Raavanan: A story told through the character colors. #10yearsforRaavanan
There are many movies made on the great epic Ramayana in Indian Cinema. In all those films the protagonist is treated as Ram and the antagonist is compared to Ravana. Even though we have seen hundreds of such films we never get bored as they show the winning of Good over the evil. But, in this film Raavanan directed by Mani Ratnam, starring Chiyaan Vikram, Aishwarya Rai and Prithvi Raj, the negative and positive shades in Ram, Raavan and Sita are explored. They’re not just explored but are shown to us with the help of colors. We will be going as per the story narration and we will analyze the colors used in the film( This kind of film analysis is what we felt by watching the film but not a textbook analysis of this film.)
So the story is about Veera(Vikram) kidnapping Ragini(Aishwarya Rai) to seek revenge on Dev(Prithvi Raj) a cop and also the husband of Ragini. He want to kill Ragini in 14 hours. But just when he is about to kill her, Ragini tells that she is not afraid of him and jumps off the cliff into a waterfall and somehow survives. But this impresses Veera. If we observe this scene Ragini is wearing a Yellow chudidhar. This shows that she is not afraid of Veera just like fire and she is also pure like fire. She has got no one other than her husband in her heart. This is the pure fire like nature of Ragini and it is beautifully showcased using the color Yellow.Moreover she looks like a fire in the midst of a huge forest. This also shows that she is going to be the wild fire which is going to destroy the forest( Veera in this case) even though she doesn’t want that to happen.
Since Veera is named as a terrorist, even though he has a strong reason for why he has kidnapped Ragini, he is still a person of grey shades in him. It is evident right from the beginning that he is not completely pure. So he is only presented in dark costumes, mostly black. But the moment she jumped from the cliff, Veera starts liking her bravery and this liking for Ragini is beautifully presented using colors.A person in Black stars liking the warmth and the heat of the fire. He recollects her jumping and then he smiles in the inside standing by the fire.
If there is any one person who is consistently maintaining shades of same color is Veera. Now coming to Dev. Right from the beginning he is either shown in police uniform or he is shown in lite colors like white, faded grey* indicating that he is a good person. He is a cop sincere to his duty and he is the one who wants to capture Veera.
But there comes a scene where Veera cuts the hand of a person who betrayed him in the past and wraps him up in Ragini’s Yellow chudidhar and Dev finds him. Here in this scene, instead of rescuing the victim, Dev squeees his injured area with the anger he has towards Veera. Here we see the dark shades of Dev coming out slowly and look at his costume below. No more lite colors.
Now coming back to Ragini. When she tries to escape from Veera, there is an intimate(almost) sequence between them and where Veera even though he gets a chance to go physical with her, he won’t even touch her. May be this is the point where Ragini understands the pure shades( Yes we mean it, pure shades) in Veera.After this Ragini starts realizing that Veera is not that bad and there might be a reason for why he is like this. But no! That’s not it. It is the Stockholm Syndrome. Unless Sita, she still loves Ram but she even starts realizing that this Ravana is not that bad.This is beautifully shown in her dress color. She is still the same fire, but she is a little low now. She is trying to blend with the darkness around her.
Meanwhile Dev is still trying to find Veera’s hideout. This time he don’t want Ragini anymore. All he needs is to revenge. He wants to kill Veera at any cost. He is filled with Rage. The jacket he is wearing is always brown, but the shirt he is wearing inside tells his mindset.
Now comes the big reveal for Ragini. Even though Veera is a terrorist( named as a terrorist) he is doing it for a cause. He is the man who started a rebellion for the oppressed. He revolted against the government, police and many more. But he chose the way of violence and those high people wants Dev to close his chapter. Veera only comes to the rescue of his people and also he comes to seek revenge for what happened to his people. But kidnapping Ragini is a different game altogether. His sister Vennila who gets raped by the police officials and she commits suicide. To avenge her Veera is onto this kidnapping drama.When she comes to know about Veera, comes a really beautifully shot sequence where Ragini stands in front of an idol and prays to the lord to give her strength to see bad as bad but not good. Which means even though she loves her husband, she somewhere knows Veera is not wrong.
Veera feels the same with Ragini. He loves her. He wanted to kill her, he wanted to kill Dev, but something changed him. But he is not completely changed. He still wants revenge and he still wants to teach a lesson to Dev. This is his unflinching character.
Now Veera sends his brother to sign a pact of peace. But Dev kills him. Generally as per the Ramayana, since Vibhishan is an ambassador and a man who seeks help, Ram accepts his truce and joins him in his troops. But this is the story of modern humans. It shows even Ram born in this age, he will have some grey shades in him. Dev kills Veera’s brother and his white shirt is completely covered with the buttons. His grey shades are now literally dominating his pure thoughts and principles.
To seek revenge for his brother, now Veera comes to fight with Dev. Now comes the brilliance of Maniratnam. We know Veera is a terrorist but he is a good man inside. We know Dev is an honest cop and he is in search of his wife. But We’ve witnessed the darkest shades in him as well. But what happened to the costumes? Just take a look at them in the pre-climax fight.
Mani Ratnam wants us to think now. He wants us to pick the sides. He wants us to think about the characters. We start analyse everything and we are in such a position that we cannot take sides! We feel empathy for Veera but at the same time, it’s the other cops who raped Vennila, not Dev. Dev is right in his own way. This kind of treatment is what we want. It is easy if the characters have a single shade in them. But here it is really difficult to deal such characters with both positive and negative shades and those two characters stand against each other.
After this fight sequence, Veera defeats Dev and saves him from dying. dev somehow manages to live and comes back to Ragini. Now the change is Dev is clearly visible. All he now has is Rage for Veera but not love for Ragini.
After that, Dev asks Ragini what Veera actually did to her. He doubts Ragini and he states that Veera spoke to him in a demeaning way about Ragini. This hurts her and she leaves Dev and now comes to Veera. When she inquires him about it, Veera says, “We’ve treated your wife as a Gold. We never laid hands on her. We never even touched her. We treated her with respect”. This removes every small doubt about Veera in her and she is as pure as a pearl. But Veera is still the same!
Then comes a Bang! Veera now doubts why Dev drooped himself to the lowest level. It’s not Ragini, but it’s Veera who knows Dev completely. He senses something is fishy and then realizes that it’s a trap by Dev to kill Veera. Now comes the entry of Dev with his troops. Now Dev is back to his duty. There is still good left in him, but when duty calls, that should over power your feelings and his white shirt with a brown jacket proves it again.
He shoots Veera to his death. Like we discussed earlier, Ragini is the fire used by Dev to kill Veera. When the wild fire rages in a forest, it burns it down and nothing will be left but a white, ash. Here Ragini’s white shows that and the downfall of the forest( Veera) is shown through him falling him into the valley.
Even though this film is not a huge roar at the box office, it still has got these many elements to analyze and discuss. This is Mani Ratnam for you. His films may fail but he never fails in surprising you, thrilling you. This time he does many things and telling the story through these colors is one among them. We might ask, do most of the audience understand these things? We don’t, but deep inside we feel those things and we connect to them and follow them in their journey.
That’s it for this article. We know we missed many more. Please mention them in the comments. Thank you for reading this article.
-Aditya Gangadhar