Ajay Devgn for Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior, Suriya for Soorarai Pottru; the National Awards have gone to the deserving

When the awards for movie achievement go to the deserving it feels like it’s time for a double celebration. One for the winner, the other for the spectator. When Asha Parekh gets the Dadasaheb Phalke award, it certainly seems like an act of belated justice.

Tamil superstar Suriya’s National award for his performance in Sudha Kongra’s Soorarai Pottru as the pioneer of economical air travel is a masterstroke. He received the award with Ajay Devgan’s Tanhaji , which is a film that makes all the right political noises. You can’t play a gangster or a serial rapist in Indian cinema and expect to be honoured.

Nawazuddin Siddiqui better mend his ways.

The triumphant formula for critical and commercial back-to-back successes in both films is the same: focus on a social issue while providing clean motivational entertainment.

Soorarai Pottru also won the National award for Best Picture, Best Screenplay and Best Background Score. It fetched Aparna Balamurali the richly deserved National award for best actress. Soorarai Pottru is a biopic that knows no full stops, just like its protagonist who can go to any lengths to achieve his goal.

Director Sudha Kongara erects an edifying edifice of hope, aspiration, dream, disappointment and eventual victory. This is a film that hits all the right notes, and doesn’t shy away from the tropes. As a wise man recently said, it’s not about the tropes, but what a filmmaker does with them. Sudha Kongara is very clear in her intentions. This is a Suriya film, and so it is designed with all the expected bombast and braggadocio associated with the star. Suriya, God bless his productive superstardom, has all the best lines and scenes .

This is Suriya flying business-class in a film about flying economy. Too bad, his co-star Aparna Balamurali steals almost every scene from him when they are together. Women, I tell you! They must be kept at home to make cakes. Otherwise, one of them goes out and makes a film like Soorarai Pottru which makes all the male filmmakers of the country break into a cold sweat. Why didn’t they think of making a film on the king of budget aviation Captain Gopinath? Why so many bio-pics on gangsters and serial killers? Why not more Gopinaths?

Sachy’s National award for best director also seems luminously legitimate. It is very difficult to categorize Ayyappanum Koshiyum. It denies us the luxury of simple definitions, by creating a language of cinematic expression that is at once rugged and ruminative. As the two heroes and unlikely adversaries fight it out for over three hours, the atmosphere crackles with an inward tension. It’s like when you draw your breath in on seeing someone somersault in the air, and forget to exhale. This is a very masculine film, and I don’t mean that in any toxic ‘Arjun Reddy’ way. It explores the male ego and punctures it so effectively that we feel the full weight of what writer-director Sachy (his earlier debut film Anarkali is also worth checking out) is doing here. He takes the traditional herogiri of the Southern cinema where, say, Rajinikanth fights it out with Kamal Haasan, and turns the in-your-face machismo on its head.

Ayyappanum Koshiyum is a celebration of blood-thirsty brotherhood. The two actors are so inured to their characters that we feel their mutual tension even when they are not around. The other characters are not sidelined either. Koshy’s father played with toxic fervor by Ranjith, fills the screen with a viscous venom while Ramesh Kottayam as Koshy’s driver and father-figure serves up a masterclass in muted unobtrusive wisdom. He is the kind of guy you can rely on when all hell breaks lose, as it often does in this film.

But make no mistake, this is a film devoted to bringing out the best in its two male leads, Prithviraj and Biju Menon are incredibly in-character as two class-challenged adversaries pitched against each other in a battle that won’t die down under pressure. Menon is a special revelation to me. He plays a force of Nature that can only be stopped from going amok while doing the right thing , when put in the khaki uniform.

The National award for Biju Menon in Ayyappanum Koshiyum was the clinching vote for me.

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.

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