Subramaniyapuram

Celebrating the spirit of rebellion

Watching Subramaniapuram was like witnessing post-DMK cinema finally come of age. The narrative is located in the 1980s and this helps trace the journey of Tamil cinema�s backlash against the myths that dominated our psyche from Parasakti in 1952 to Ulagum Sutrum Valiban in 1974. This so-called heroic journey ended with the people watching the duplicity of two superstars of Tamil politics crave for attention from Indira Gandhi during the ignominious Emergency of 1975.

Subramaniapuram relates, in many ways, to the politics of betrayal among the best of friends and the closest of relatives.

The backlash of the early 1980s had several flagellants and heading the list was Rajnikant, the complete antithesis of everything that MGR stood for. A little later, he was joined by T Rajendar, who put an end to the soppiness of Tamil cinema, as well as a host of others such as Bharatiraja, Bhagyaraj, Balu Mahendra, Ilayaraja, and me at a later stage.

None of us knew what we were doing and the audience just lapped up whatever we showed them on the screen as long as we were critical of the hypocritical lives that we were living in the name of Dravidian pride.

Subramaniapuram is a celebration of the spirit that had rebels shouting hoarse in the 1980s under a banner called �Nothing�. It is a celebration of the embarrassment that the first post-Independence generation felt about its parents soaked in the fantasy of nationalism mixed with garbled notions of Indian/Hindu tradition. It is a celebration of a rasa called �Disgust� or Bhibatsa, an emotion that Indian dramaturgy had almost forgotten.

Never have I seen the recreation of a film�s opening day done with such aplomb and solid craftsmanship as the release of Murratukalai is depicted here. The choice of this film was apt as it epitomises counter-culture on screen and otherwise, in as many ways as possible.

This film was also known for being the most outlandish duckling that Tamil cinema had ever hatched. This was embellished by the shot constructions and the mise-en-scene by Kadhir that seemed to echo the spirit of a Pontecorvo in the Battle of Algiers or a Nicholas Ray in Rebel Without a Cause.

The detailed art direction of Rembon and the music of James Vasantham added to the richness of an era gone by in a refreshing manner. Hopefully, young makers of Tamil films will take serious note of the amazing craft and commitment that this debutant film crew and the actors have displayed and take bolder steps into the future.

That this film could have been made possible only with the active support of hundreds of �jobless� youngsters in small-town India, who must be leading as �pointless� lives as the main characters of this film, is a pointer that the young Indian is still alive and kicking. That this film is filled with so many minute details by the young M Sasikumar and his crew, who have never experienced the �80s except by watching films of the period made by mavericks of that era proves that some forces in Tamil cinema are still alive and kicking.

That thousands of viewers across the state stand up to celebrate the film today assures all of us that counter-culture, which is the essence of a healthy democracy, is still alive and kicking. Who cares if the upper crust chooses to call such folks porikis?

This film makes me aware of the shameful and disgusting times that we are living in, where the Left, Right and Centre vie with each other in exploiting a billion plus citizens with conceited deceptions of good governance. Like the lame friend, at the end of the film, I would like to pull the oxygen mask off the faces of these traitors and let the average citizen live peacefully.

My only request to Sasikumar is not to wait for the big superstars who will surely beckon him to harness his skills and commitment to abandon this fiery path that he has decided to take. He has to fasten himself to his crew members with hoops of steel and carry forward this encounter with disgust in more creative ways.

THIGS TO KNOW

ONE OF THE POPES WROTE AN EROTIC BOOK

Before he was Pope Pius II, Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini was a poet, scholar, diplomat, and rakehell. And an author. In fact, he wrote a bestseller. People in fifteenth-century Europe couldn’t get enough of his Latin novella Historia de duobus amantibus. An article in a scholarly publication on literature claims that Historia “was undoubtedly one of the most read stories of the whole Renaissance.” The Oxford edition gives a Cliff Notes version of the storyline: “The Goodli History tells of the illicit love of Euralius, a high official in the retinue of the [German] Emperor Sigismund, and Lucres, a married lady from Siena [Italy].”

It was probably written in 1444, but the earliest known printing is from Antwerp in 1488. By the turn of the century, 37 editions had been published. Somewhere around 1553, the short book appeared in English under the wonderfully old-school title The Goodli History of the Moste Noble and Beautyfull Ladye Lucres of Scene in Tuskane, and of Her Louer Eurialus Verye Pleasaunt and Delectable vnto ye Reder. Despite the obvious historical interest of this archaic Vatican porn, it has never been translated into contemporary language. (The passages quoted below mark the first time that any of the book has appeared in modern English.)

The 1400s being what they were, the action is pretty tame by today’s standards. At one point, Euralius scales a wall to be with Lucres: “When she saw her lover, she clasped him in her arms. There was embracing and kissing, and with full sail they followed their lusts and wearied Venus, now with Ceres, and now with Bacchus was refreshed.” Loosely translated, that last part means that they shagged, then ate, then drank wine.

His Holiness describes the next time they hook up:
Thus talking to each other, they went into the bedroom, where they had such a night as we judge the two lovers Paris and Helen had after he had taken her away, and it was so pleasant that they thought Mars and Venus had never known such pleasure…. Her mouth, and now her eyes, and now her cheeks he kissed. Pulling down her clothes, he saw such beauty as he had never seen before. “I have found more, I believe,” said Euralius, “than Acteon saw of Diana when she bathed in the fountain. What is more pleasant or more fair than these limbs?… O fair neck and pleasant breasts, is it you that I touch? Is it you that I have? Are you in my hands? O round limbs, O sweet body, do I have you in my arms?… O pleasant kisses, O dear embraces, O sweet bites, no man alive is happier than I am, or more blessed.”…
He strained, and she strained, and when they were done they weren’t weary. Like Athens,
who rose from the ground stronger, soon after battle they were more desirous of war.

But Euralius isn’t just a horndog. He waxes philosophical about love to Lucres’ cousin-in-law:
You know that man is prone to love. Whether it is virtue or vice, it reigns everywhere. No heart of flesh hasn’t sometime felt the pricks of love. You know that neither the wise Solomon nor the strong Sampson has escaped from this passion. Furthermore, the nature of a kindled heart and a foolish love is this: The more it is allowed, the more it burns, with
nothing sooner healing this than the obtaining of the loved. There have been many, both in our time and that of our elders, whose foolish love has been the cause of cruel death. And many who, after sex and love vouchsafed, have stopped burning. Nothing is better when love has crept into your bones than to give in to the burning, for those who strive against the tempest often wreck, while those who drive with the storm escape.

Besides sex and wisdom, the story also contains a lot of humor, as when Lucres’ husband borrows a horse from Euralius: “He says to himself, ‘If you leap upon my horse, I shall do the same thing to your wife.’”