Johannes
Hofer, a Swiss medical student in his 1688 thesis coined the term 'Nostalgia'
and categorized it as a form of disease, which according to his research is driven
by a form of pain which a person might feel, when they are far away from their home, or
through a fear, driven by the belief that they might never be able to cherish that feeling of comfort
of being in home. With time, Nostalgia evolved into something more layered and
complex, from a disease, that it was earlier believed to be, it turned out to
be more of a fundamental emotional state, additionally bringing several other
feelings with it. It's like that vehicle which drives us away from confined
space of reality and time, and take us into that zone with which our
subconscious mind is so closely associated with. When the nostalgic stimulation
hits the right nerve, it is often accompanied by loneliness, stubbornness,
feeling of detachment with the world, and most probably meaninglessness.
When
I think Nostalgia, the instant reaction that comes in my mind is how extensive
its functions are in our life, at some point we may feel our life has become
ordinary and mundane, at that point, nostalgia serves the purpose of
providing us with a clear perspective of our existence, that much required
direction is what it provides, leading us to understand life through a larger
context. This context is basically us understanding or rather I should say
treating life as a collection of moments crafted in a long narrative, once we
start to understand this aspect, what comes next is fairly easy realization on
our ends, that once there were certain crucial moments, and those became
important part of our lives, and continued to remain intact in that narrative,
and nostalgia takes us back into those moments. The other side of the coin,
which functions almost similar to nostalgia is 'anticipation', both these
entities needs to calibrated delicately in order for a more well clear narrative, one takes us into ethereal times,
while the other serves to gives hope that the moments that are to
come by in the near future will be of love and happiness, or as per our desires, that hope is what
helps in difficult times. That feeling of sweet sadness in our hearts is what
nostalgia is all about, the amalgamation of sadness arising from the loss of
something very crucial, be it a person or the moments spent with that person,
and a hope in the form of a feeling of contentment of being able to be in those
moments.
In
the first scene of the song 'The Life of Ram' we see our protagonist, K.
Ramachandran (Ram) jump into an ocean to capture the life under water, this is
just a simple straightforward thought that very smartly establishes what we are
going to witness throughout the film. Ram (Vijay Sethupathi) will be given an opportunity
to jump into his ocean of memories, but before we are taken directly into his
memories, we are introduced with the character through a beautifully narrated
song, that lays the foundation for the protagonist for us to connect with him
on a certain emotional level, his mental state is what is shown in the song,
the song is staged in such a manner that on the first viewing it might primarily look as a song to let us get familiar with his lifestyle and his occupation, but it feels like a deceptively
staged move on the director's part to let us try and understand Ram more closely rather than the life of Ram.
'96
(2018) is a Tamil film written and directed by C. Prem Kumar. The IMBD synopsis
of the film goes like this "Two high
school sweethearts meet at a reunion after 22 years and reminisce about their
past over the course of an evening" It is somewhat accurate, but in
some ways, after watching the film, it doesn't do justice to the broad experience it
gave me, the experience is too abstract and difficult to capture in words, and
that is when I decided to write a long post about this endearing and
heartwarming film. It's certainly about 'Their' reminisce, but somewhere it's slightly more about Ram going back to his native place, and rediscovering those old,
unforgettable memories which for years, he has kept very safely close to
his heart. The film is about an opportunity that is being thrown to K.
Ramachandran and Janaki 'Jaanu' Devi (Trisha Krishnan) to sit and ponder about
the missed chance that they have lost over the course of their life of not
ending up together. Both the central characters forms a crucial part of the narrative,
but the narrative feels more diverted towards the perspective of Ram, who
hasn't found his closure in life, and hence this aspect of the film finds a
mention on the title of this post.
Ram is a travel photographer, he travels throughout the country on exotic
locations, the song 'Life of Ram' starts our journey to know him more closely,
the song is shot in spectacular fashion by Mahendran Jayaraju, and N. Shanmuga
Sundaram, but apart from the visually aesthetic images, the more important
thing that has been given major importance is to establish the psyche of the
character and the theme of the film with subtle hints of how he perceives life.
