‘Guess the climax if you can’: The day Bharathiraja challenged film critics

With a outpouring successful his step, Bharathiraja strode confidently onto the dais of Nungambakkam’s Four Frames preview theatre. It was the intermission of his 2008 film, Bommalattam, and the seasoned filmmaker had thing to inquire the movie critics and journalists who had assembled to ticker the movie.

In fact, it was a challenge.

“You person each watched Bommalattam till this l point. Can immoderate of you conjecture what volition hap successful the end? If you can, delight conscionable maine outside.”

There was an contiguous flutter among members of the media who had assembled to ticker this whodunit. Here was a filmmaker – who had already helmed fashionable thriller Sigappu Rojakkal (1978) starring Kamal Haasan – challenging the property to conjecture the climax.

I penned down my ain mentation successful a notebook that I took on to the screening, but the queue to scope Bharathiraja was long: respective scribes had walked up to him to sermon what they had witnessed frankincense acold and wherever they thought it was headed.

Hearing constituent aft constituent being floated, Bharathiraja conscionable smiled He knew helium had packed thing into the movie that nary 1 could fathom.

Now, directors addressing the property connected specified occasions is thing caller – they usually accidental thing to the effect of “We person done our champion successful this film. Please beryllium just and kind” – and permission the critics to devour the cinematic material. But connected that evening successful 2008, Bharathiraja’s unfastened situation led to whispers and theories.

Much earlier Tamil cinema showcased respective filmmakers who were inclined towards twists and execution mysteries, Bharathiraja had already been there. Those fewer minutes astatine the preview showcased a filmmaker of grit and confidence: idiosyncratic who dared to experiment, and believed that audiences would backmost that.

What truly happens astatine the extremity of Bommalattam, starring Arjun Sarja, Nana Patekar and Rukmini Vijayakumar, is for different time. In fact, this movie mightiness not fertile among his finest, but it proved that Bharathiraja could grip aggregate genres, including specified edge-of-the-seat fare, with ease. The Hindu’s reappraisal of the movie noted that: “The extremity is new. The circumstances that thrust the murderer to instrumentality the utmost halt are shocking. The interaction connected the spectator is tremendous....”

Today, the twist is an integral portion of cinema and web-series. In astir thrillers, audiences expect a last-minute uncover of a quality oregon a crippled constituent that they slightest expect. The bigger the reveal, the amended the reception is apt to be, arsenic proved successful South Indian cinema by films similar the Drishyam franchise. But backmost successful 2008, successful the comparatively overlooked Bommalattam, Bharathiraja was among the mainstream filmmakers who experimented with communicative twists erstwhile specified storytelling was not the norm yet.