 Your mom has slanted a little bit. What'd you say? Your mom has slanted a little bit. Say it again. Your mom has slanted a little bit. Hi to our stupid directors of Corbin. I'm Ricardo Montelban. Falsan, Instagram. Instagram. Sanctum. Today we're doing a movie review. The abejas of the 1977, say what? Talmud film, and I've seen a couple of names for this. The IMDB has it as, say, IMDB, which is wrong often. I think it's actually 16. It's translated to at age 16. And I think in Damo, it's 16, Vayetaneli, and I don't know that that's pronounced correctly. It's called Patinaru, Vayetaneli. You know the movie. Yeah, a couple of different names. But it's a 1970, obviously we're still in classic month. So it's a 1977 Damo film, directed by, you wanna say his name for me? Forgive the mispronunciation. It is Baratiraja. And he also wrote it. Correct. With somebody else as well. And produced by S.A. Rajkanu. Composed by Rajasar. And then starting just three. Three lesser known talents globally, and especially in India. Well, I mean technically at the time. At the time. I mean, Kamal Hassan, he was making his way. People knew him at that time. Can you imagine though, if like, at their peak, if they all, I mean maybe they did it and I'm just, I don't know. But like at their peak, they were like, we're gonna have a film with Sri Devi Kamal Hassan and Rajanakant. It's how special like to have like a film with all these stars almost at the very beginnings. At the very beginnings, really. They're careers. Very much so. I'm not saying it's their first, but it's towards the beginning of, well, he wasn't superstar yet. No, he wasn't. She wasn't known at just Sri Devi. She, I mean, she been acting for years, but, and this is to my knowledge, Rajanakant's first color endeavor. That's what hit the history and trivia side. Oh really? That's how it was. It is really, and Kamal Hassan got paid like 10 times as much because he was a more up and coming known star than Rajanakant. Anyways, but yes, it's 100% spoiler review came out in 1977, you have them, watch it, go watch it. We saw it on Eros now. I think it's on YouTube as well. Our version wasn't the most clear version, but it's the clearest version with subtitles I was able to find. But it's a classic, so it's one of those things. Unless it was like restored, it's gonna happen a lot unfortunately. Yeah, it's interesting because the movies we saw prior, which are 20 years that senior, were better quality because they're restored. So it's not fair, it's not really fair. But anyways, break your initial thoughts, please. So initial thought paragraph, looks like I'm gonna be doing paragraphs all the time now, unless I have nothing nice to say. So if I've got a paragraph, I wonder where I'm going. Have you ever done a paragraph and you didn't like it? I can't remember. I have to, it would have to be something that I passionately detest, like boyhood or something, you know, for me to go that long. Otherwise I'm not gonna say anything. Anyway, this was the big question for us. Would a movie starring Shredevi, Kamal Hassan, and Rajdekanth live up to the hype? The next question is this. Question. Question. Can that same movie have choppy editing transitions, lighting issues during both day and night scenes, sound mixing and matching failures, and still live up to the hype? Yep. At age 16, for lack of a better name to call it, it may be one of the most flawed films I've ever really liked. And before you start ripping on me in the comments for calling it flawed, hear me out and stay with me for the remainder of this review, because I'm sure Corbin's gonna agree that for whatever this film lacks in technical excellence, it makes up for and sheer artistic heart by a long shot, as well as the wonderful performances by our three big names and a creative team daring and bold enough to do something at a time that was considered by many business people in the industry to be absolutely crazy. Well, thank God for the crazies who care more about this art form than they do the concerns of the business people in it. I liked it a lot. I really liked it a lot. I did as well. This film, especially the performances and the overall story. The story and the acting of our three are it. And it's very possible some of the stuff that we're talking about might be because it's so old and deteriorated, the copy. So some of that, but obviously there were some choppy edits and lighting stuff. And I'm sure the budget for this thing was real, real small. I looked it up. Was it small? It was in modern day times for rates of inflation and everything else. It would be comparable to making a feature film for $160,000. Oh my God. Which is bad. In case you don't know what the, that doesn't happen. Like, okay, so like an independent film here for like a low, low budget. I'm