Ram is seen roaming inside Jungle, trying to find those perfect frame which he
could capture and later on define, as we proceed further, we see him traveling
ahead in his journey, water getting removed from the windshield of his car
giving a more clear picture of Ram, thus signifying how he is lost between the world of his memories and real world. We see him traveling in
water, feeling lost, but always in search of his perfect frames.
Water,
Desert, Mountains, Jungle, Sandstorm, Waterfall, Monumental Locations, these
places constitute the entire life of Ram, and how he finds moments in these
places to be captured in his camera. The seashore he stands around indicates
the level of how deep he has stored those memories of school inside him and how
desperately he wants to immerse himself into those memories, yet he doesn’t, he
just stands at the edge between the two worlds, the real one and the one he has
created for himself, the burning sensation he feels in the hot sand of a desert
brings him back to face the reality of his present life, he faces a sandstorm
all alone, highlighting how tough it has been for him to reach at this point of
time in life where he always fights alone, he finds a moment of solace under a
water fall, and keeps looking at the Sun with an optimistic view, perhaps
somewhere, searching for a light of hope that he knows he needs, but is unable
to locate. He is seen driving his car in a desert, he finds a certain euphoria
in driving his car and creating impressions of a loop, it's such a beautifully
captured moment, he yells, and when we see him come out of his car, and gets a
moment of peace, the loop is almost parallel to his present mental state that he is constantly wondering around (the memories from his school days). He moves from
one city to another, finds simple moments and captures them with his own
rationale that makes them appear extraordinary. At one point, he is walking
with his baggage, alongside the Kolkata's hand driven rickshaw puller, Director
C. Prem Kumar clearly tells us that Ram has been carrying an emotional baggage
with himself for years, and he still continues to do so, both literally and in
a metaphorical sense. Similarly, he lifts a heavy stone from the edge of the
river, and tosses it into the river, he wish he could just lift the heavy
baggage of his memories, and toss them somewhere deep in his heart. There is no
stopping Ram and his life, he may catch a moment of pause, but the world around
him is constantly moving ahead, that what drives Ram to get out of that pause
mode, and go ahead with his life, a perfect example to prove this assumption of
mine is one shot, where Ram is quietly sitting near a river, and it's raining,
comes a boy from behind and makes a big jump straight into the river, that
clearly points out the pattern in which Ram leads his life.
It's
quite ironic that Ram's profession was written as a travel photographer, I mean
we are knowing a man's story who appears to be so lost and out of focus in his
present life and regularly travels back to his past life, and yet despite these
qualities he teaches young kids about finding the right focus to capture a photograph,
and continuously travels to different places, I found this aspect of '96 very
clever, a man who is so out of ‘focus’ in his own life is teaching young
kids to find perfect focus in an artistic sense, I agree that these two situations
are entirely independent from one another, but I just need to admire the beauty
of this irony. He tells his students that photography is that rare form of art
where one can actually freeze time, another big hint here is that Ram's
definition of photography feels so close to his idea of love that he shared
with Jaanu, those moments he spent in the school are not present in a physical
form via a photograph (except one group photograph), but somewhere the
negatives of those memories are still kept intact in his mind. It might not be
entirely a wrong idea to assume that Ram choose to be a photographer solely
because of this reason.
|
A YouTube user by the name M. Sathis Kumar has compiled the list of places Ram visits in the song |
We
observe a sudden change in Ram's behavior as he approaches his native place,
it's almost as if he has been waiting to come back home, he tells his student,
to feel the air of the dawn, and experience the utter joy from it, obviously
she cannot relate so easily with Ram's excitement, that euphoric tone with
which he starts describing about each of the important locations of the city
resonates a childlike response from Ram, who till that point in the film had
been quite formal with all the people around him.
