While Bollywood sputters out the odd 'angry' hit every decade or so, the south has simmered for well over three decades now. Several variations of the rage raga have dominated its two biggest film industries and have even helped make the careers of some of its biggest stars. Tamil filmdom begat this trend in the mid 1970s. Coming of its long and definitive association with the Dravidian movement - especially its key role in helping upend caste and class hierarchies in Tamil Nadu - cinema soon began to reflect a new despair that had clearly set in across the nation in that decade. A new breed of Tamil filmmakers and actors began channeling themes of social angst, vigilante justice, violent subversion of social order and a certain runaway machismo. Protagonists, always young and initially na�ve onscreen, began to take on malevolent mobsters, malign politicians, venal babus and corrupt cops, and often got rid of them in bursts of semi-orgiastic violence.
No comments:
Post a Comment