not talking, I'm talking like, so for example, everybody I think is familiar with Alec Baldwin's film that he was doing called Rust. That budget for that feature film with one name actor in it was $5 million. Yeah. And so you can have one that doesn't really have a big name. Million is- One million. It's usually like the bare minimum. About a million, anything under a million dollars. You're like, wow, that was really, really cheap. Plays, guys. Like I did a play here in LA. The budget for just doing a play here that was low level was in the six figures. So yeah, obviously there's a lot you can forgive because you know, for one for the time that it was and the amount of money that they had. Because obviously these people, like I said, they weren't, Kamal Hassan was the most known at the time. But he wasn't the Kamal Hassan that we know today of the echelon of like people that we know today, right? Right. But I thought they all did, especially Kamal Hassan. I thought Kamal did a, this might be my favorite performance of his because it can go so wrong in so many different ways playing a character like this. If you don't have an actor who knows what they're doing, it can become kind of almost distasteful. Absolutely. It could be. And once again, the story as well overall. And I also want to say, obviously, she's a 16 year old girl and there's older men kind of thing. So obviously the overall problematic nature of it, I understand. I just want to point it out. I'm not holding it against it because obviously it happened in Hollywood too where you have younger people and there's like, they shouldn't really be getting in these relationships or these scenarios and she's 16. But I just want to point that out. This film would not be made now. You wouldn't have a 16 year old trying to get into a relationship with a 30 year old. No, unless, I mean, because I know that this was very renowned and still is as a cult classic for many things, including the fact that it's depicting realistically what for the time was rural life. So if this was normative for rural life at the time. Yeah. I just want to point that out. I'm not holding it against it or anything like that. But obviously that's a problematic thing that would happen in this film. Played by a 14 year old. Played by a 14 year old, exactly. Yeah. But anyways, let's just dive into it. There was a lot in terms of like, I loved all the acting. I love a lot of the directing. I love the story and I love the score. I did too. Rajasar knocked this one out of the park. Yeah. It's a shame that it couldn't have been restored as well as it was for like my bizarre where the music was just so clear but you can still hear the greatness of the score and the songs. And the songs and the overall just tone like the background music of the overall thing. I thought he did a really, really, really good job. Me too. But let's talk about our performers. I think in my opinion, obviously the one that could stick out the most was probably Kamal Hassan. But he had the most challenging role. Yeah. And then when I say like, there's probably my favorites because this is the most challenging role at least that I've seen so far. And he's had some really good roles obviously and hey, Ram, and what was the most recent one we saw? That's the one that I loved so much where we saw, where we said to everybody, okay, yeah, we see it, we understand. It wasn't the one with Mohanlal, right? He wasn't in that one, right? I don't think so. I don't have the list. Anyways, but obviously he's had some really great performances but this one was a one that was especially for so early on in his career such a daring role to take on. Yeah. So this guy, they never kind of fully disclose exactly what he has, but he has some sort of mental disorder. Right. Of some sort of high functioning mental disorder, I'd say. But it can come off like what was the famous one like I Am Sam or something like that? Yeah, with Sean Penn. Yeah. And there's like other ones, like it was Tropic Thunder was making fun of them. The main guy who went full whatever, right? And so that's a risk you can take in a film like this, Forest Gump, if he didn't do it correctly. Yeah. He could have come like a mere con when he's about to do his thing. It can come across really bad. Right. And in poor taste. Yep. If it's not done by somebody who is authentically playing this character and I thought he did a phenomenal, phenomenal job. I agree. In not only carrying his mannerisms but in his vocal pattern that he went with but also in that one scene when he was crying to Shri Devi, I thought that was his strongest moment in the entire thing. I agree. And I felt he was strong throughout. I think every decision he made seemed organic and natural. And it's a testament. The film as a whole, there's so much