Thiruda Thiruda

A Tamil film set in India. A train is robbed. It is carrying printed money belonging to the state; new notes, not yet in circulation. One man planned the robbery. He is caught but the money is not found. The case was hidden somewhere. From there the film is a search. There are two small-time thieves. Kadir and Azhagu; they do petty work and fall into the affair by chance. There is a girl as well. Chandralekha ran away as she was about to be married. The three meet on the same road. The police are after them. An inspector is running the file. And there are the real robbers. Their men are free and want the money back. The narrative moves the three groups at once. The journey goes north. Trains, buses, lorries and walking. There is a set piece at every stop. A wedding, a temple, a market, a mountain village. What the narrative is interested in is not money but movement: its idea is that the plot is a pretext and that the real matter is tempo, music and image. The narrative does not hide it. The characters have no depth and none is thought necessary. The music is by A. R. Rahman. The album was among the most discussed of its period. The song sequences carry a separate design inside the narrative. Colour, costume and setting change with each one. One was shot in a marsh, another at a mountain temple. P. C. Sreeram and Rajiv Menon shot it; two separate names worked on it. Mani Ratnam made this between his serious dramas and the tone is entirely different. It did not find the audience expected. It came to be remembered later for its music and images. Prashanth, Anand, Heera Rajgopal, Anu Aggarwal and S. P. Balasubrahmanyam are in the cast. Who it is for: anyone who likes Tamil cinema, A. R. Rahman, and fast adventure films. Who it is not for: anyone looking for story; the plot is inconsistent and the narrative does not care.