Aaytha Ezhuthu

<p>The film begins with Inbasekar “Inba” shooting Michael “Mike” Vasanth on his bike, resulting in him falling off the into the water below which is witnessed by Arjun Balakrishnan. The flashback of the characters before the incident then unveils. Inbasekar grew up to be a goon as his brother Gunasekaran had left him to fend for himself, and he had no option of earning. He loves, marries, and abuses his wife Sashi. He gets into a contract under Guna’s recommendation to run errands and work as a hitman for Selvanayagam, a politician. Michael is an influential student leader who wants politicians like Selvanayagam to keep away from college elections. Michael is in love with his neighbour Geetha, who lives with her uncle and aunt. Selvanayagam is worried when he hears news of students standing in the election. He uses every possible tactic to get them out of politics. Firstly, he provides a scholarship to study at a prestigious foreign university to Michael. When Michael refuses the bribe, Inba takes control under Guna’s orders. Inba beats some students but faces very strong retaliation from Michael and other students. Inba and his thug friend Dilli meet Michael face-to-face and fall into a tussle after Inba threatens the latter to leave politics. Arjun Balakrishnan is the carefree and spoiled son of an IAS officer. He wants to relocate to the US for a better future. He falls in love with Meera, whom he just met. One day, Arjun proposes to Meera on the road, and she gets into an auto while telling him to prove it, playfully. Arjun hitches a ride from Michael, who is riding in the same direction, to catch up with Meera. Suddenly, Michael is shot with three rounds fired by Inba, while riding two wheeler in Naper Bridge and fell in to River Cooum, but Meera insists Arjun and he saves Micheal. Critically injured, Michael is rushed to the hospital by Meera and Arjun. Inba finds out that Michael is recovering from his injuries, and this is witnessed by Arjun, who follows him to apprehend him, only for Inba to beat him up badly and leave him with a broken arm. After staying by his side until his recovery, Arjun changes his mind and joins hands with Michael to contest in elections. Inba later kills Guna when he finds out that he had been instructed by Selvanayagam to take him out due to Inba leaving an eyewitness, Arjun, behind the bridge incident. He confronts Selvanayagam, who brainwashes him to work for him and orders him to kidnap Arjun, Suchi, and Trilok. However, they escape with the help of Dilli, who has a change of heart after realising that their profession was interfering with their personal lives. Sachi waiting for a reformed Inba at railway station, since he not came, decided to leave Inba for her hometown. Dilli convinces Inba, however to no avail, and is killed by him when he aids Arjun’s escape. While running, Arjun calls Michael for help, but Inba easily catches up and thrashes him. Michael arrives in the nick of time to rescue Arjun at the Napier Bridge. A fight ensues between the three men, where Inba is overpowered by Michael, who spares him and leaves him for the police. Inba is handed over to the police and jailed. Michael, Arjun, Suchi, and Trilok win the four seats they had contested for and thus enter into legislature. The film began pre-production in April 2003 in a typical manner adapted by the director, , who keeps his projects under wraps until completion. The director chose to make two different versions of the film as he did not want the film to be dubbed, explaining that the essence of the script would be lost if they had done so. The project was named after the of the , which is denoted by three dots in a triangle and the director revealed that the film was about three individuals. Early reports indicated that the film would be based on the 2000 neorealist film, by , but eventually only the idea of was common in both films. However, Ratnam revealed that the film was closer to ‘s 1950 Japanese film as both films dealt with a cause-effect and a third-view called . , who made his debut in the 1997 Mani Ratnam production , revealed that he agreed “blindly” to star in the film without even listening to the story or his character. The actor revealed in an interview about Ratnam’s choice that “when the master calls for the student you just say “yes”.” Suriya stated that his character was based on a real person from and to prepare, he read a lot of books and collected a lot of information before the shoot. was signed on to appear in Ratnam’s fourth successive project after playing the lead roles in his (2000) and (2002) as well as his 2001 production, . The actor bulked up and sported a shaven look for the first time in his career to resemble his character of a ruffian. For a third lead role, Mani