we can say about every aspect of this film being really rogue for what was going on in Indian film, any industry. And we already had heard this about Kamal Hassan but this is proof positive of the fact that that's why I said what I did in the paragraph that this was about artists caring more about the art form than they did about anything else because even the producer of the film I read couldn't get distribution because everybody said this is too experimental, this is too weird, no one's gonna like it. And so the producer just paid for distribution out of his own pocket, just distributed it, no distributor, just done by that producer because he believed in it. And Kamal Hassan was doing something that would be considered career suicide at the time because he had already established himself as a hero type. And now here he was going off into this weird quirky film that's the first time a Tamil film's been filmed predominantly outside, no sets, low budget. What are you doing? And for him it was love the story, love the role which actors, that's pretty much all you need right there is whom I'm working with, what are we saying and why we're saying it and am I gonna love portraying the character or everything else and get in the way. And what everybody said about him, I'm starting to see full force in terms of he pushed the mold very early on and doing different things, not only film-wise, but acting-wise and all that. And we are on I think maybe three or four films in to him? Yeah, very shortly. No, and it seems like he was doing things in 1977 that the majority of other actors in India didn't start doing until 2007. He was that far ahead in terms of I'm just going to be focused on what I can do with this art form as an actor who's interested in character and story. And that's probably my favorite thing, like you said at the outset, is that this is just such great character just telling a really interesting story. Let's talk about Shredemi. This is our first South film with Shredemi. Yeah. It was obviously where she started in the South industry. And this is her big, I mean she'd been acting for years, she did, I looked on IMBB, it said she did seven things that year in 1977, but this was the one that was like, and I've heard all three of them say that this is a really important film in all of their cinematic histories that catapulted them. And I couldn't believe she was 14. I genuinely couldn't believe she was 14. It's crazy what industries did with young people back in the day. Yeah, they happened in Hollywood too. There was people that were way too young for the roles that they were doing. Jody Foster, a taxi driver, everybody lost their mind that she played a street prostitute in this R-rated film that she herself couldn't have gone and seen because she was, I think, 14 or 15. Yeah, stuff that would not happen now at all because there's some questionable stuff about it, but it's like 18 to look younger, folks. Yeah, 18 to look younger when you're doing adult content. That's what industries are, especially back in the day, Hollywood and obviously Indian industries, they just wanted to get the right person and the person that looked apart. And they were just like, hey, you're gonna have to put up with this stuff. Somebody's gonna try to rape you there at the end. You're okay with that, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's like one of those things. Well, she did a phenomenal job for 14. Once again, we are also very early on in her career outside of obviously all the songs we've seen and we know of her. Yeah, she's got almost 300 films. But yeah, this is her first South film that we've seen of hers and her earliest and her career that we've seen. Right, this was way before Mother India, right? Way before. Not Mother India. Not Mother India. Mr. India. Mr. India. Yeah, this was before Mr. India. I think. But yeah, I thought she had a really strong performance in her good chemistry with Kamal Hassan. Agreed. And once again, hats off to the writing of this film because I thought she did a really good job. Not only did Kamal do in that crying scene, I thought she did. She did well in that exact scene. That was probably my favorite scene was the two of them at that moment because they were both really good. And so yeah, this is one of my favorite performances of hers. Langer said, is this four films of hers? Because we saw, first one we ever saw was English, English. And then we saw Mom. Mom. And then Mr. India. Mr. India. And then this. This is this, yeah. Which is crazy. I feel like we've seen way more of Shri Defi. We have because we saw songs and then when we first, the first year of the channel, we were given like a 10 minute, eight minute compilation video of some of her most legendary things that gave us the whole panorama that she was