Of that which makes you smile...

There are moments when you watch some movies where your emotions simply overwhelm you and you feel one of the following: strangling the director/actor in question; laughing uproariously with the said director/actor; or very, very rarely, holding their hand, simply holding their hand for a second and thanking them for giving you such a wonderful moment.

I had not just one, but two such beautiful moments when I watched the movie Nerungi vaa, muthamidadhey (come closer, but don't kiss: usually a sign written on trucks)

The first was when the survivor of a gang rape says that you should live the life the way you want it and thats the only way to survive (it's not verbatim). The words or even the meaning is not what made it a moment for me, but the placement of it. It is not a moment that's bludgeoned on your head with its relevance: a neon sign crying "here is how you survive rape". Rather it's thrown beautifully in a random sequence, a small slice of real life in which two people affected by an incident talking about it in an offhand way. In a patriarchy entrenched industry which makes movies that are outright misogynistic, naturally every single movie made tells the importance of virtue over life to women. There are very few movies which talk about the women who have been raped as survivors and not as victims, this is definitely one of them.

The second and a much more important one: a group of friends take a fun trip and have a grand time - yes, I swear it was a moment. Why? Because the group is a mixture of boys and girls and no one is in love with each other, no one tries to seduce another...well, you get the picture. Please, I am not saying friends should not fall in love with each other, but God how many movies have those normal group of friends who just remain that without killing you with the importance of it? (The recent movie that I remember is Ko which handled this part quite well) This is not the first movie to handle this, just that there are a boy and a girl in this mix thrown into a difficult situation and they survive it without them falling for each other, oh thank you! This is immensely important because, after seeing about 20 movies, you actually start thinking that two people who are in a troubling deal always come out of it falling for the other (provided their sexual orientation lies that way, of course) - so, it is really nice to see otherwise.

Thank you, Lakshmi Ramakrishnan, for giving these!

P.S: This is a good movie, not great or outstanding but worth a watch.