Ratnam called and requested him to audition for the project in December 2002. The actor had scored back-to-back successes in his first two films, and , and was subsequently selected to be a part of the film. However, the actor soon after suffered an injury and was unable to commit to the dates Ratnam suggested. , the brother of Suriya, was then offered the role but declined the offer to make his debut and worked as an assistant director on the film because he wanted to become a film director and preferred directing to acting. , who had previously apprenticed as an assistant director under Mani Ratnam in before his making his acting debut in ‘s , was subsequently signed on for the film. Prior to release, Siddharth felt he was cast as he “looked, talked and behaved like Arjun” and mentioned that the sync sound technique used worked in favour of him as he was an experienced theatre actor. Kannada actor was also initially slated to form a part of the cast after meeting Mani Ratnam for the script discussion, but was ultimately discarded from the film. Malayalam actress was signed on to play a slum dweller in the film portraying Madhavan’s wife and it was reported that she spent hours perfecting her Tamil for the film, trying to get rid of her native accent to adapt to the sound sync technique used. Relatively newcomer was also signed on to play a youngster in the film and dubbed for her own voice for the first time. Initially was signed on to play the roles of Geetanjali in both versions, but opted out after she began to have problems speaking Tamil as the sound for the film was recorded live. , daughter of actress , was then selected to play the role in the Tamil version of the film after enquired whether she could speak Tamil. After finishing her work in , Deol was signed on for the Hindi version of the film too after Simran also opted out of that role and thus Deol became the only common leading actor between the versions. To prepare for her role, Deol worked on certain pronunciations of Iyer Tamil with Mani Ratnam’s assistant mentoring her progress. It was also reported that actress had signed the film and would make a comeback to films after a ten-year sabbatical but did not eventually form a part of the final cast. The director initially opted against using songs in the film but wanted to create an album with for the project. However, after the songs were recorded, Mani Ratnam had a change of heart and chose to include them. For the art direction in the film, studied each character in-depth, giving them a distinct colour, mood, and background to suit their temperament. For Michael’s house in the film, Cyril followed the arrangement in his own house and used some of his own photographs for decorations. He also expressed that he had great difficulty in re-creating the streets of for the Hindi version of the film in . G. Ramesh was selected to be the hairdresser for the three lead actors in the film. The scene filmed at in was canned in early December 2003, the same time during which Suriya changed his getup and started filming for his another 2004 release, , but the schedule caused severe traffic and congestion in that area. Mani Ratnam began the Tamil version after suffered an injury during the making of , giving him time to extract more out his actors in the Tamil version. Production work for the film began in September 2003, with the technical crew who were mostly from the Tamil film industry including the production house were part of the Hindi version and were retained for the Tamil scenes. The Tamil version finished subsequently much earlier than the Hindi version. Some scenes featuring Suriya were also shot at the , Mani Ratnam’s . The music was composed by . was released in theatres on 21 May 2004. It had its television premiere on 16 September 2007 on . wrote “Aayitha Ezhuthu is a bold and daring move by Mani Ratnam to change the staid style of our commercial cinema.” Malathi Rangarajan of wrote “Every frame of Madras Talkies’ “Aayudha Ezhuthu” bears the Mani Ratnam stamp and that’s what matters. Tamil cinema is in dire need of more such makers as Mani Ratnam.” Visual Dasan of wrote that the usual exuberance that permeates Mani Ratnam’s films is also present in the film, but there is no intensity in the flood; only the murmur of the stream. G. Ulaganathan of wrote “Mani etches his characters well and deglamourises his heroines all of whom resemble the girl next door. Though the screenplay is taut and slick with brilliant camera by Ravi K Chandran, the meticulously crafted sets of Sabu Cyril, background score of A R Rahman, a major part of the credit should go to two heroes — Madhavan and Surya. The overdose of politics in the climax is a handicap. Nevertheless, Ayutha Ezhuthu is a film worth going miles to watch”.</p>