I wanted to write a blog on my favorite actress and one of the most evergreen actresses’ Tamil cinema has produced - ‘Revathy’. Now coming to a shelf life of an actress, this is how it works – Great debut movie attracting lot of attention, signup 1-2 movies where media projects as the next sensation, signup movies with Top actors merely running around the trees in the name of commercial entertainers, Signup Glamour roles due to industry trend, signup movies with top heroes of neighboring states and toggle between Chennai and Hyderabad, around this time they must have completed 5-6 years and act in once in a while heroine oriented role good enough to win filmfare award, around this time gossip mills are around that she is in love with a top actor and then slowly roles shy away from the actress since there is latest sensation from Mumbai or Kerala who is grabbing all the attention. You cannot really complain the actress because industry pushes you to make wrong decisions and there are lots of factors that play a role in how a career of an actress shapes up. I liked Simran for her role in ‘Parthen rasithen’, ‘Thullatha manamum Thullum’, ‘Kanethirae Thondrinaal’, ‘Kannathil Muthamittal’ but she has to rely on quite a lot of glamour roles before she got these roles. Jothika is fitted for bubbly roles and people are under the impression that she is acting in good roles off late but according to me she is acting in ‘Heroine dominated’ roles and not ‘Character driven’ roles. If you take ‘Kaatrin mozhi’ for example all the other characters have poor screen space and her role is prominent throughout with Vidarth hardly had any role to play, making villain of baadsha to give such a pathetic role in ‘Jackpot’ was ridiculous, ‘Ratchasi’ all the other characters hardly had any dialogues. If you take ‘Revathy’ she neither relied on glamorous roles nor big top heroes to climb up in her career. Her choice of scripts were great and her role always complemented the lead actor and am going to list some of her favorite roles below:
(a )Thaayamma in Kilaku vaasal: She had a great intro scene and in villages it was common for a village big shot to have a second wife not officially but still good enough for the public to know. As second wife she was brilliant and had to feel insecure with her life and to sign up for such a role in beginning of a career may sound alarm bells for an actress but not for Revathy since she performed with so much ease.
(b )Chitra in Anjali: Once again Mother of Three kids and she has to portray so many emotions – Suspect Husband for having an affair, show love and affection to husband for taking care of a special child, feel worried that special kid is not able to accept her love, deal with kids who feel ashamed and then teach them on empathy ..so on and so forth; Though it was Mani Ratnam the master craftsman on board to extract the talent I would give it for Actress Revathy who was absolutely brilliant.
(c )Dhivya in Mouvna Raagam: If you give me A4 size notebook I think I can write most of the dialogues in the movie. Though I have written quite a lot about the movie in my past blogs I don’t think I have written anything about Revathi character. Right from the mischievous teenager, lover girl with Karthik, Egoistic nature with Mohan everything was just too good. To pick a favorite scene is difficult one for me but the way she expresses her nature to Mohan when she sees him for the first time and to break her ego and publicly express love towards Mohan in the climax were absolutely top notch. Mouvna Raagam is one movie where First night is showed in the most dignified manner and Revathy’s body language to look timid was captured wonderfully in celluloid. Had google been invented in 1980’s then the term ‘Kambilipoochi’ would have been the most searched term. Sillunu oru Kadhal and Atlee’s Raja Rani were big time inspirations from Mouvna Raagam but a good movie becomes a classic only of how a woman’s role is written and Revathy was picture perfect as Dhivya and Mouvna Raagam will always hold a special place in my Film library.
(d ) Malini in Punnagai mannan: In Punnagai Mannan, Kamal lost his first love Rekha and to avoid depression gets into dancing. He has this ego of self defense of not falling into love again and Revathi as a Sinhalese dance school student falls in love. Instead of writing poems and singing in rain she was bold, witty, and confident girl who could make Kamal fall in love again through her attitude.
