Readers Write In #723: Angles, Triangle and Auteurs

By Karthik Amarnath

Why are love triangles such an enduring cinematic trope? Be it an eighty-year old classic like Casablanca, or a ten-month old stunner like Past Lives, we seem to revel watching two relationships pitted against each other. That’s what a triangle comes down to, a battle between the edges, and the indisputable fact that out of two possible couples, only one can get their happily ever after. The choice, conflict and competition are, in part, what draws us to these films. But I do have a particular peeve about love triangles. It’s the term itself. It’s bad geometry. With two edges vying for one vertex, it shouldn’t be called a love triangle, but just a love angle. A love angle has two sides, one ends at happiness, the other in heartbreak. 

Love triangles angles come in various tilts and shades, but there’s one kind I want to talk about, that’s rather unique to Tamil cinema (or for that matter, Indian cinema), which I call the love-marriage angle. In the love-marriage angle, we have at the vertex a woman, who falls in love with one man, has an arranged-marriage with another man, whom she then proceeds to fall in love with. In Tamil, one might call this angle as one between Manmadhan’s Ambu and a Manamagan’s Anbu, (in English: the angle between the arrow of Cupid and an arranged couple). Something about this love-marriage angle has endlessly fascinated our filmmakers, going all the way back to C V Sridhar, arguably Tamil cinema’s first auteur, and surviving all the way past Atlee, Tamil cinema’s newest big shot filmmaker. And between these two, we have everyone from Mahendran to Mani Ratnam, from Bhagyaraj to Balachander, take on this trope.

Its not just the filmmakers, but the fraternity of film aficionados that have found love-marriage angles alluring. Take a look at C. V. Sridhar’s filmography, which has films as varied as a star(s) making melodrama in Venniradai  to a star-powered period drama in Sivantha Mann, a tragic weepie in Sumaithangi to the path breaking rom-com in Kadhalikka Neramillai. But, of all of Sridhar’s 40 odd films, the two that earned him national recognition were Kalyana Parisu and Nenjil Or Aalayam, both centered on love angles. Look at J. Mahendran whose Mullum Malarum and Udhiri Pookkal are shoo-ins in the list of top films of any Tamil cinema enthusiast. But Mahendran’s only National Award was for Nenjathai Killathey which is yet another love-marriage angle film. Take Mani Ratnam and Sanjay Leela Bhansali, two globally recognized filmmakers. Look at the movies that once put them on the map— Mouna Ragam and Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam— both love-angle films, both National award winning films, both a first for the filmmakers. 

And so it makes me wonder, what is there really in this trope about a threesome thats so winsome? Why is sacrificing a lover at the institutional altar of marriage some kind of rite of passage for our filmmakers, like getting rid of that training wheel before riding onto the big stage?

Perhaps, when it comes to auteurs, one shouldn’t be bothered with the what or the why, but only the how. It’s not the shape of the story, but the shades of cinema that matters. So let’s take a tour, with four auteurs, and the shades they’ve drawn, across half a century of love-marriage angles.  

House of hearts

One of the simple pleasures of watching an old film like CV Sridhar’s Nenjil Or Aalayam, is how easily on a binary color canvas, we accept a binary view of the world. People are good or bad, their actions, right or wrong. The proverbial shades of grey are at the periphery, or left to comedy. Everything is mostly black and white. In Nenjil Or Aalayam, in fact, everything is mostly white. Literally, since the entire film is set inside a hospital with doctors and nurses all clothed in white coats and scrubs. The central character, a chief doctor, played by Kalyan Kumar, is almost a saint. An avowed celibate, with a warm baritone, he’s a man with the titular shrine in his heart. Like the hospital, it’s a shrine that houses all the cancer patients he’s devoted to.  

