Mundasupatti Movie Review

Cast : Vishnu Vishal, Nandita, Kaali Venkat, Ramadas, Anand Raj & Others. 

Cinematography : PV Shankar

Music : Sean Roldan

Editing : Leo John Paul 

Art : Gopi Anand

Written & Directed by : Ram Kumar

Produced by : Fox Star Studios & Thirukumaran Entertainment 

Release Date : 13-06-2014 

Run Time : 02:26:00

It’s only natural to expect Mundasupatti to be good for a number of reasons – It is a CV Kumar product, debutant director Ram Kumar belongs to the talented pool of budding and passionate young filmmakers of Naalaya Iyakkunar, and Fox Star Studios has an uncanny sense of choosing projects.

Mundasupatti is basically a madcap retro comedy drama film based on the same-titled short film directed by Ram Kumar. The film begins by turning the clock back to 1947 where an Englishman brings a camera to a village called Mundasupatti for the first time. Upon this time, an epidemic outbreak leaves few people dead and they also appear to be the people who are first photographed by the Englishman. The villagers mistake this happenstance and start thinking that people die if they are photographed and develop a hatred for photographers. They frighten and panic whenever they see a camera. Cut to 1982, Mundasupatti is still immersed in the archaic traditions and dis-beliefs.

Vishnu owns a studio and it’s called Hollywood Studio. Kaali (who played the main role in the short film) plays his sidekick. Vishnu and Nandita meet for the first time in the story and yes, you guessed that right. Love at first-sight. As archaic as the customs being followed by the Mundasupatti people. There’s something fundamentally wrong with the way love portions are being conceived by the writers in Tamil cinema of late. Highly underwhelming, so dispassionate and yet the director wants us to invest in their ‘love story’ and worse, moves the story to the next level with a lot of underwhelming sub-plots to provide some leverage to the main plot.

The comic scenes in the film are written well and work in parts. Ram Kumar thrives on light-hearted comedy and he succeeds at that, but only to an extent. One feels that Ram might have utilized the crux of the story-line well for the narration instead of a series of unstimulating sub-plots which never seem to gel with the story. If he had busted the myths of the villagers in his narration, something Varuthapadatha Vaalibar Sangam did with a zany sense of humor, the story might have taken a different shape altogether.

Nandita’s performance is tidy and clearly justifies her ‘theater artist’ tag. Sean Roldan, the music composer is the real hero of the film. A top-notch background score but his violins work mostly when the director focuses on Nandita.

Overall, Mundasupatti is an under-cooked drama that thrives on Sean Roldan’s superior background score and some good performances from the cast. Though not a full-fledged laugh riot, it surely is an amusing visit.

Mundasupatti Movie Review Rating: 3/5