Review of Gokulathil Seethai

Introduction

If there was one Tamil film I solely enjoyed over the past year of reviewing DVD’s then it has to be the 1996 film Gokulathil Seethai. The film is a simple tale that makes for a splendid viewing. The film is rather different in its style and manner from other Tamil films. There are no melodramatic scenes, no glamorous songs, no big budgets set/costume designs and no high production values. It’s a tale about three people, each with their own understandings of life.

The film begins to look at a character called Rishi (played to perfection by Karthik), who’s a spoilt rich brat with money to spend on drink and prostitute. He doesn’t believe in the concept of love just sex for fun. Despite his misunderstandings he isn’t shown as a villain or as a bad person. Just an ordinary man with an active lifestyle that is also hard working and honest. Many films such as Pardes (1998), Yaadien (2001), Jodi Number One (2001) shows similar characters in a villainy sense. They become caricatures rather then characters. Yet the same type of character in this film, made nearly five years back, is more realistic, three dimensional, and thus human.

Rishi begins to lust over a character called Nila. Nila is your Indian woman, who believes in her chaste and has similar characterisations of Indian woman seen in Indian movies back in the sixties. She also believes in Indian customs and ideals. But she is also a woman of the new millennium. She is strong, independent and has no care for what society thinks. Once again character of this stature are seen in numerous films yet they are not a touch upon the way actor Suvalakshmi portrays her. She plays it with conviction and strength, a post-modern ‘Mother India’. Rarely have I appreciated a female character in Indian films such as Nila. I am glad the director opted to hire talented Bengali actor Suvalakshmi, instead of a glamour actress.

Mohan (Played by Karan) is a character of imbalances. He is both mentally instable as he suffers from a suicidal complex. However he loves Nila passionately. But since he has no understand how to convey love, partly due to his upbringing by strict parents, he goes about it by sending tapes of him singing love songs, and inviting her to the beach. When Nila goes to meet the person she tells him off for bothering her. She later learns of his past trying to commit suicide, and thinking he might do the same after rejecting him, she decides to meet Mohan. From there their friendship grows. She lets him know what kind of a person she is and Mohan accepts anything so that he could marry her. But when Mohan chooses his parents over Nila, Rishi decides to help her out by giving her a room a stay in.

Despite Rishi’s reputation she accepts his invitation and begins to live in his house. During this time both begin to understand their strengths and weaknesses. Never does she try to change him, to make him a perfect human being. She knows no one is perfect. When Rishi sees what kind of a person he is in himself he begins to change himself. It’s a film that purely goes deep into characterisations, and this helps the audiences to understand their course of actions.

The film is full of wonderful dialogues, performances from cast, and has some light humour. The songs in the film are nice and have its purpose. The film’s productions values are suited to the movie. It was shot low budget and this helps the film to have a more realism feel as shots were filmed in real locations instead of set designs. I enjoyed this film completely and would recommend it for ALL Indian film fans to view.

Video

The DVD is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.20:1, in an anamorphic transfer. While cropped from its original aspect ratio of 2.66:1, cropping is never an issue. Much of the frame is covered. The picture quality is fair. Compression artefacts are not evident during the course of this disc. But film grain is seen. Since the film was shot on a low budget it is expected. It even adds to the look of the film, as it is based in real locations of urban Madras (Chennai).

Sharpness is conveyed with precision to help the picture information provide audiences with precise images. Colour saturation is vivid, thankfully the colours never distort on this disc. Since much of the film occurs during the night the dark details on this disc help us to see things more clearly. Wear and tear is evident in some scenes but the DVD still manages to look fresh despite the little film dirt.

Audio

The Dolby Digital 5.1 Tamil track is actually 1ch Mono. Only the centre channel is active with dialogues and music. Since the film was produced in mono, the disc provides us with the original soundtrack intact. The dialogues are clear but the music was recorded at an extremely low volume and therefore at times is inaudible. I suspect the poor ADR work that is still predominated in Tamil mono recorded films.

Features

Another bones disc from Ayngaran, this DVD only features moving menus that are average and of easy navigation. Optional English subtitles are also provided but the grammar and translation used is poor. Ayngaran must use another translator who actually understands English as well as Tamil as since the viewing experience suffers when English Subtitles is used.

Conclusion

This film is a wonderful experience and I insist you purchase this disc if you want to enjoy an intelligent and entertaining Indian film.