Or at least thats what we think, until the character played by Devika shows up, and we learn that the doctor’s large heart was once entirely filled with his love for this woman. But due to a pesky plot contrivance— efficiently condensed to two minutes of dialogue— she’s married to another man, played by Muthuraman, who is gravely ill. And now, she wants the doctor to open up his hospital— and his heart— to treat this man. 

Faced with the love of his life on one hand, and the life of her husband in the other, the doctor’s conflict is cause for great internal trauma, and for grand melodrama— which we get later in the film. But first, Sridhar, together with Kannadasan and Viswanathan-Ramamoorthy, telegraph the doctor’s arc in a matter of minutes, through the song Engirundhaalum Vaazhga, which begins with rain splashing across a window as the doctor looks longingly at an old photo, and ends with him (literally) closing a book on that image of his past. In between, we have lyrics that wish for eternal togetherness of the married couple, even while melodic phrases of the pallavi are punctuated by growing question marks. It culminates in the agonizing penultimate vaazhga, before the (doctor’s) descent into acceptance.  

But then, what about the woman, you ask? Right from when she enters the hospital, we see why she could have been the yin to the doctor’s yang. Like him, she too spends her time with the patients at the hospital. Where he’s busy reading their symptoms, poring over X-rays, prescribing treatments, she’s listening to their stories, opening her heart, offering empathy. If his method is medicine, hers is compassion. Where he cures, she cares. But then, does she harbor any latent feelings for the doctor? Well, need I remind you? She’s a married woman. In a mainstream Tamil film. From the 60s. And, oh, she’s named Seetha. 

So when the film goes to a place where she’s asked to consider rekindling her feelings for the doctor, we get the searingly sublime Sonnathu Nee Thaana, whose telling image is Seetha looking like a divine consort, clad in a white-saree, sitting with a Sitar, pouring out her undying devotion to her husband. The lyrics, with lines like DeivathinMaarbil soodiya Maalai theruvinilae Vizhalamaa are further proof that the film views the human heart as a temple and love as synonymous with bhakti (and marriages as made only in heaven). The way this song is visualized— with due credit to his cinematographer A. Vincent and editor N. M. Shankar — is an example of what pushes Sridhar into an A for Auteur class compared to his contemporaries. The song was supposedly shot in 60 different angles, and we see the constant shifts and swings in imagery mirroring the state of unrest that Seetha and her husband find themselves in. 

The film itself had quite a novel conceit with the doctor-patient relationship making it a geometrically complete triangle too. And the film engages, with dialogue that is both minimal and affecting. But the melodramatic contrivances and firm moral moorings keeps most of it chained to that era. Standing the test of time are all the songs, some of the visual grammar, and perhaps the mini-arc of Muthuraman’s character. Especially the part from when he first hears of the doctor’s first love (without knowing it was Seetha), and goes on to cast a shadow of betrayal on her — while a real shadow falls on Seetha. He is soon overcome with angst at learning why she had “betrayed” the doctor (this time a shadow falls on him), and eventually sees his own possible death as a fitting closure.

In between all this, we get P B Srinivas’s Ninaipathellam Nadanthuvittaal, a philosophical musing which we might today call mansplaining. Here Muthuraman’s character, having just learned of his wife’s past, gives her a Marcus Aurelius life lesson on accepting what fate has brought forth. The song has some lovely visual grammar, with each shot conveying the growing distance between the couple, like an invisible ghost resurfacing from the past. The lyrics open with a punchline pithiness in the pallavi, only to seize us in the charanam with lines like Aayiram Vaasal idhayam, which imagines the human heart as a house filled with doors where desires come and go as they please (not unlike devotees at a temple, or patients at a hospital). But it then goes on to expose the existential core that makes love triangles such an enduring trope; the idea that love, in all its abundance, is still a binary, a bond between two, a yin and a yang. Any more will lead to heartbreak. And in Nenjil or Aalayam, that heartbreak is literal.

