the object of Meenakshi's passionate love is financial swindler Srikanth.
I quite liked it how they made Srikanth a more sympathetic character than Willoughby is in the book. His motivations for abandoning Meenakshi and for marrying the minister's daughter were quite believable.
The Colonel Brandon chacter, Major Bala (Mammootty), was also very well developed, as was Meenakshi's slowly-developing love for him. I loved the scene where a very young Dino Morea shows up as a prospective bridegroom, arranged by Bala, and Meenakshi rejects him because she says she's in love with another man.
Though the songs by A. R. Rahman were nice, the picturisations were completely out of this world. The title song, especially, was completely cracktastic. I don't think the director was aiming for the ROTFLMAO reaction with it, but that's what my/our reaction was. I mean, a Scottish castle and knight in shining armor imagery, sword waving, faux-mediaval clothing, etc. The dancing was hilariously bad and all that was missing was him showing up in a kilt XD. Hilarious!!!