Raavan Review

Before I begin the review of ‘Raavan’ I have to define the layers I am looking at:

1. Naxal angle: Which I felt to be stronger than all others

2. Take on Ramayana: Which most people focus on

3. Closeness to nature & and an alternate lifestyle: Almost enticing

4. Fullness of life: Abhishek’s desire to experience even jealousy with open hands, almost reminds of an article by Osho, talking of experiencing every emotion (positive or negative) in full in order to transcend it & thus become a spectator.

I guess now I can move on and deal with the details.

Naxal angle

For most part of the movie I felt very strongly that the reason for making this movie is to very subtly use Ramayana as a metaphor to bring focus on the Naxalite problem in India, with Naxals being the heroes and the police/ govt./ system being villains. So it is a role reversal aptly brought out in the last scene where Beera says before dying, “Shoot & show who is the real Ram & whose the real Ravan.” And the police SP obliges by making a martyr out of Beera by getting him shot by a battery of policewalas.

The SP is shown to have gone wrong on various occasions:

1. He is told of Beera’s ‘Robinhood Traits’ by the local tribals on various occasions and yet he chooses to ignore them and just blindly follow his ‘KRA’ of killing the man at all cost. Seems pretty inhuman to me.

2. He ignores crimes (assuming that he must be aware) by police staff who rape Beera’s sister mercilessly. There are also stories of police atrocities which are floated as hints through the movie.

3. In the end, the SP uses his wife as a bait to lure Beera and shoot him. That a man would do that just to do go beyond the ‘call of duty’ again seems wrong for he is risking his wife’s live and also using words which can make a woman commit suicide again seems a little evil.

4. At one stage he is even shown to ignore Beera’s brother-in-laws recently maimed hand and literally squeeze information of the same hand !

5. Also when Beera’s brother comes as a messenger of peace, the way he talks back by first shooting a bullet to touch him (quite Rajnikant style ;) and then finally shooting him again weakens the case for SP & the police.
   

In all, the way the story is weaved, Abhishek seems a crazy, heartless criminal (a psycho.) in the beginning, and our SP seems a decent, dutiful & brave officer with attitude. However, by the end the real intentions of the director are easily apparent as he slowly & very subtly reverses the role of Ram & Ravan.

Take on Ramayana

This seems a good stage to move on to the second section about Ramayana. While Mani Ratnam has obviously used the end to showcase the striking similarity betweem Ram & the SP by making the latter doubt Aishwarya’s chastity, there are similarities all through. Hanuman being one of course. (Talking of Hanuman, he seems the most lovable character (played by Govinda) through the movie. He seems the only non-biased & non-obsessed guy through the movie, showcasing the rights & wrongs of both sides but doing his job none the less.)

Coming back to the SP and him questioning Aishwarya’s chastity, Mani Ratnam raises the age old question of why Ram let go of Sita. However, in this case the SP is more of a Ravan than Ram and he leaves her for reasons which seem to be either personal or highly professional (to shamelessly use her as a bait) rather than setting any societal example. So definitely Mani Ratnam does not make a very strong point against Ramayana despite his subtle attempt/suggestion.

I’ll not discuss Ram’s actions in the original epic for I feel no desire to go beyond my ‘call of duty’ :)

The story of Shoorpnakha’s nose being disfigured by Lakshman is also used only used to draw a resemblance but the scenario has no similarity to the original plot for here Lakshman is clearly shown to be a rascal of the highest order and the vengeance Beera takes on him seems to me a little kind. While watching the movie the audience might feel tempted to personally sort out the SP’s sub-ordinate, clearly a an evil guy.

Whether Mani Ratnam is trying to suggest that the original act by Lakshman could also have been similar might seem a little far fetched, but if he is indeed trying to make a case against Ram, again the plot is very weak. For the scenario clearly shows the police and system as the evil side.

All in all, it doesn’t seem to me that Mani Ratnam is trying to subvert Ramayana in this movie, for I still feel that the larger & very subtly disguised motive was to make a case for Naxals. And the timing seems apt as it is currently a raging problem.

Closeness to nature & and an alternate lifestyle

The tribals/rebels lifestyle in the village seemed very enticing to me. I almost felt propelled into the movie & joining the clan of ‘lal mitti’ (again seems a hint at the Naxal movement with a double meaning). The closeness to nature and the affable simplicity of the tribals, away from the current system of concrete, metal, traffic, pollution, rat-race & unbridled greed seemed a far better option.

While I do not doubt the fact that no ‘system’ is perfect and also do not think that Mani Ratnam is trying to say that we have an alternative lifestyle/system available to us (his vision is more focused on the micro), nonetheless the whole imagery of the jungle/village/festivities/raw & brash lifestyle did make me think of bottom-up systems/ ‘gram swarajya’/ Gandhi’s vision….

However I’ll go no further on this topic for this issue deserves a book not a movie blog. For those interested, Gandhi’s philosophy of ‘Gram Swarajya’ is a good starting point. There is lots of other literature available. The most recent book I heard of was ‘Making India Work’ by the owner of FabIndia. Although this seems a little impractical in it’s solutions even though his analytical dissection of the problems with the current economic system is near perfect.