Ram's
entry into the school is one of the most endearing and heartwarming sequences I
saw on the big screen in 2018, He opens the gates of All Saints Matriculation
Higher Secondary School, and as he enters, there is a phenomenal background
score that illustrates his anxiety, happiness and nostalgia. Notice how smartly
the director has avoided the usual rush in the school, almost giving a feeling
that the emptiness in the corridors and the playground of the school were
anticipating the return of K. Ramachandran. The freedom in his walk, him
feeling the texture of chalk powder assimilated around the notice board,
recalling his name from the roll of honor board, where he was a winner in High
Jump and Short Put, him listening to the sound of the school bell, it still
sounded pretty much same to him, he quench his thirst for the water of his
native place by drinking the tap water from the school, now this is where the magic
of '96 lies, recall the song 'Life of Ram' on two occasions we observe am
unusual thirst from Ram, one inside the Jungle where water from his Bottle is
finished, and yet he isn't satisfied, and the other scene where he opens his
mouth, and anticipate that the rain water might satisfy his thirst, but when he
drinks water from his school, one can sense that fulfillment of missing
satisfaction. The athlete who left the school has grown old, and when he visits
his classroom, there are two specific benches he goes toward, Jaanu’s seat and
his own, from where he used to see her.
The
screenplay then takes back in the past when Ram and Jaanu were school friends,
The young Ram is played so brilliantly by Aadithya Baaskar and the Young Jaanu
played so confidently by Gouri G. Kishan.
Ram is shy and anxious to talk to Jaanu that even a mere physical closeness
with her increases his heartbeats and results in him fainting away. The affair
between the two is kept simple and sweet, the emotional attachment I felt as a
viewer is simply driven through the straightforwardness of their connection,
Ram is in awe whenever Jaanu sings, and constantly requests her indirectly to
sing a song "By the banks of River Yamuna (Yamunai Aatrile)" from
'Thalapathi', which she never agree to sing, only because she wants Ram to
request her personally, and not through anyone else. Their connection ends
abruptly when after the vacation, in a new class, when everyone is answering
their regular attendance, Ram is not seen, Jaanu is left all alone when she
comes to know that Ram has left the town and the school, she is devastated
because she didn't get a proper goodbye from Ram. Her longing for Ram continues
in college also, she then decides to pack her emotions in a bottle and move
ahead in life. It is in these scenes that Gouri G. Kishan steals the show, and
for a moment makes the film and the story all about herself and her desperation
to see Ram. She infuses confidence of being in an indirect relationship and sadness of separation with great
maturity, easily making her performance one of the highlights of the film.
A
reunion of the batch from 96 is planned through a WhatsApp group, and Ram, who
although appears excited about the prospect, does somewhere expects to see
Jaanu, and the moment he hears her name, that introvert Ram turns into the shy
teenager Ram, and when Jaanu, finally arrives at the reunion, and one can feel
that her presence is marked by a soulful background score, and C. Prem Kumar
holds the delicate moment very carefully, it's over two decades, since Jaanu
saw Ram, the image of Ram in her mind is still the one with White Shirt and
Blue trousers, just standing away at a certain distance, again not able to
express what he feels for her, and this is reason when Jaanu meets Ram, for a
brief period we imagine Ram from her perspective. In my opinion, that few
seconds of Jaanu imagining Ram as the same guy who requested her to sing Yamunai
Aatrile is one of the best cinematic moment from an Indian film in 2018. Ram
might have changed physically, but the dynamics between them hasn't changed
even a bit, Ram's heartbeats keeps on increasing, and when she tries to feel
those heartbeats again after all these years of separation, he faints, yet
again. One can say that the director is repeating the scenes, and argument can
be given that when Ram and Jaanu meet, the moment should have been more
dramatic, but it's not, and C. Prem Kumar doesn't even try to make it loud, and
that holds a key here, because as Ram has kept her memories safely guarded with
himself, the moment, which is meant to be special is very intelligently changed
into something which feels very real and personal.
Another important aspect that deserves a discussion is the two important
supporting casts, which acts as catalysts as well as anti-catalysts of sorts in
the love story of Ram and Jaanu. Murali (Bagwathy Perumal) and Subhashini
(Devdarshini) play the this unusual friends who try to bring Ram and Jaanu
together yet keep them apart, and almost every time both of them reminds these
couple about their individual realities. I say Anti-catalyst because they are
aware of the fact that it's too late for both of them to get back together.
