Review of Siva

Introduction

Really one of the worst Tamil films I have encountered in a while. If it wasn`t for the presence of Rajnikant or of Rahuvaran the film would have surly bombed not just at the box office but within audiences expectations too. Luckily the film was a hit at its time but will be forgotten for better works like Arunachalam (1997) and Paddiyapa (1999). Ayngaran International have released this film onto DVD with impressive results....

Video

This DVD has kept the original intentions of the director as it has been framed according to the original aspect ratio of 1.66:1. Though it is not anamorphic, it really doesn`t matter as the bars are quite thin and won`t as such affect line resolution. It would have been an advantage to some if the film was re-framed at 1.77:1 then anamorphically enhanced so that it would fill a widescreen television. But personally I would prefer the original aspect ratio to be presented in its entirety as done so here on this DVD. Also it is nice to see Ayngaran presented this film in its original aspect ratio as other companies would have cropped the picture to 1.33:1 to fill a 4:3 television screen. -Kudos to Ayngaran

The 35mm negative print source is quite good at the start and has been mastered from the original interpositive negative of the film. On the DVD there are slight moments of film grain and small wear and tear blemishes. However this is due to lack of care of taken on the negatives. But for an Indian film over ten years old it surely is in fine condition. The problems mentioned above hardly distract a person from viewing. However during the climax in chapter 22 and 23 some wear and tear marks do become stronger and shows how badly Indian film producers keep their film reels. If only they took more care, so the film would remain fresh.

The DVD shows no major signs of compression artefacts, while shimmering and moiré effects are viewable only in a fraction of scenes and will certainly go unnoticeable. Picture information here is very well captured and the sharpness is balanced accurately making detail brim like never before for this film.

Colour definition and saturation was also rather well defined. There were a couple of colour over-saturation problems when the blemishes in chapter 23 was present so I would assume that the problems lies in the print and not the encoding transfer. Contrast levels and black shadows was also good, and made viewing in all aspects of lighting real clear to the eye particularly during the burning of the farm which shows how black details were well encoded on this DVD.

Audio

The soundtrack has been kept to its original mono source, and for most of the time is only heard during the centre channel. However when a song or background music comes on then all the other 4 channels kick in to give a 5.0 mono surround sound.

Being a purist I would have preferred if the sound was kept to its original mono track as the film was original intended. All pesudo 5.0 mixes are disspointing, and sometimes adds more distortion then clarity. Still the track was fairly audible at times.

The sound on this DVD did have a couple of major problems which are linked to the damage of the original negative print. Firstly during the song `Parvathi` in chapter 12 the volume became quite low and the vocals seemed muddled. And during other moments some light hissing could be detected.

Features

No extras are present on this DVD. Menus and box designs are improving by the company. Hopefully the company will start using better stills and will put more details on the film on the back of the box.

If one thing really disappointed me on this DVD then it was the English subtitles used. The grammar is very bad, and at times could have certainly been improved upon. Also timing of how subtitles appeared was either too slow or too fast, so more work needs to be done there. Finally the subtitles are not 16:9 friendly which means those with widescreen televisions will only see half the subtitles when the film is zoomed up.

Conclusion

Playing on melodramatics and on predictable conventions like the friendship story, which too me was a bit demanding on the audience part, the film is easily passable. Also the lack of memorable songs, and of a decent screenplay added more grieve to viewing. Some moments of the film also was a bit embarrassing; from the Christ image taken from another American movie, to the awful raunchy song where a woman wears nothing but fruit on her body which covers up her genitalia.

The romantic plot bewteen Rajinikant and Shobana also is seen as too fanatical in a sense that woman falls in love with the main character after seeing him fight a tiger. Obviously during the eighties many Tamil films played on the theme of machoism as a way to woo a female. Thank god this has changed since with the help of many intelligent films like Kadhal Kavithai (1998) and Alai Payuthey (2000). As a result this makes Siva presently overdated and doubt that new film fans will take to this film the way past audiences have.

The background score, cinematography and editing is average, but content wise this film lacks soul and plot fit enough to view. Add to it some hammy acting from most of the cast members this film is one to avoid for sure. Only for Die-Hard Rajnikant fans!

Despite a weak 35mm print source Ayngaran are improving and are becoming one of the better Indian DVD companies around. Quality for this film has never been as good as this DVD, and I doubt it can get any better. I can tell you one thing for certian, this title is better quality then all the new EROS titles like Aashiq (2001) and Kasoor (2001) and that says a lot for Ayngaran (and a lot about EROS).