everything. Comedy, drama, musical, horror. She could do it all. And so the third one, superstar Raj Nakanta, even though he wasn't superstar at this time. I liked him a lot. I feel like I wish he was actually written in a little more. Cause I feel like that was probably the biggest drawback of the writing. I was like barely supporting. Yeah, I was hoping he was gonna be a little more involved with everything. Maybe like then just like, you know, Kamal Hassan's character meeting him at the market every once in a while. And then obviously he did a phenomenal job at the end. I thought it was once again, it would surprise me if this wasn't like considered like career suicide for just like Kamal Hassan of playing a villain, raping a- Oh my goodness. Girl. At the end. Yeah. I mean that's at the time for India. At the time, if you're an actor establishing yourself and this does well, then you're gonna be known as the guy that rapes your Debbie. Yeah. Yeah. And so I thought he did a really good job. I was like, I wish he was written in more throughout the film. But the last scene, I thought he did a really good job. And when we saw that video about Rajnikanth, you can see him starting as a villain. I bet, I don't know if this was the first one, but I bet this was in that line of films. He plays a great villain in his younger days. And there were moments you could see that were so fun to watch because it was just the people, the craft where there was the edit away. This is all surrounding her spitting in the face. So there's all of those edits where you knew we were already in a position where, forgive me for the mispronunciation again of Bahra Thiraja, our writer-director, clearly everybody knew when they were filming, okay, I'm gonna do a flashback to the spit and then cut back to you as it's triggering you. And so I need to see you get triggered. And he had to do that a couple of times and make us believe that he was getting triggered and then the edit was put in there. I read that they did several takes on the spit and it was Rajnikanth who said, this isn't working, she really needs to spit in my face. Good job, Rajnikanth. Exactly. Good job. And so that spit in the face is legit full mouth spittle from Shrudevianna's face. You know, it's so gross. It's so gross, but that's what you need. Thank you. And that's what a great actor will do is say, we need that for the believability. I really need you to spit in my face. Not only for her, but for Rajnikanth, obviously, to get the reaction. It's a big moment. Another funny part I thought with some of the, even though some of the editing was choppy, one of my favorite parts. I know what you're gonna say. When he slapped him, right? Yep. They went to all these different people and then the dog. They laughed out loud. So did I. Freaking, I loved that they went to the dog. And he's shocked, and he's shocked, shocked dog. I love that. One of my favorite moments of film. I thought they did a really good job. And then, I mean, there's a lot of my favorite parts, but I think the overall thing that I was most impressed with was probably just the writing for a film that came out in 1977, probably written in 1975, 1976, or something like that. Depicting this story of obviously this village girl with this mentally handicapped, I don't know. I actually lost how they were actually kind of related. She was the biological daughter of the mom. The mom. He was adopted. Adopted. They grew up in the same home, and that's why, though they're basically kind of brother and sister, it's kind of okay, because they're not biologically related to each other, that he's in love with her. But yeah, obviously that whole relationship, everything that goes on with the doctor who, I thought it was good writing because I was like, oh, she's gonna be in a relationship with this guy. I liked it. And then obviously he turned out to be this evil monster who was trying to be all sweet. And then when she says no, he's like, okay, I'm gonna take it anyway. And then decides to be a real dick. Obviously when he's leaving, he's like, I just liked you because you were 16. Yeah, so it was like this great writing of this, ooh, ooh, ooh, what's going on? And then obviously it progresses into obviously a love story between Rajgatan and the end, you're like Raj Nakanta is trying to rape Shredevi. And then obviously I'm like, at the end, what can they both just say that he was trying to rape? He was defending her. Steph was like, I'm sure in the village at that time, it doesn't really matter. I guess. But yeah, I was surprised, like why are they arresting him? He stopped the bad guy from raping her. And there's two witnesses. Yeah, and so you guys, I mean, I just talked it up to, it's like a rural village in that time in India. All they know is that this fool killed