A (wo)man for all seasons

Remember that pesky plot contrivance I mentioned earlier. Well it goes something like this: Seetha’s father is in a tight situation, for financial and other reasons, he needs to get his daughter married to Muthuraman’s character. So Seetha is guilted by her mother into accepting the proposal and leave her own desires behind. This we learn through a two-minute dialogue in Nenjil Or Aalayam, which gives us the what and why of the film’s setup. But what we dont see is how does this woman, who was once in love with one person, end up professing an “even death shan’t do us apart” relationship with another person through an arranged marriage.  To fill that gap, we need to fast forward a couple of decades, to Mani Ratnam’s Mouna Ragam.

Mouna Ragam is no black-and-white film. And armed with a polychrome palette, Mani Ratnam with his cinematographer PC Sreeram paint us the many shades of Revathi’s character Divya. Like the fiery yellow saree she wears as she rages across a dark street having been hurt by her father. A rage that doesnt last very long, for she soon appears in a white davani having resigned to his wish. The white then turns into dark blues in a cold marriage that seems DOA, and eventually into a rousing red when a dormant desire starts to emerge.  

The same cant be said about the husband played by Mohan who appears in a bleached white jibba pyjama all along, and might be the whitest hero in Mani Ratnam’s oeuvre. When he introduces himself to his new bride, it reminds you of the Idhaya Koyil song that gave this movie its title, visualized as a poet (also played by Mohan) standing alone in a large hall. The Mohan character in Mouna Ragam lives alone, in a large house, with only books and music for company. He may not be a poet, but when he’s hurt, he doesn’t lash out or walk away, and instead expresses himself lyrically, to the tune of Ilayaraja and SPB’s Nilaave Vaa. 

Like Ninaipathellam in Nenjil Or Aalayam, Nilaave Vaa too has a shade of mansplaining or, perhaps I should call it “moonsplaining”. The metaphor of a distant moon brings with it a mellow mood, unlike the heavy-handed emotion of Ninaipathellam. And rather than divine philosophy, Mohan’s character relies on human psychology, likening Divya’s distress to growing pains of a child. Nevertheless, the visual grammar in the songs share a lot in common. In both songs, we have the husband in white and the wife in dark shades. He’s slowly retreating, into his thoughts, and she’s trying to follow him, literally and figuratively. In many shots one character is framed inside a door or window, with the other outside, as the distance between them keeps growing.  There’s an invisible ghost here too, but we dont know that just yet.

Nilaave Vaa isnt the only song in Mouna Ragam to look to the skies for a metaphor. We have the rain filled dance celebrating a woman’s freedom in Oho Megan Vandhadho. There’s the mournful grey sky that hovers over a couple, in Manram Vantha Thendralukku, whose lyrics likens their premature separation to a breeze that dies at a doorstep. In Pani Vizhum Iravu, we have the icy winds that blow in a sexless marriage, juxtaposed with an erotic dance in the twilight, all to the backdrop of the ultimate monument to love. And finally we see, for the first time, a bright morning sunshine in Chinna Chinna Vanna Kuyil greeting the newfound warmth and desire in a relationship. With songs spanning the seasons, the story spans a year, and the atmosphere that holds it all is Ilayaraja’s memorable background music, which seamlessly segues between the film’s different moods, mirroring the mental state of the main character, Divya. 

Mouna Ragam, like many of Mani Ratnam’s early films, is rife with mirrored writing. I dont mean the actual mirrors we find in his scenes. I am referring to how conceits in one part of the film are reflected in another part. Like how a journey that begins with a teary farewell on a train ends in a teary union on a train. How in two different scenes, we have two different men rushing to unite with a woman, only to fall down the stairs. How at  two different times, we see two different women show their thaali as a plea to save their husbands. Twice, we see a mother and daughter talk about conjugal relations, and both times the daughter ends up in tears, but her reasons are different. Twice a man applies kunkumam on his wife’s forehead, with a near identical musical riff, but the emotions are different. The overall love triangle angle is itself a tale of two relationships. 

