The Crying Game

It is pretty amazing that movies are capable of evoking such strong emotions in us. Even as we watch a movie, we know in the back of our minds that the people we are seeing onscreen are working off a script and earning far more than we ever will. We know that every scene we are watching was created after several takes as they struggled to get it right and that once the scene ended, the actors simply wiped off the greasepaint and went about their own lives. But we still become caught up in the lives of these strangers, laughing at their jokes and sharing their sorrows as though we’ve known them all our lives.

Out of those two emotions, happiness and sorrow, the latter is definitely the more surprising one. Laughing at a stranger’s jokes is natural. We laugh at anything that’s funny and it doesn’t matter who’s saying the jokes. But sympathizing with characters who we know to be unreal and who we’ve seen for barely a couple of hours, to the point of shedding tears for them, is really surprising.

While I don’t think I’ve ever cried at a Tamil movie, I have had wet eyes during a few of them. Surprisingly, very few sad or tragic scenes have made me teary-eyed. I think that’s because our directors make it very obvious that they are aiming for our tear ducts. Sentiments are overblown and dwelt upon until the scene’s effectiveness is diluted or completely lost. Ofcourse there have been movies that handled tragedy with grace and subtlety. I remember scenes in Anjali, Idhayathai Thirudaathey, Rhythm, Kutti and a few other movies that were incredibly touching.

On the other hand, I’ve found that happy scenes have the power to make me tear up (I guess these would be tears of happiness or aanandha kanneer!). Scenes that portray genuine affection touch a chord somewhere inside me. The scene where Shoba runs back to Rajni’s side in the climax of Mullum Malarum invariably makes me tear up. And a more recent example would the entire segment where Rajkiran and Saranya enjoy the sunset years of their life in Thavamaai Thavamirundhu. As I said in my review, “I watched the segment with a tear in my eye and a smile on my lips”.

That’s not the case with my wife though. The floodgates are almost always ready to be opened in her eyes. There have been many instances (the climax of Dishyum being a recent case in point) where I would be complaining about the silliness of the scene, only to turn around and find her red-eyed and sobbing uncontrollably. How the same woman can then heartlessly deny my requests for the next electronic gadget is, I guess, one of the great mysteries of life!