PS1: Mani Ratnam’s Movie Adaptation Of A Tamil Classic Breaks Box-Office Records

On a cold, windswept wintry day from Gurgaon (now Gurugram in Haryana) Maruti Suzuki rolled out its first model of the 796cc motor vehicle later tagged as the ‘people’s car’. That day in December 1983 fuelled the aspirations of a million middle class dreams to own a car with pride, that too from an Indo-Japanese venture. Across the Vindhyas, a certain Mani Ratnam had already set flight to his dreams in January that year with his debut ‘Pallavi Anu Pallavi’ in Kannada starring a fledgling Anil Kapoor. Needless to mention, it was tough going for both. Maruti Motors launched in 1971 to bring out indigenously manufactured cars closed shop in 1977 before being revived to enter a successful partnership with Japan’s Suzuki. And Ratnam literally kept his management and engineering skills tightly fastened in his backpack as he went about fighting all odds to make his first foray as a film director. After nearly four decades, Maruti Suzuki is the largest car manufacturer in the country with around 40% market share and turning out over a lakh units every month, and Ratnam after 27 films is one-of-a-kind auteur filmmaker whose films are looked forward to by pan-Indian film audiences with bated breath.

Forever Mani But, Money Also Matters

Now, with a spellbinding eponymous adaptation of Kalki Krishnamurthy’s 1955 classic novel Ponniyin Selvan (The Son of Ponni) or (PS1), the master director is rewriting a clutch of box-office records both in India and abroad. Produced jointly by his own Madras Talkies along with Lyca Productions (a total production cost of about Rs 500 crore (approx.) for PS1 and PS2), the historical/fiction take is conceived in two parts as it chronicles the story of the grand Chola Empire of South India. The phenomenal success of PS1 is a shot in the arm for Ratnam whose films lately have not performed that well at the box office. Even film critics had a field day panning his Kadal (Sea) (2013), O Kadhal Kanmani (O Love, Apple of my Eye) (2015) and Kaatru Veliyidai (Amidst the Wind) (2017), most of which did not set the cash registers ringing. Almost all his films were box office winners up to mid 2000s; however, his success rate began to taper off since. Although Ratnam’s last release in 2018 ‘Chekka Chivantha Vaanam’ (Crimson Red Sky) did perform reasonably well at the Tamil Nadu box office (worldwide gross of over Rs. 90 crore approx.), it was always his pet obsession to bring Kalki’s literary opus onto the screen. There were two aborted attempts, one by MG Ramachandran, the thespian and politician, in 1955; and one by Ratnam himself in 2012 that did not take off due to the astounding scale that was needed, accentuated by the huge costs involved in capturing the epic saga on screen. With the worldwide success of PS1, the man with the Midas touch is back tingling the taste buds of cinephiles. That too with a historical period film a genre Ratnam has ventured into for the first time.

A History Lesson, From The Heart

Ponni is the other name for river Cauvery in the novel, a poignant character witness to the tales of power, intrigue and caprice that are played out by kings, chieftains, royal women, and vassals woven with stealth and a lot of daring. The casting for PS1 did not set the film trade on fire as it did not have any big names that currently rule the roost in the Tamil film industry. While Mani Ratnam has worked with almost all the greats of the industry, his proclivity for choosing the right cast for his stories is unmatched. For PS1, he ensured that the characters of the novel defined the actors who would portray them. It had Karthi and Jayam Ravi, two young stars hugely popular with their own fandom but never close to the superstar aura of a Rajnikanth, Suriya, Vijay or Ajit, all box office legends. Vikram, Trisha, and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan play the other key characters, the former a leading hero who had freshly delivered a box office dud in ‘Cobra’ two weeks prior. And pray who remembers Aishwarya Rai’s last movie outing? The movie opened to positive reviews and even better word of mouth as days progressed. This increasingly led to large family audiences herded together by family elders to throng the cinemas by the dozen. The gigantic footfalls were also aided by the moderately priced cinema tickets, especially in South India as compared to the prohibitive costs up north. By the end of its first week run, Mani Ratnam and the Cholas were galloping along neatly bestride their horses with no opposition in sight till Diwali when new Tamil releases are slated to open.

A Battlefield Of Pulverized Records

Sample the records the Mani Ratnam film has broken up to now. It is on its way to become all-time Tamil film industry hit—the biggest blockbuster from there; the fastest Rs 100-crore grosser in Tamil Nadu; a worldwide gross of over Rs 300 crore within six days of release; the second-highest grossing Tamil film in North America ($4.60 M) just behind the Rajnikant movie 2.0 that had collected $5.5 M there in 2018; down under in Australia it has crossed A$ 1.4 M; first Tamil film to cross Rs. 9 crore at the UK box office; the highest grossing Tamil film in Malaysia; it is slated to earn the title of the second highest grosser in Tamil Nadu behind Kamal Haasan’s ‘Vikram’ (2022) by the end of the coming weekend.

Moreover, PS1 released last week with the Bollywood biggie ‘Vikram Vedha’ which found the going tough despite having bankable stars, and received a lukewarm response at the box office.

A Masterclass In Storytelling

If one were to put all the above aside and just wonder about the audacity of it all. To live with the surging ambition to direct a cinematic version of Kalki’s literary magnum opus for decades and to be able to do it so magnificently, that too without even mimicking a strand from earlier epic blockbusters like ‘Baahubali’ or its sequel. To keep it real and immersive, propelling the viewers right into the action, not overdoing it with any VFX armory at his disposal, all delivered with the silken touch that Mani Ratnam is known for is no mean feat. The director is known for collaborating with the best technicians in the field on his projects. Credit, therefore, is due to Thota Tharani (production design), Ravi Varman (cinematography), AR Rahman (music), Sreekar Prasad (editor) and the writers who were able to transform his grand vision on to the screen. For some time now, Mani Ratnam has been raging against the machine. After his 2015 film ‘O Kadhal Kanmani’ released to a somewhat tepid response from both the audiences and the box office, Ratnam said that he found it both heart-breaking and horrifying to see movies being consumed on the small screens of mobile gadgets. Years later, he has had his sweet vengeance, a blockbuster of epic proportions that swells in its grandeur and magnitude that cannot be confined to the minutiae of a phone screen.

As Nandini (Aishwarya Rai) gazes at the empty throne in one of concluding scenes of PS1 overcome by a wave of emotions, for the cinephiles and audiences across the country there can be only one heir. A battle-weary emperor who wears his gilded crown lightly, seeking his next challenge as he wields the director’s baton with panache.

Anand Mathew is a social development consultant based in New Delhi and writes on films.

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of BQ Prime or its editorial team.