But it’s a stretch to call this film a love triangle — despite the fact that the film’s <a href=“https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091559/mediaviewer/rm163188992/?ref_=tt_ov_i”>poster</a> kinda looks like a triangle. By the director’s own admission, the segment with Karthik’s character was an afterthought in the script, inserted to bolster the mainstream acceptability of the film. Looking back today, at the rest of the film, where there isnt a peep or whisper about this character, one could claim that the whole segment is a myth made up in the moment by Divya, and the claim would be hard to argue against. And without the Karthik character, there is still a clean wholesome coming-of-age film in the backdrop of an arranged marriage. 

That said, there’s always been something enduring, and endearing, about that flashback’s place in Mouna Ragam, and about Mouna Ragam’s place in mainstream Tamil cinema. For much like the Karthik character’s swashbuckling entry, Mouna Ragam also marked the arrival of a brash young filmmaker, a bold breaker of conventions, one who’d assuredly cut across the prevailing vehicle of Tamil mainstream cinema to pave his own path. Alongside him, Tamil mainstream movies too would assuredly come of age, with story, stagecraft, and melodrama giving way to mood, mise-en-scene, and mellowed drama—all through a wholesome embrace of cinema.

—-

Ok, so I promised to talk about four films, but as I was writing the first two, the length really got away from me. Ordinarily I’d chop, trim, and purge to fit everything within a readable length. But I’m told these days, that kind of narrative editing is all very blasé, and the biggest of filmmakers with the biggest of stars see far more value in sequelizing their stuff. I have therefore taken their cue, banking on the continued generosity of our friendly neighborhood producer publisher for when the sequel is ready. 

Now I’m given to understand that when such an expansive decision is made, one must provide a trailer for the sequel at the end. So here, folks, is a peek into “Angles, Triangles, and Auteurs- 2”:

“… SPB and Janaki’s dreamy rendition of that timeless ode to young love, with misty visuals that make a jog in the woods look like a walk in the clouds.”

“..a girl who’s always on the run caught in the fixed frames of a still life photographer”

“..leapfrog over Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s extravagant showcase of the love-marriage angle as a sacrifice, when the passionate poetry of first love gives way to the honest prose of a marital bond.”

“This isn’t a filmmaker who stares at conventions and asks why, but stomps all over them and says why not..”

“…. in reckless Rumi, he finds an able partner, the kind of character who doesn’t need to fall in love to make love, but would rather just fuck and figure it out.” 

THE END

BR butting in: Thanks for this absolutely lovely piece, Karthik. And please forgive me for hijacking your Reader’s Write In 🙂 But just wanted to add some images from Nenjil Ore Aalayam.

One of my favourite mirror shots (and there are at least two more):

The visual drama of two faces looming on a big screen would later find an echo in Thevar Magan and many other films.

Despite, as Karthik pointed out, the stagey melodrama of the dialogue and some contrived situations, I just love how “cinematic” this film is for its era, the early 1960s. I just love how much Sridhar moves the camera, like in this three-way conversation.

The first wide shot shows all three people (the woman in the distant background), then we track in to the woman, and then cut away to the two men, and end with a return to the original composition, this time with the woman in the foreground as she exits the frame. If you watch this scene, you will see the whole choreography of the camera / the staging — you will see exactly why this shot division happened: it mirrors who is talking / who is being talked about. It’s pure cinema, and how I wish I could watch a restored print.

A couple of add-ons. Despite the justly famous male-singer songs, this gorgeous album is a P Sushila show case: Sonnadhu neethana, Muthana muthallavo (oh, that humming bit), and the fabulous Enna ninaithu.

The “sol… sol… sol...” refrain (the repetition of the words, not the tune itself) from Sonnathu Neethana would find a repeat in at least two other MSV/TKR songs: Aayiram penmai malarattume (Vazhaki Padagu) and Ponnezhil poothathu (Kalangarai Vilakkam).