3. Breaking the silence
Before you read, I advice you to watch the film.
Breaking the silence, “Mouna Ragam” became a biggest breakthrough in Mani Ratnam’s career.
Story:
Story looks simple, yet complicated in its own way to be able to portray in action. It deals with the story of Divya (Revathi), who was carefree; rebel and independent in her thoughts, have been thrown into a sudden marital relationship with an unknown person Chandrakumar (Mohan). Due to unfortunate demise of her boyfriend Manohar (Karthik) in the past, was not ready to accept Chandrakumar as her husband. It is about the inner conflict that she was facing – whether to dwell herself in the past or live a happy life with her husband. This film moves forward in Divya’s perspective. Opening the film with Divya’s childhood pictures, Mani Ratnam kept adding characters around her, one after the other, creating an inner conflict in the story.
In general, this is the story of every Indian girl in our society, where it is ruled by predefined, deep rooted cultures and traditions. Apart from the love story of Divya, rest of the entire scenario can be applied to any girl in our country majorly. It is in our tradition to send the bride to bridegroom’s home permanently after her marriage. Any girl would feel some discomfort, living and sharing life with completely unknown person in an unknown place. She would feel alienated. Whatever might be the reasons, either it could be a past love story as in this film or for some unknown alienated fear, some might not allow their husbands to touch them too. All these inner conflicts of a girl are beautifully portrayed through the character of Divya. Secondary thing which is contrary to this story that usually happens in the society is every girl would feel excited about her marriage. They would even pray and fast for getting a good husband. Mani Ratnam first wrote this story without the flash back love story. But in order to reach wider audience, he has rationalized Divya’s behavior and resistance to arranged marriage with a flash back love story.
Revathi’s performance was a huge asset for the film. The way she carried Divya’s role was remarkable. The transformation she has shown from a carefree independent college girl to a girl who understands her family to a married woman was outstanding. One would get carried away with her performance in this film. Divya in Mouna Ragam would be a dream role for actresses because these days it’s very rare to find such a character to enact in the movies. Especially now-a-days in Tollywood it’s very rare to find heroine roles that have a scope for acting. Though actors can act well, it is finally the duty of the director to draw what is most appropriate for his film.
Dialogues in this film were kept as simple as possible and made extensive use of Staccato dialogues. Staccato dialogues are where you speak in fragments of short sentences followed by silence. Words in the sentences are too short and abrupt. The format of the sentence can be in 4:4:4 (4 words in one sentence) pattern or 4:3:2 (Each sentence has one word less than the one before it). There are many dialogue sequences in this film which follows 4:3:2 or 3:3:3 or 2:2:2 which attract the viewer’s attention. He continued this usage of staccato dialogues in his later films and this has become a trademark style for him.
Cinematography:
Cinematography should always help in elevating the director’s vision. It has to set the appropriate mood with lighting and camera angles which make the audiences deeply connect to the story.
P.C Sreeram, who is popularly known as the “Guru of Cinematography” was a close friend of Mani Ratnam. He has worked with Mani Ratnam for the first time for Mouna Ragam. He is a master in creating a real definition for Cinematography with his amazing works.
The lighting in this film was set up with an idea of back lighting the subjects. It was a brilliant work where in some conversation scenes P.C has used only bed lamps (motivated lighting) to light up. The way he shot the outdoors in the night time without moon light effect in some shots was too good. But if critically analyzed this film has some lighting continuity mistakes where lighting differs from master shots to the inserts.
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Mani Ratnam loves long takes. Camera starts somewhere and keeps moving with the character. Long takes have that power to keep the audience always with the subject and the mood. When you cut a shot, it means that you are diverting the audience mind forcibly on to other important things which you want them to watch. There are several small long takes in this film which connects you more with the scene. While filming the introductory scene of Manohar (Karthik), P.C. Sreeram had to lie on a bed sheet to film. The crew pulled the sheet, with P.C and the camera.
Colors:
This is where the production design and art direction comes into play. Thotta Tharani, the Art Director has given his best and end results were extraordinary.
Colors can affect us psychologically. It can draw ones attention. It can act on our mind without our consciousness. When it comes to film making… the technical modernization from black & white to color can be consider as one of the greatest remarkable advancement. Film makers have started telling stories through colors. In a film, colors can be used to create contrast and similarities which can represent mood, state of mind and feelings of a character. Cinema being a visual medium, colors has become an important visual tool in elevating and creating an appropriate meaning for the story. Color theory helps you a lot when you are dealing with colors in a film. Each color represents different feel and emotion. We need to be perfect in choosing the colors to represent the correct mood and feel.
