“Nothing more original, nothing more unique than to feed off others. But they must be digested -- the lion achieves his form by assimilating sheep”
Paul Valery
Radical reworking of the popular Hindu epic Ramayana is not a new proposition to the Tamil audience. Periyar E.V.Ramasami's controversial interpretation that portrayed the demon king Ravanan as the victim and the righteous Rama as the oppressor, Pudumaipithan's irreverent Narada Ramayanam that took a gentle dig at Rama as a war-monger and R.S.Manohar's sympathetic rendering of Ravanan as Elangeswaran are well-known. Hence when Mani Ratnam's film “Raavanan” was pitched as a revised epic favouring the much-maligned Ravanan, it was not sufficient to lure. Neither was it a good enough reason to bear with the flaws.
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The film follows the contours of the Ramayana, uses the characters and settings only to interpret it differently, it claims. In short, the film is about the bandit Veeraiya (Ravanan) who abducts the pretty wife Ragini (Sita) of Dev (Rama) the cop who is set to arrest him. Veeraiya is forced to do this in order to avenge his sister's (Surpanaka) death. Meanwhile the tough Veeraiya falls for the sensuous Ragini only to let her go, but he is dubiously outsmarted by Dev.
Evoking the Ramayana in its minute details and turning it out around is a smart creative device. It can work like a trompe l'oeil painting which is an illusionist art that renders objects in an “eye-fooling exactitude” in order to “raise questions about the nature of art and perception.” The play and intrigue these paintings offer is a worthwhile experience despite the viewers feeling fooled at the end. However, “Raavanan”, does not come through as an illusionist painting — neither there is playfulness nor entertaining deception.
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To start with, the film places enough sign posts in the canvas — names, incidents, landscape and even the silly monkey cap on the Hanuman-like character — to make the connection with the epic visible, and eggs on the audience to view it through the prism of Ramayana. Promises are made that dramatic moments are in the offing where questions about lust and lasting love would be asked; elating emotions however forbidden they are will be poised against the guarantees of marital peace. Through this, the film hopes to convince that Ravanan's incarceration of Sita, Rama's wife, was borne out of genuine love that was grossly misunderstood.
The film fails like a self-absorbed forger would. The indulgent forger, obsessed with drawing attention to his skills than slipping in a good fake, would inevitably lose out. The film is keen to show how close to, and creative it can get with the Ramayana. As a result, it burdens itself with the compulsion to evoke the details of the epic at every corner, even if it runs the risk of losing pivotal moments and narration. At times, this obsession turns tragically comic such as the Hanuman aka Gyanaprakasam episode coming in search of Sita. The sequence of Hanuman hanging from the tree, asking for a souvenir to take back, advising Ravanan and successfully returning, to say the least, is disastrous. In comparison, “Thalapathi” — an earlier Mani Ratnam film and an interpretation of Mahabharata (another Hindu epic) — is not so self-conscious and appears more lucid.
Should the film follow the idea of forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden or look at the oppressive state and the resisting victims? Should it portray Ravanan as a vulnerable protagonist smitten by love or is he a macho Robin Hood in vengeful mood? Or is it Veerappan, the bandit-saviour? The indecisiveness dampens and leads the film astray. The issue is not the choice of the epic or the entrenched popularity of the ‘ original' version, which the film wishes to displace. The issue is Mani Ratnam's inability to abandon the protean hero format — “changing in shape, though in essence unchangeable” — or steer away from displaying male invincibility.
Predictable
As a result, the film takes a predictable course. After many feet of film footage, “Ravanan”, like many men before him, eventually settles for the enduring soul than weak flesh. It appears that, irrespective of whether it is Ravanan or Rama, the protagonist in Tamil movies has to be virtuous. Sita too has neither dilemma nor is under duress to sublimate her desires. If anything, it is only pity she expresses and that too only after getting a quick clarification about her chastity.
Legend has it that the students of Rembrandt, the Dutch master artist, used to paint coins on the floor to watch him bend to pick them up. One feels like a disappointed Rembrandt who would have called the painted coins bluff. To be tricked by the Ramayana-Ravanan illusion could have turned out to be an enjoyable cinematic experience. One would have been happy to have been deceived. Unfortunately it does not happen. The lion still looks like a sheep.