Synopsis
The Great River
Krishnaswamy, an honest man, is conned into a chit fund business and imprisoned. While he faces unspeakable hardships in prison, his family disintegrates.
Mahanadhi
1994 ‘மகாநதி’ Directed by Santhana Bharathi
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Releases by Date
Theatrical
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IndiaU
Releases by Country
India
14 Jan 1994
- TheatricalU
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A highly disturbing and emotionally draining dark crime drama which showcases the miseries and hardships faced by a widower and his family after becoming a victim to a con artist. It also portrays the corruption in the jail and child trafficking in a hard hitting manner. Kamalhassan delivers a knock out performance as krishnaswamy. The scene where he breakdowns watching his daughter suffer from ptsd is a pure tearjerker proving his class act. The entire cast has performed well. Ilayaraja songs and bgm are excellent. A riveting thought provoking cinema.
“Neenga konjam summa irunga Sir! Nindru kolra deivamum summa irukku; andru kollum sattamum summa irukku”
“Could you please keep quiet, Sir? Both God and the Law are silently looking at what is happening to me.” -
Look what being nice got you
The writing of this movie comes from a very personal space and that shows , be it few lines scattered throughout or that one monologue towards the end . The dialogues and writing of this movie is brilliant, it is heartfelt and the inner turmoil and frustration written was translated well on screen as well.
The movie is technically strong like all KH movies of that time , be it the excellent cinematography and music. Nothing much to say about the performances as there's no way that'll be bad . Everyone excelled in their roles and Kochin Haneefa was just outright evil , he was just brilliant.
The movie goes from one downfall to…
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Mahanadhi (The Great River)
I Have so many favourite Kamal Hassan movies that I love. However, I think this is my favourite of his currently.
This kept me up last night for a few hours. It's been a long time since a movie disturbed me like this. I'm watching this after more than a decade now. I watched this when I was much younger. I remember liking it very much, especially for those early beautiful authentic family scenes. Still, I was never ready, maybe uncomfortable, frightened by where this movie goes. I always knew I wanted to revisit this but never had the courage to, but a few days ago, I did, and it was an exceptional experience, a much…
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heads into emotional territory few films dare to tread, made all the more heartbreaking for the delicate texturing of the family scenes of the first half.
auteurist classic, and would be for sri ranga ranganathanin and pelgala nambathey alone.
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A hard-hitting movie that follows a constant stream of misery and dwells deep into how misfortunes may lead one into dire situations that can be unimaginable and heart-wrenching.
And yet, amongst these bleak moments, there can also be a slither of humanity and kindness to be found, in places least expected - these moments further elevate this movie to the grounded masterpiece that it is.An interesting (random) observation:
A movie with loose similarity to one of this movie's subjects was 1979's "Hardcore" -
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The scene comes towards the end and hits you like a ton of bricks, how can your soul accept your own blood to lose their innocence in such a manner?
A masterclass performance all the way!
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Had a rather interesting (read: funny) debate today with a friend (who is a Mohanlal fan) over who is the better actor between Mohanlal and Kamal Haasan, which led me to watch one of the most emotionally depressing Kamal Haasan classics of all time.
It’s always remarkable as to how Kamal Haasan (also Mammootty, for that matter) could always transform into the character, completely and mostly without the aide of any prosthetic makeover. This film is one such quintessential case. We only see the tragic-hero of the story, Krishnaswamy, on screen, and not Kamal Haasan, the actor. This is something only a very few actors have achieved.
What’s most striking about this mid-90s’ vintage Kamal starrer is its emotionally hefty…
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Kamal has said he wrote this in the grip of "fear, apprehension and paranoia" after a failed attempt by his household staff to kidnap one of his daughters and it has all the intimacy of a night terror and all the claustrophobia of realizing your home is actually a sprung trap; it's a movie that sustains for hours the feeling of trying to scream yourself awake. I guess I'm glad I didn't know when I randomly put it on that this is widely agreed to be one of the saddest films ever made because it's brilliant but I'm not sure I would have chosen to put myself through this...
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Mahanadhi: The Great River
“We pray but she’s the lucky one! Smile! Your God has come!”
Santhana Bharathi’s Mahanadhi was an underwhelming experience for me. One of the classics of Tamil cinema and a 4.2 rating on here. I had high expectations but there isn’t a lot to discuss with this one. It just piles on the misery and follows a pretty simple template. Besides the title and a few dialogue there isn’t anything poetic about it either. Yes it’s a very emotional movie but just showing the most sad series of events isn’t enough for me. Kamal is brilliant as usual. Especially in the last half hour.
56/100
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oh yeah nothing just the regular stuff, came here to log the suffering i was subjected to for 2hr 42min
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Very emotionally draining and exhausting film, make you lose your hope and optimism in one go.