A Scene From Gautham Menon’s Yennai Arindhaal | PS Arjun

Sometimes certain scenes from a movie stands out and stands higher than the movie itself. Such scenes or shots give the rest of the film so much weight.

The ending of ‘The Usual Suspects’ is what makes the movie great. Same way – the meeting at the Ladies Garden Club in ‘The Manchurian Candidate’. I have seen the ending railway station scene of Moondram Pirai/Sadma, a hundred times more than the movie on the whole. I never tried to watch the whole movie after the first time. There are many such scenes. Who can forget that ‘Rudrum‘ in The Shining or the ending scene of the ‘fat prisoner’ in The Shawshank Redemption! My favourite is from ‘Babel’ – the club scene with the deaf girl trying to dance to the music she can’t hear. Awesome. Such memorable scenes takes the movie to a greater level.

Remember: In Elia Kazan’s ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ when Harold reveals whatever he knows about her to Blanche DuBois, and keeps her face under the wall-light to see her face!. How can we forget the last memory sequences in ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ or the restaurant scene with the two leads eating in ‘In the Mood for Love’.

Among the movies released recently one scene from Pa. Ranjith’s Madras and one scene from Gautham Menon’s Yennai Arindhaal impressed me too much. If the interval block of ‘Madras’ was memorable for the tension it created, ‘Yennai Arindhaal‘ scene touched me emotionally.

I felt to write about this since the day I saw ‘Yennai Arindhaal‘. The movie satisfied me as an Ajith film and not as a Gautham Vasudev Menon product. Anyway there are couple of scenes which stand out. Gautham Menon is one director who is an expert in romantic and emotional scenes. Right from his Minnale to Yennai Arindhaal. This particular scene (screenshots attached) touched me a lot.

Scene: Sathyadev (Ajith) is in his vehicle – Tension, he must find his daughter in no time -> A phone call from the villain -> Tension shifts to anger -> Villain reveals about Hemanika -> Anger shifts to silence and with no reaction Sathyadev (Ajith) walks out of the vehicle – bgm – immediately comes the voice over of him -> Tears.

The way Gautham Menon presented this scene is top class. Especially the silence to voice over. The classy shot continues till Sathyadev (Ajith) asks for forgivness (to Hemanika). Pure genius. Perfect. This scene left me speechless.

Few year back, somewhere in 2005, I was in Chennai, working with a Call-Centre near to Ambattur. It was a Friday night, around 8’o clock. I was in a Share Auto. A bike with a couple struck by a bus. I saw them, a split second after the accident. The lady (somewhere around 23-25) was laying near the huge back tyre. I didn’t see any blood but her face looked so scary, everything out of order. My Auto driver said ‘She is gone’. I would have forgotten this but before leaving the spot I saw the reaction of the man who was with the lady. Holy God. He was standing, moving around with his hands on his head. No tears. No shouting. But I saw the pain. That face is unforgettable. It is still in my mind. Just few seconds. A man’s life changed.