Fullness of Life

Phew…I am almost repulsed by my endless ‘analysis paralysis/magajmaari’ at this stage but I have to do justice all layers mentioned afore and thus I will add a few words about the subtlest layer I observed, again this seemed almost unintended and quite similar to Abhishek’s role in Guru & to some extent..Yuva.

Beera, in one scene expresses the jealously he feels after Aishwarya tells him of the love she shares for the SP. And instead of reacting violently he just accepts it and shouts that he wishes to experience the emotion of ‘jealosuly’ as much as he could. I do not know whether Mani Ratnam is trying to show him as a psycho. or not but to me he seemed like a guy who is naturally driven to experience every emotion (positive or negative) in full in order to transcend it & thus become a spectator. While the latter philosophical angle is only my personal interpretation with neither the director nor Beera showing any reflection of the same, it does seem that Beera is larger than life.

And this fullness of living is shown in various places, festivals…love…with his clan…definitely making him lovable despite his ferocity and violence.

Here, I’d rest my case for this movie and make an ardent request to watch it. It is too good to miss. The cinematography, music, the plot, the acting….all definitely paisa vasool and totally grip. Not a drag for even a moment of the movie.

My rating…umm…definitely between 8 & 9 on a scale of 10.

Cheers !

Brand is the Medium

Marshal McLuhan famously said, “The medium is the message”. I guess, in today’s time & age, extending that analogy, one could say that brands are the medium & hence also the message.

Why? How?

With the plethora of segments (their sub-segments), brands (& yes, their sub-brands) in each category, and also the tonnes of advertising in dozens of mediums happening across the globe (thanks to cable & DTH, we get to see it all in our own little home theatre) through hundreds of channels in scores of languages & genres, the poor little consumer has without doubt an information load which is unprecedented in human history.

In such a scenario, a sarcastic but honest comment by one of the senior advertising professionals in the industry makes perfect sense, “You know, some brand managers actually think that advertising will increase their sales!!”

Well obviously, the comment might be a little overstretched by the advertising professional’s personal/emotional frustrations (the kind one faces in advertising industry ;-), but on the whole it does sum up the state of the industry, for it is perhaps next to impossible to get a direct correlation between advertising spends (or GRPs for that matter) and sales. In fact even a very weak correlation with awareness scores often leads to unprecedented elation in the advertising industry which starves desperately for adulation.

Anyways, coming back to ‘Brand is the Medium’, one can see that in many cases it is perhaps the message (tag line, positioning, theme, story) which benefits more through advertising rather than the brand. In technical language, one could say that the thematic/creative recall is higher than the brand recall.

So, a ‘Journeyman’ from Apollo Hawkz might get more leverage than Hawkz it self, thereby reducing the poor brand to just the medium, although it is also the message. (Again, ‘medium’ is the message). Thus, the advertising professional’s job becomes all the more tough to get a connect as strong as say NIKE and “Just Do It!” or perhaps PEPSI and “Ye Dil Maange More!”. Even the Army Major who died fighting in Kargil, conquering one peak after another (and thus also winning the Param Vir Chakra) is said to have famously said during his last conversation with his senior officers, “Ye Dil Maange More!”. I am sure that the audience which heard that news report on TV recalled PEPSI right away.

So, the challenge is, HOW DO YOU GET THERE?

However, before we move there, let us, for a moment, place a hand on our hearts and honestly think whether at times the satisfaction of having the message dominating the medium (brand) is not truly exhilarating.

More often than not, the brand manager/ account planner/ creative/ servicing guy’s personality does leave an impression on whatever brands/campaign they handle/create.

An adventure enthusiast has a high chance of leaving that impression on his brand. A philanthropist is bound to raise his brands to CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) planks naturally. So on and so forth.

Thus, it becomes extremely important to detach & rise above one’s ego & do justice to the brand without bringing one’s personal biases/inclinations to the picture for it is very tempting to use the brand as a medium for our own little agendas in life, because the high of doing so might rival that of a hefty raise in your remuneration or even being given an elevated designation/a stake in your firm ;-)

Now, getting over this slight detour & focusing back on, HOW TO DO THAT is not as easy as one might suspect. As mentioned above, the media & advertising clutter makes it extremely tough to truly benefit brands unless you go niche (focused on select mediums for your TG) or go extremely big, say using IPL for bombarding the audience with a budget which would rival that of a telecom player.

Surely, there are other ‘scientific’ & ‘well researched’ ways of getting across messages cognitively, affectively, thematically ……& every other ‘…..lly’ that we know of in the world. But the dilemma remains tough unless a Bruce Lee ;) technique is used to fight out the dozens of rivals & one’s own segments, sub-segments, brands & sub-brands.

So do we have a catch-22 on our hands with ‘Brand is the Medium’ being the future of communication through advertising?

Long live advertising!