(e )Tulasi in Marupadiyum: This is such a beautiful movie that only people like Balu Mahendra can take. Husband ditches wife and openly admits that he is in love with an actress, the way Revathi handles husband, financial constraints, meaning of life and new found admiration with a gentleman is all told in a poetic way and Revathi just nailed it and I don’t think any other actress could have done this role.
(f) Panchavarnam in Devar magan: In this digital world of Netflix/Prime/Hotstar, Devar magan is one movie which you cannot easily find it online. This shows that there is still market for the movie as it is considered one of tamil cinema’s all time classics. ‘Inncocense’ is one word to describe her character and as a village girl getting married to a village biggie she has performed her role very well.
(g )Sathya in Magalir Mattum: We live in a world where girls working in IT has become very common but back in 80’s and 90’s there are very few sectors where women used to work – Bank, Telecom, E.B, Postal etc., Workplace harassment was still prevalent in those days and woman had to muster courage to handle that in a brave manner keeping the family commitments in mind. Movie dealt with how a womaniser manager tried to exploit women in his office and Revathy as Sathya was bold, clever and had the guts to tackle lecherous manager. I would say this movie as ‘Me Too’ movement of 90’s.
Revathy also has acted in many memorable roles where she had a minor role to play but still had substance. As a village girl Muthupechi she had a fantastic debut with Mann vasanai grabbing lots of attention for her meaty role and Pudhumai penn she played the role of seetha where husband doubts her chastity and she has to fight against all odds only to leave her husband in the end. In Aan pavam she had a small role where her role demanded her to turn to be dumb and Udhya geetham she had to turn the tables on with her determination to save Mohan. Arangetra velai may not be in my favorites list but the song ‘Agaya vennilavae’ is one of my all time favorite song and the portion where Revathy appears in black and yellow attire for few seconds will remain as one of my favorite stills of the actress. I think Revathy has penchant towards Silly comedy movies like Arangetra velai, Gulaebaghavali, Jackpot and her name in all three movies is Masha. If you take recent movies like ‘Amma Kanaku’ where revathy as Dr.Nandhini she instills confidence to Amala Paul and plays role of a catalyst, In ‘Power paandi’ Revathy plays role of Poothendral where she meets her lover after so many years and romance was very subtle and she acted in a very matured way. Recently when Corona virus outbreak happened I watched Malayalam movie called ‘Virus’ (which showed how a small state stood against Nipah Virus) where Revathy played role of a Health Minister named Prameela. It is not the number of dialogues that determine how good a person has acted but as an administration person she had a serious look full of concern for the public and was always a listener since she has to liaison with Health care workers, Researchers, Government officials, law enforcement officials, media and general public. In the climax she gave a good and simple speech and liked her role very much.
Now speaking about how multifaceted Actress Revathi – She was doing movies in Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi, Telugu and Kannada. She has also directed movies in English (Mitr, My friend), Hindi (Phir Milenge, Mumbai cutting) and Malayalam (Kerala Café). She has been the voice actor for many films and it is a unique experience to give voice for someone’s emotions. She has also donned the grease paint in small screen by acting in many television serials but I have not seen any since I have a policy of not to watch any television serials. On top of this she is a trained Bharatanatyam dancer and involved in many social organizations and most notable being Banyan organization. She was also the host of the Malayalam reality show ‘Malyalee house’ and has also been judge of many award shows.
Appreciating or criticizing a girl based on her culinary skills should be considered fourth degree murder. I cannot think of a commercial potboiler where her role was simple to run around the trees and speak blah blah of the heroes. Revathi did not rely on skin show and was not behind big heroes to bag movies. She did not have a godfather and was never part of any gossip. I think filmmakers when they thought of bold, headstrong, Independent feminine role they thought of Revathy. Directors like Bharathiraja, Balu Mahendra, Mani Ratnam, Balachander gave her great roles and she proved their conviction was right. I am sorry for her personal life but pretty sure all the roles she played in celluloid would have given her enough solace in overcoming her hardship. Entertainers are not someone who merely dance or sing but someone who gave memorable performances and in that way Actress Revathy is a great entertainer and will remain as an evergreen and a favorite actress for many.
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