Writing is not a piece of cake. Every writer has a problem in creating their characters and the character flaw or arc. Writing is not an easy job. Creating a male and female gaze from the writer’s point of view is not a simple work. They require a lot of focus. Expressing ideas and impressing people are two different things, they require hard work and practice. More important writing requires courage, expressing oneself to the world.
There is a giant list necessary for directing a movie. Before arranging them, everyone needs a story converted into a proper screenplay. They set the movie in the right phase. They include many things around them like excellent lyrics, impressive locations, a production team, finance and a lot.
We might have seen a lot of memes bashing Atlee for his movies. That is also writing. If we feel taking scenes or sequences from various films and adapting them into movies is easy. I will always say, take a paper, choose three movies, put them in an order, add hero and heroine gimmicks, mother and father sentiments and write a script. The life we are living is inspired, influenced or adapted from something. There is no concept called original or perfect. Everything is somewhere written.
Male gaze and female gaze are important in the world of cinema. This is a debate going on and on. Since women started to direct movies, they are called “female directors” instead of “Directors.” They are directors, they don’t want their gender in front of them. Women’s take on cinema is different from men, so they started to use it. Their cinema is a variety of topics bundled together to create the work.
The majority of popular “Masala” films are usually directed by men. Female roles in the filmmaking industry were solely restricted to acting, singing and dancing. However, recently women have stepped up and took the lead as successful directors, producing films mainly revolving around female issues within society. Films made by women were usually categorized as art films or films of parallel cinema. They drift away from the masala genre in order to produce authentic and life standing work. It often causes controversies and raises suspicion. The majority of female filmmakers in India try to change the film industry by bringing in real social issues, instead of mainstream masala movies.
Men have enjoyed mixing their views on their female characters like women writers took the liberty to work on their male character arc. They develop in such a way, sometimes, everyone falls in love with them. We have seen men writing women characters and their arc is well developed. Maniratnam’s few women characters end up loving arrogant men, GVM’s women are lover material in dream life, Selva’s women characters should be praised for their patience. We have seen a lot of women characters developed by men. Now we are seeing women writers sketching their characters. Many of them love women sketching male characters. There are a lot of conversations on that topic. Women directors have done justice by constructing the finest male characters in their movies.
Halitha Shameem’s Sillu Karuppatti, an anthology of four shorts, has human bonding as its connecting link. There’s love across ages and terrains, from a beach and department store to a garbage yard, and all the characters are enveloped in smiles, both bashful and overt. Among all the characters in this anthology, Mugilan is my favourite. He is a tech person and admin of a meme page. He shares a cab with Madhu in his day-to-day life. They connect in that journey. Shameem connects all the characters in the anthology. We can notice two children from Pink bag in the beginning and Madhu in Hey Ammu.
மது : hey..!
முகிலன் : how this is belong me..?
மது : ஏன்னா… I love you. I really do..❤️
முகிலன் : but, i have only one ball.
மது : பரவாயில்லை. உலகமே ஒரு உருண்டைலதானே இருக்கு. ரெண்டு தேவைப்படலை
Kaaka Kadi
Mugilan cries during their first ride. That turns breathless and asks to be dropped midway in the second. His looks on being defeated elevate. On their third meeting, he cries, so she steps down to help. She begins a conversation. Kaaka Kadi is all about unexpected cancer calls off the marriage of a youngster. He falls in love with a total stranger and the unconditional love that exists between them. ‘Kaaka Kadi’ was beautifully written and performed! So many taboo topics were discussed on a lighter note. Their dialogues were sketched brilliantly with a mix of humour and reality.