They are the voice of Ram when he is unable to express his feelings. I got
a feeling that throughout the reunion event, both Murali and Subhashini acted
as Guardians for bunch of nostalgia hungry adults, who might be bored from their
life, and wants to get fresh air of their beautiful memories, they are ones
who made sure apart from drowning in their memories, the mirror of reality and
present time is kept moving around in front of Ram and Jaanu.
There are numerous points in the film, where the director takes Ram's eating
and sleeping habits and juxtaposes them with the longing he feels in his life
for Jaanu. In the introduction song, we see Ram eating all alone in a
restaurant, and once out in wild forest we see him trying to grasp a fruit out
of a tree, and when he is tired from his constant traveling, he finds a space
near the trunk of a tree and get some sleep, now later on in the reunion event,
when Ram brings Jaanu a well cleaned plate of food, and after eating a bit, she
offers the food to him and insist him to eat, the camera slows down for a bit,
and as Ram takes the first bit, it's a high point of the film, because Ram was
tired of eating alone, he wanted to share his food with someone, that moment of
sharing food with Jaanu brings him an internal satisfaction, later on when
Jaanu cooks him dinner, he tells her that the taste reminded him of his
mother's food, which leads Jaanu to throw a slight smile, that smile is a valid
proof of what she thinks about the present day Ram, he later sleeps on the
floor with utmost calm, perhaps that short nap is the deepest he might have
slept in years.
I
feel the most captivating part about the film is how C. Prem Kumar and Editor
R. Govindaraj constructs a long solid narrative, I can imagine a lot of people
complaining about the film to be boring, and dull at times, but here is the
thing, once Ram and Jaanu decides to spend more time together, what follows is
plain conversations, the high point or the dramatic peak so to speak that we
have been made so accustomed to see on the big screen have totally made us the
forget the beauty of a long, uncomplicated narrative that simply relies on the unspoken conversation between two people, the nuances of the actions between two people,
how the camera moves during those conversations. Jaanu tells Ram that how she
waited for him to come back, and how she felt his presence most of the time,
and when Ram starts speaking to her how he believed that she refused to come
and meet her, there was a moment where I believed that this could lead to a
dramatic end, but this is where the film won me as a viewer, C. Prem Kumar kept on
giving the characters a reality check, that it's too late now, all they could
do is talk and ponder over about "What if" scenario. It could have
been a totally peculiar end, where he could have given these two characters a colorful
shape, but he decides to not do so, and kept it real. ‘96 represent that “What
if” moments/phenomenon of our lives through the story of Ram and Jaanu. No one
is wrong, nor they are right in anyway, it's plain sad illustration of destiny
that they were not meant to be together. When Jaanu starts singing inside Ram's
apartment, while he is searching for a torch, and as soon as he hears her sing,
that chaos, and panic mode he switches into, that's another poignant moment of
the film which made me realize the beauty of relying on simple things to drive
your character in a story. Also, notice the names of the lead characters, Ram
and Janaki, feels a strong mythological association with Ramayana.
It's
quite interesting how Ram's sexuality is represented in the film, I
believe that all these years of loneliness had made him sexually dormant, when
one of Ram's students tells Jaanu how strict he is with them that he doesn't
even allow them to wear sleeveless dress, and when Jaanu inquires to him about
his virginity, that further gives me a more strong reason to believe this. I
haven't seen such a honest and pure character written for the male protagonist
in recent times, and the reason I felt this is because he how often we see our
lead "Hero" show his back to the camera, he doesn't want to be in the
center of the frame all the time, he wants to be left alone with his own
thoughts, He can take 'No' for an answer, considering the times we live in,
that quality is on the top of the list to make him a desirable man.
