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.