this guy. Yeah, I guess. Maybe she didn't want to say that she was either raped or attempted to be raped. Right, because of the shame she would have had. I don't know. I don't know. I was just, I was confused by that part. I was confused. I was like, really? Yeah. In America, what would happen is, okay, you have two witnesses, this guy was raping, you're self-defense. And that would be America of 1977. Yeah, yeah. But again, it's probably a regional thing. It could be whatever. Anyways, I just wanted to point that out, but yeah. The overall writing of it was very mature. Very mature and very interesting to notice. It's one of those things where you shouldn't judge things as often as you can with your modern mindset from stuff in the past, because if this film was made today, you'd be like, oh yeah, cool. Yeah. But when you look at it for the day, this was a rural, the million woman, educated. Read, write, right? That's revolutionary alone right there to say that, because we remember from that last video we did about the history of literacy and everything, that what was the percentage of women back in that day and age that could actually read and got as far as she did in school, then she's empowered to be this woman who is the preeminent person in the village and has strength and doesn't need a man and pretty revolutionary. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so once again, I wanted to speak to Rajesser. I think he had a great score. This is one of my favorite, like I think we reacted to one song. I think it was the end actually. Was it? They just didn't have a multiple time, but I think the one we reacted to, I don't know if it ever made it to the channel if it got blocked, I don't know, but I think we reacted to that one song at the end when they did the full thing. I also thought you'd appreciate not just the way it had that climax of the rape sequence, but the way it ended with the blood splatter on it. I love that. When it happened, I was like, oh no! I wasn't expecting that. Both of them were just shocked and then he cries and then I was actually hoping it would end there. Me too. Like a hug and then credits. Or even that, it doesn't have to be a hug, just like he's devastated, ends. But then it went to the call, he got arrested. But sweetly. But it ended the way it started and I liked that as well because it started with the train. And so I thought that was nice. And her sweetly saying, I'll wait for you, I'll wait for you. How do you say it's still Indian cinema and so obviously they wanna have that overall welling theme of love. I'm looking at my notes to see if there's anything else and we're not. Oh, I'm glad I looked. So there's like two slow motion moments. Oh and they were actually moving slow. Cause they couldn't afford slow mo. So they're actually that clapping moment with Shri Devri and Kamal Hassan, they're both going, yep, yep. When I saw it I was like, that's not actually slow mo. That is them moving in slow motion. Them giving a slow mo because they can't afford slow motion. You have to love that. Movie magic. Yes. It's like we're gonna have slow motion. It's one of those things about, okay, you don't have the budget to get done what you need to get done. Do it anyway. Make it happen. So we don't have slow mo. So you're gonna make slow mo happen like this. That's why they used it up. How are we gonna make the boat look like it's in the ocean? It's gonna sink. Well, we're just gonna get a tub of water when we put this little boat and we're gonna film it and we're gonna just drop a rock next to it. And we're gonna put in a big sound effect. Yep. I love it. Yep. But yeah, overall, I thought it was a really, really good film. Definitely worth a watch if you've never seen it, especially for our three stars and the overall story of it. Great classic. Definitely, definitely worth a watch. And I think it was, I don't know, is it our oldest Tamil classic? Oh, it may be. Is it older than Irovar and all those? Okay, so Irovar is the most recent one. That was Tamil. I don't remember the year. Regardless, I think it's, maybe I'm forgetting one, because I don't think we watched the Tamil classic last time for classic one. Okay. Man, I wouldn't remember. Because I think we only watched the Telugu one. But nice bow, I mean, if you all look and see, it hasn't been one region repeated yet in the classics. Not yet. Yeah. Not yet. But anyways, so yeah, let us know what you think about this film, which will be the next Tamil film, whether it's modern, classic, whatever. And for our three stars, I would like to see more of all of them. Especially in their younger classic days. Sridavi superstar and then Kamal Hasan. I'm very excited to see more of them. Living up to the hype. Yeah, let us know what the next classic we should be is down below.