For
a film that starts with life of an individual and slowly morphs into thinking over "What
If" between two people, I was quite impressed with the soundtrack of the
film and the way it was used as a strong supporting aid to build the narrative,
Govind Vasantha's music is therapeutic in every sense, the high moment in a
romantic film is usually placed through a dramatic climax, or by letting the
people in the story reach their point of catharsis, but how does one lead to a
high point in a film like '96, C. Prem Kumar and Govind Vasantha's soundtrack
helps in building that high point in the narrative, instead of giving the
moment on screen a dramatic touch, the sound is given that artistic liberty to
have a pause and when no is expecting, burst out all the emotions, it wouldn't
be wrong to say that the music of the film might have been composed keeping in
the mind a thought that how would memories and Nostalgia sound. I still don't
understand a word that's been sung, but its music about love and language
cannot restrict it from conveying its meaning. Kalyani Menon's version of
"Kaathalae Kaathalae" is that kind of song which initially seduces
you with its tune, but later on captures your mind with feelings behind the
lyrics. “The life of Ram” feels sad, despite the visually pleasing
cinematography, because the sound is conveying the lost frame of Ram’s mind,
yet during the end portion of the song, when after a slight pause, Ram
continues his journey, the sound is really up there for us to feel the longing
to belong to someone in Ram’s heart, but even with that burden, he goes ahead
with his work. My favorite song from the album is "Anthaathi", the
song which I feel is the song of nostalgia, and it’s the kind of song that
fills the tiny little gap between feeling sad about the old time and hopeful
that you might just be able to relive those moments again in life. The modern
beats representing the modern times which has meteorically changed
the meaning of love and romance, yet the song retains the charm of old school
romance when “Kaathalae Kaathalae” is brought into it, the fusion of both these
themes gives a beautiful outcome.
The
relationship between Ram and Jaanu is like a love song composed by IIaiyaraaja,
which instantly grabs your attention, an A.R. Rahman soundtrack, which will grow
exponentially with time in your subconscious mind, a Mani Ratnam film, which no
matter how many times you come across in life, it will give you a new aspect to
discover each time you watch it again without any motives, a perfect frame captured from the lens of P.C. Sreeram,
which will convey a thousand words through a still image.
Love constitute different meanings to people, each one in their own world will
surely come up with an accurate definition of their own, it's a feeling that
will be contradictory, hypocritical, beyond one's mind, full of hypothetical
scenarios and conversations that if you are lucky enough will occur in real
life too, it is something that is too hard to explain, but that's how it is, and that's how it
gives us a sense of purpose in our lives. Ram is still living with that
incompleteness in his life, Jaanu also feels that emotional void, but she has
moved into a cosmopolitan culture of Singapore, she tells Ram that most woman
would love to have a guy like him, she feels guilty when she learns that Ram is
still alone, I wonder how marriage can be regarded as the proof of a person
moving on over someone they once had feelings for, but C. Prem Kumar doesn't
let his characters take cinematic liberties and construct a false notion of
lost love, he stays honest with his subject, he holds a sense of respect for
both of these individuals and their respective personalities, rather than
giving them false hope to be together, he gives them a platform through a realm
of silence, and leaves them in their own privacy. Perhaps Ram is destined to
live in that incompleteness, and longing, his closure comes in an alternative
form, when he gets to spend some time with Jaanu, I don't think he will ever be
able to move on in his life, because if he had to, he wouldn't be waiting for
this long. Just notice the difference in the color of clothes that both Ram and
Jaanu wear throughout the film, it also reflects a major
character trait of their individual personalities, Ram is seen in mostly dull color clothes throughout the movie,
whereas Jaanu is seen in bright yellow color dress, the colors are truly
symbolic of their specific points in life, her being in a more optimistic,
stable, whereas him being in those dull colors mirrored a thought that he is just
getting along with each day of life as it brings new challenges. When she wears
Ram's clothes, for a brief period we see her in dark shades, I could totally
relate to her emotional outbursts towards the climax once I realized this point,
because for that brief period she might have felt how colorless Ram’s life has
become and worst part of this whole situation is that she cannot bring those colors
back in his life.
The film does not have a quintessential climax to be honest, it's just that at one
particular point, C. Prem Kumar leaves you with a moment in which Ram seems to have
accepted his incompleteness which actually appears quite thoughtful, because Ram
gets his moments with Jaanu, and the time in those moments will stay in his
memory forever, similar to the ones he has been capturing in all of his
photographs. '96 is a film, which deserves our time and attention solely because C. Prem
Kumar crafts a magic show with his strong narrative of unfulfilled love, he
makes an actor like Vijay Sethupathi who is so versatile with his choices of
roles blush so genuinely which is so rare to be found in films, and in those moments
of him feeling shy, the pure cinematic joy of ’96 is felt.