Raavan
2010 · Directed by Mani Ratnam
Original language: Hindi
- action
- adventure
- crime
- drama
- romance
- thriller
The story
A bandit leader kidnaps the wife of the policeman who killed his sister, but later falls in love with her.
What it’s like
Raavan is a Mani Ratnam film built on hot, saturated color against deep green forest: sunlit ochres, blood reds and rain-dark jungle shot with a restless handheld camera that stays close to bodies in motion. Sound is layered with A.R. Rahman's score, drums and folk-flavored vocals that swell into dance numbers and then drop away to the hiss of insects and rushing water. The mood is feverish and mythic, a sweaty, operatic romance tangled with grief and rage, its pace swinging between languid sequences of longing and sudden, sharp bursts of action. Violence is frequent and firearm-driven, with shootouts, a stabbing and an ugly kidnapping that make it intense, though it is not gory. Emotional register runs high: a proud outlaw and a police officer's wife circling a bond neither can easily name, and a husband consumed by revenge. It suits a late evening with the lights low, and it rewards viewers who like melodrama played with real craft, who enjoy Indian cinema's song-and-spectacle style, and who can handle a story where love and vengeance feed each other.
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