Manirathnam has made films based on two of the biggest epics - Ramayana (Raavan) and Mahabharatha (Thalpathi). I cant but admire this guy's passion for portraying the bad guy and the good guy in shades of grey - than black and white.
We know that the history belongs to the victor - and that losers are branded as demons/dictators... you get the idea. But Manirathnam is anything but one dimensional - many of his other films portray racial violence, family, love, children and several different themes. But when it comes to stories based on history, why is this inclination? My first thought was he is a rebel - someone against established ideas and facts.
But I think it goes beyond his denial of facts or wanting to present a opposing point of view. I think he is drawing a parallel between times then and times now. He is trying to portray the fact that there is no fairness in a fight and that you just cant tell apart a good guy from a bad guy. Not when it is a matter of survival and ideology - not when you have a gang of loyal followers. Everybody has a justification, everybody does things which they are not proud of and everybody wants to win.
No film maker would have dared to touch a subject like Iruvar. And I should say he did as much justice to historic facts as possible in a commercial movie. It is a movie out of its time. Contemporary history always has its risks. Important thing is he took that risk for voicing his view of history. This guy's flair for history is something that awes me time and again. And I like grey better than white or black. Pure white or black only exists in the world of fiction and our writer-director here is much closer to history than fiction.
