Life of few in Renganathan Street

I went to hiatus state in the blogging world for quite some time due to laziness and time constraint. Of late I have watched good number of quality movies (English and Tamizh) and one such movie has brought me back again!!

I was very happy about movies like

• Aayirathil Oruvan
• Goa
• Vinnaithandi Vaaruvaya
• Angadi Theru
• Avatar
• Up In the Air

I wanted to review all these movies in a good way but I would prioritize to review Angadi Theru first and if time permits, I would review them all.

I was not very much looking for this movie in the theatres and went to this movie as there was no other promising new release over the last weekend to watch. The only hope on this movie was the director of the movie, whose first movie was well received by people. So that gave me a zero expectation and fortunately it was more than a good movie.

The movie starts with a Beautiful song followed by a vehicle accident on Chennai city streets which caused deadly injuries to the protagonist of the movie and moves to the flash back of his memories. The movie then moves to the village in Nellai district showing the hero’s family struggling to make their ends meet. There comes one more blow to the hero’s family with the death of his father in an accident, Hero who is school topper has NO other choice other than leaving to Chennai city to work in a Textile retail giant who(employer of shop) employees the members of his caste. Textile retailer recruits only those people who are financially deprived OR those members in the family which don’t have any head of the house supporting them; hoping that those employees would stick to them doing what they want to do.

The movie then brings screen the life of such employees working in Renganathan Street in Chennai.

• Employees are required to work long hours with no rest and are provided shelter. food in worst possible environment as crowds
• Harassments against all employees if they don’t do what the supervisors ask them or if they play around the work place
• Strict and vigilant supervisor who was on look for opportunities to put the employees in trouble
• Employees should not fall in love with those working there

On this difficult environment our hero and heroine falls in love and face their hard times while continuing their work there.

First and foremost I would like to praise the director (Vasanthabalan) for bringing a very close to real life story on screen with an intense screen play. His focus on storytelling and his efforts to make the audience feel “how worse the life of those employees” are his huge plus and needs a mention. Director with few scenes running through the film portrays the life of many people in the Renganathan Street other than the protagonist. I liked this very much. He is really one among the few directors whom we can trust to provide more such good movies in the future and I am very hopefully he will achieve great heights.

Next the heroine Anjali, I really wonder if she was one among those real life employees to play that role with so much of detailed expressions and body language. She is vibrant, falls in love, fears about her supervisor and at the same time scolds him at his back, get anger at her lover when he is confused to choose between love and life and also she worries about job and family. She has performed wonderfully and scores in all the scenes. Finally her expressions during the climax make us feel the pain she has endured. The director must be lucky to get her in this role.

Hero Mahesh is NO less than the heroine in acting and no one would believe that this is his first film. Also I would like to appreciate Director A Venkatesh (the supervisor) who played the role in such a way that even if we see him in real life; we would probably keep away from him. I hope he must have taken a real life example of the character and depicted it.

Sneha plays the cameo role well and nothing challenging. All other characters have contributed their best efforts and fits into the storyline very well.

Music by Vijay Antony and G V Prakash is more than good and fits into the movie with ease. Dialogues by Jayamohan are powerful and add more meaning to most of the scenes. Cinematography in tamizh films these days are more than wonderful and Richard Maria Nathan has done the same.

Movie questions the Humanity and life of those less fortunate workers, Brings light on those Textile Retailer’s arrogance and attitude towards employee, makes feel bad for those employees.

Angadi Theru – An example of best talents in tamizh film industry which depicts the ground reality of Renganathan Theru!!