Bharathiraja’s cup of tea has always been nativity and portraying the beauty of rural regions. He is also considered a master in the two. After failing in his last two attempts , Bomalatam and Kangalal kaidhu sei which were urban subjects, he is again back to his stronghold which is rural subject. But has he hit the bulls eye? Lets see.
Annakodi and her mother are in midst of debt and they owe money to the landlord of the village. She lives a happy life and falls In love with kodiveeran a guy from her neighboring village. But fate has it that her mom dies and she ends up marrying Sadayan the impotent son of the landlords. He tortures Annakodi for his shortcomings. How annakodi escapes from his clutches and joins Kodiveeran forms the rest of the story.
The story and screenplay from the six time national award winner bharathiraja is a huge letdown. The screen play is poorly written and the scenes lack punch. The depth required to lift emotional scenes are missing completely. There seems to be a slight tinge of vulgarity in the story which looks to have been added for commercial reasons and has nothing to do with the story sadly. Clearly bharathiraja looks to have lost his touch.
The so called lead of the movie Lakshman Narayan gives an outright bad performance. Be it love , pain or agony his face is just the same. a forgetful debut definitely. karthika as Annakodi has done a very good job. She has been bold and has shed her star status and has done what’s required in a rural subject like this. The guts in doing a bareback scene is commendable. Manoj as the antagonist does a good performance. He holds the movie together with a good show.
On the technical side too this movie is a let down. Cinematographer Sahadevan has failed to capture the beauty of rural parts and tone of the movie is dull. Editing by pazahnivel is amateurish. There is no flow in the movie sequence. The music by GV Prakash reminds of certain other films like kumki. Certainly he hasn’t taken this movie seriously.
Bharathiraja seems to lost in time. He has stayed in the nineties and a movie like Annakodi would have definitely done well only in that period.
After the movie, One starts to wonder if It is time for a filmmaker of his class to hangup his boots actually.
Annakodi 1.5/5 below par effort.