In Mouna Ragam, Mani Ratnam has used several color variations in costumes to represent the character transformation of Divya, keeping the costume colors of other characters constant.
I don’t know what was in Mani Ratnam’s mind while he was making this film. But when you apply the color theory and emotions that each color is representing, everything looks acceptable and promising in this film.
The costume colors used for Divya and the emotions they convey are as follows:
Black & White:
In general black represents “protest or disagreement” where as white represents “peace and agreement”. So here Divya is a carefree, rebel and independent girl. She loves her family and obeys all the customs and traditions of the family yet she has her own set of rules where she always does what she wanted to do. This can be observed clearly in the introduction scene of Divya and also when she tells her father that she is ready for the marriage even though she doesn’t like it. She always fluctuates between disagreement and agreement.
Yellow:
Yellow is the brightest color to the human eye. It can catch ones attention easily, that’s why the traffic sign boards and school buses are painted yellow. Color psychology states that yellow is the color of mind and intellect. Yellow inspires original thought. Though Yellow is the colour of sunshine, hope, and happiness etc. Here in Mouna Ragam it is used to convey a different emotion. Here Divya is always seen in dark yellow saree where the darker shades of yellow indicate an inclination toward depression and sadness, lack of love and low self-worth. So when the conflict begins she has yellow and it continues. Yellow actually starts with title cards.
What more can yellow represent?
Yellow is a warm color. A warm color has a nature to stand out of the frame. They look closer to the eye. If a warm color is used against a cool color there a contrast appears. Here when Divya goes to Delhi, she feels alienated. It is not her world because her heart is still with her past love. She is always separated from the background with her yellow costume. This shows how discomfort she is in that home. Whereas chandrakumar was always given shades of white costume which represents peace and patience.
Red:
Red is the color of passion, energy and especially love. Here red color is used to express the emotion of love in Divya. A dark bluish red (Maroon) denotes controlled and more thoughtful action. Maroon comes into picture when Divya forgets her past and starts loving chandrakumar.
Now using above color theory, we can observe her transformation of mood in terms of colors as the story progresses.
1. Film starts with black and white.
2. Conflict arises when she was forced to get married.
3. It’s again black and white when she is ready for the marriage though she doesn’t like it.
4. In the first night scene – she was wearing the dress with colors of agreement and love though she doesn’t like it. This is used in an opposite way here.
5. Yellow continues throughout the film until she realizes and starts thinking about her husband.
6. A dark protest while chandrakumar mourns for love in a song.
7. A lighter shade of yellow while she reveals her past. And observe that color of the gift. A request for acceptance and love.
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8. She was given either Red or black & white throughout the flash back and you the reason why… 🙂
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9. When she meets the lawyer, that’s where she starts thinking of her husband. Observe the slow transformation from Yellow to Black & White and later to red.
10. Very interesting point to be noted where the colors are used along with action to change the mood of Divya. Here in this song she wears a black saree and hero has white. Later in the middle of the song where chandrakumar covers divya with his white shawl. That moment her black protesting nature completely changes to white. That one single look of her which shows that she has started loving her husband.
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11. True love begins when she starts praying for her husband. The combinations of Red – white and Red – Black are used according to the emotion of the scene.
12. Yellow for the last dispute where she wants to express her love but he rejects.
13. It ends happily with pure love and acceptance.
This is how Mani Ratnam used colors effectively to convey the emotions of the characters. Compare this film which was released in 1986 with the present films in India. One would find very few films which has used colors effectively to convey the emotions visually.
Mirrors:
One will find many reflection shots or mirror shots in almost all films of Mani Ratnam. He uses mirrors effectively to convey the state of mind of a character. A mirror is the only thing where we can see ourselves. It is an effective way of speaking to our inner soul. A mirror always reflects back our own character to us which gives a hope for a change. Here are some mirror shots captured so beautifully by P.C.
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Just keep aside everything, watch the above 4 mirrors images and apply color theory to it. You can easily find the entire story in it. The way yellow changes to white and then to red finally. Mani Ratnam is a genius.
Remember those classroom and coffee shop scenes in Pallavi Anupallavi? The same scenes were enacted in Mouna Ragam with minor changes. Here are the scenes compared.
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My favorite shots from the film:
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The critically acclaimed film received the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Tamil, and Mani Ratnam received the Filmfare Award for Best Tamil Director.
“I wanted to be accepted or rejected for the content
and not for the spelling and grammatical errors”
– Mani Ratnam –
* This is to note that all the content I have been writing under this column are purely my personal thoughts based on my experiences and the feelings that goes through my mind while watching Mani Ratnam films.
Dinesh Dinu.
SMILE ART CREATIONS 