Anbe Sivam

A flight is cancelled and two passengers board the same bus. Anbarasu is young, works in advertising and is in a hurry; he dresses well, has an answer for everything and has to reach a wedding. Nallasivam is older; his face and body are badly scarred, he moves slowly and his manner is calm. The two have to share the same road and the journey stretches: the bus breaks down, the train is missed, a flood closes the way. They talk. Who Nallasivam is and why his face is as it is opens as the narrative proceeds. Sundar C directs. Kamal Haasan plays Nallasivam and Madhavan plays Anbarasu. The screenplay is by Kamal Haasan. The film failed at the box office on release; in later years it was reassessed through television and home viewing and became one of the most cited works in Tamil cinema. The matter it treats is belief and ideology; the two look at the world from entirely different places and the film listens to both. Nallasivam's past concerns the labour movement and the narrative builds that strand as directly political. Kamal Haasan's makeup and physical work are what the film is most talked about for. The humour continues along the road and sits in the same scene as the heavy subjects. Its limit is length; some sections run long and the last part slides into an emotional register. Who it is for: viewers who like Tamil cinema and narratives built on ideas. Who it is not for: it is long, the shifts of register abrupt, and the narrative states its message directly at times.