Marina (2012)

Country: India

Actors: Siva Karthikeyan, Oviya, ‘Pakoda’ Pandian, Sundararajan, ‘Jithan’ Mohan

Director: Pandiraj

This film has a documentary feel to it (in bits and pieces). The hero of the movie is the Marina Beach of Chennai, the second longest beach in the world. The movie is complete with the inhabitants of the beach – Beggars, love birds – illicit & otherwise, children hawking things, joggers, petrol thieves, singers & dancers and of course the police.

The movie opens with a young boy landing in Chennai to make his fortune. He lands up in the Marina Beach selling water packets. Then you see the boy making friends, friends with fellow hawkers, beggers, guys who rent horses and a guy who comes to the beach with his love interest. As the director documents the life and times of the people in the beach we are suddenly distracted as police comes in search of one of the boy hawkers. And then comes the usual trivialization of things that happens in Tamil movies – Why, what, how and all that.

You could dissect the movie into 5 segments – (1) The boy hawkers (2) The young couple in love (3) The old man / begger (4)The police men / trivialization (5) Others: Including the Postman, singer father & dancing daughter and the moral of the story. All but the policemen segment lend to the strength of the film.

The music is likable and is not on your face like a normal Tamil movie. For once, the background score plays an important part in a Tamil movie. The actors do well to live their parts without naming names every single actor have delivered a great performance. The script seems tight except for a while when it strays out with the police searching the young hawker episode.

This is what they call a “feel good” movie that delivers a powerful message against child labour in a way you wouldn’t even know what hit you.

Good work by Pandiraj and his team. Had the director clipped that trivial segment it would have made the film a bit tighter and shorter by a deserved 15 minutes (and may be a SuperWatch).

A good watch !!