Bye Bye Comedy Tracks?

Its quite a coincidence but from around the time that I wrote the post comparing Tamil and Hindi cinema, there's been a marked improvement in the quality of Tamil films (increasing the coincidence is the fact that I haven't seen many good Hindi films during the same time period). It's not that there's been a string of masterpieces or classics but most of the movies since then have been 'watchable' - not a term you could use to describe a large percentage of the films released in the first 9 months of the year.

The films certainly have had variety. They have spanned many genres, have been helmed by both new and experienced directors and have featured fresh as well as familiar faces. So I've been trying to see if there's any one factor common to these recent movies that made them better than their predecessors and I came up with one - the lack of a separate comedy track. Among the last 10 movies or so that I've seen, only one (Kee. Mu.) featured a comedy track with Vadivelu. That's a remarkable track record considering our history of separate comedy tracks. We've had thrillers(Saroja, Alibaba), action movies(Dhaam Dhoom), youthful romances(Kaadhalil Vizhundhen), mature romances(Raman Thediya Seethai) and masala movies(Sathyam) but none of them saw the need to resort to a comedian trying to earn laughs in a track with no connection to the main track. Even the presence of a comedian(Vivek in Jayam Kondaan) did not automatically indicate a comedy track. And movies like Dhanam and Pandhayam, the worst among the recent bunch of movies, were bad for a number of reasons but a disconnected, episodic comedy track wasn't one of them.

Comedy tracks have been part of Tamil cinema for ages now. N.S.Krishnan, Nagesh, Koundamani-Senthil, Vivek and Vadivelu are some of the comedians whose independent comedy tracks have rescued many a movie. The comedy tracks in movies like Udhaya Geetham, Karagaattakkaaran, Winner, Run and Parthiban Kanavu are not likely to be forgotten any time soon and the movies were certainly the better for them.

The comedy tracks in the aforementioned movies gave an illusion of being part of the movie. By making Koundamani and Senthil part of the dance troupe in Karagaattakkaaran and by making Vivek look for Madhavan in Run and by making Vivek a counterpoint for Srikanth's mental image of a perfect marriage in Parthiban Kanavu, the directors made them a part of the story. We knew that they were there for comedy but they blended into the movie. But somewhere along the line comedy tracks began to be inserted forcefully simply for the sake of having a comedy track. Factors like the track's connection to the main storyline, it's effect on the overall tone of the movie and it's impact on the pace of the movie were disregarded, leading to silly comedy tracks in otherwise solid movies like Kannum Kannum. And slapstick and even violence began to be passed off as comedy as comedians got hit and kicked and punched. Naturally, the quality of the tracks suffered and they simply stopped being funny. I can't remember the last time that I really enjoyed a comedy track in a Tamil film.

In the Hindi Cinema vs Tamil Cinema post, I mentioned three things that have helped Hindi cinema race ahead of Tamil cinema in terms of quality - lack of image among heroes, elimination of the separate comedy track and elimination of unbelievable stunts. If the recent movies are any indication, we might be ready to adopt atleast one of those three things. If this is a permanent feature rather than just a temporary trend, its definitely a step in the right direction.