As much as I love Bollywood and the genre’s dance sequences, it is definitely important to recognize that Indian cinema encompasses more than just mainsteream Bollywood film. Not only is arthouse cinema on the up-and-up, but regional language film has always been a strong contributor to the entertaining of the masses. So, it is with great pleasure (thanks flats) that I present to you one of the coolest examples of a brownsploitation-film dance sequence EVER. It’s from a Tamil film entitled “Ellam Inba Mayam” (1981) and the song is Solla Solla Enna Perumai. Enjoy.
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Dolomite, eat your heart out. Can any of our Tamil speaking readers tell us what the song is about?
And I thought Tamilians were the language snobs : ) “Tamil is a classical language”
It IS a classical language. 3rd century BCE Tamil Sangam poetry? Tiruvalluvar? Tokalpiyar? Silapadikaram? Here, even whitey thinks so.
Why are we talking about Tamil and Hindi when this is a post on Indian movies? What we should be talking about is Bazigar. A language named after a movie. Damn neat, no?
Rasudha, yes I think your interpretation of the video is correct – which makes it considerably less cheesy, since good guy is just mocking bad guy’s cheesiness, which means good guy is non-cheesy…
And to all and sundry: That bangali babu is nothing like a bangali babu. A true bangali babu wears his worn sacred thread,a long kurta, over a dhoti, carries a jute shopping bag and a skinny black umbrella, wears blue rubber flip flops and square black spectacles, oils his hair and parts it carefully to the side. He carries himself with an extraordinary sense of dignity, if not pomposity. He haggles relentlessly over the price of fish, and sits for hours discussing politics and religion with his neighbours. He cannot fix a leaky faucet, but has an opinion on everything. He has read about everything and everyone, but has gone nowhere and done nothing.
We Bengalis are also good at laughing at ourselves.
Kush @133:
And they were so dark skinned…I’d have felt better if you pointed out Rekha or Waheeda Rehman. I don’t think they would have done as well in Tamil film industry being dark cows : )
I’m sorry but Tamilians have no right to be embarassed by their movies. That right belongs only to us Pakistanis.
errr …. umm …. I know blaxploitation … and I am aware that Brownsploitation is catching on ……. but doesn’t brownsploitation refer to pimping the exotic appeal of Desi Cinema to sell trashy and kitschy movies??
is this really brownsploitation? i think “hollywood-bollywood” was more brownsploitation
and “Monsoon Wedding” was certainly NOT
and, I also think a lot of US/UK publishers use “Brownsploitation” to define the phenomenon of a rash of authors riding the wave created by Dan Brown (Da Vinci Code) and coming up with similar-themed fiction
I would define “Bride & Prejudice” and “The Guru” as brownsploitation…..
Hair oil is passé. India and its populace have to understand this fundamental truth whilst undertaking their journey towards achieving “cultural coolness” Hair gel should be popularised amongst the masses. Every family with a Ration Card should be allowed a large dollop of hair gel; preferably, a non-flaky variety like: VO5. In schools, students should be segregated based on their hair type and both straight-haired pupils and wavy-haired pupils should be taught to gel their hair by experts who have been trained at Tony & Guy. Every barber shop should be supplied with a G-string so that barbers all over the country can shape the beards of the masses to confirm with the 50 cent style that is the current rage. Citizens must consider it their duty to look cool. Politicians should not be allowed to run for office if they do not gel their hair. Masses who refuse to gel their hair should be gently coerced in the right direction with the threat of additional taxes. In five years India will be home to the coolest bunch of people on the planet. Also, a scientific body should be formed to discover a new and original gait for the Indian Man. This new gait should rival and ultimately replace the black man’s strut that cool people everywhere use currently. A “Sharp, Mean, and Wicked” India will have the respect of the West. Peace
Hair oil is passé. India and its populace have to understand this fundamental truth whilst undertaking their journey towards achieving “cultural coolness” Vote’s roe-ng with hair oil, I say? Simbly put, all that glitters is not hair gel. Sometimes, it is hair oil. Mallus everywhere, unite! Against mallu-sploitation.
More coals to stoke the north-south linguistic divide flame war. check out this- http://dingchak.net/?p=8
Kush(comment #133) When in doubt, think of SriDevi, Aishwaryia Rai, Vijanthimala – All are Tamil actresses that loomed large on India.
aah, but Kush, please dont forget Nagma and Kusboo who loomed down the south, much larger than any one from the south loomed up north, loomed like 2 all conquering foreign zeppelins they did.
re #166
awesome
I would define Bride and Prejudice as an embarrassment, actually. And as for the song that started this whole thread, Solla Solla Enna Perumai, i thought it meant, “Tell me, what pride?” or something like that. Looks like ten years of learning Tamil as a second language has just gone down the drain. 😐
One thing that strikes me, is this guys age, I think Indian cinema is the only medium that can get away with having 40+ year old men dancing like they’re 8 year olds, and wearing excessive clothing. I think because people have fairly loose filters when it comes to being entertained, it increases the shelf life of these “actors”
The only US equivalent is perhaps this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9ygJ7LkyiQ
“The trouble with South India…..is that it’s full of South Indians.”
😉
“The trouble with South India…..is that it’s full of South Indians.”
…and the trouble with the North is that there aren’t enough (of South Indians).. 😉
et tu brown?
Boston-Southie,
Ha, very good !
I was just kidding.
The real problem with South India is it’s not further to the South.
😉
that can get away with having 40+ year old men dancing like they’re 8 year olds
How old are Harrison Ford, Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, John Travolta? – most of Hollywood actors mature post-40, or even 50. They do some bizarre stuff too. In fact, there is hardly a bankable male star in Hollywood that is really young.
You think John Travolta was 20 in Pulp Fiction when his danced with Uma Thurman. Johnny Depp is 40ish too – Pirates of the Carribeans is acting like 40 olds, himm.
Examples please?
Thats a narrative element in the story, it has to do with a deleted scene in pulp fiction where Mia Wallace goes into something about different types of dances or dancing, I forget exactly. I’ll say Johnny Depp, while he may be 40, doesn’t look 40. At least not in pirates.
The closes thing I remember is Chris Walken in the fat boy slim video, and even that was a sort of satire, because it’s the complete opposite of what he’s done in other roles.
And the real problem with North India is that North Indians do not stay there.
^ So true. They coming running to the South for their jobs 🙂
When I said South India should ideally be further to the South, I meant like Antarctica.
I have the low down on this clip…
The song’s meaning literally is “say say what pride”, but the context is, “If you keep talking about yourself, who’s gonna give a shit after a while?”
The freaky guy in the gray business suit is a villian, the guy in the darker suit butt dancing towards the end is his henchman, and our dancer/hero has infiltrated them by wearing a disguise. (somehow I think the disguise consisted of him trimming the afro)
So in a small way, the dance sequence actually makes narrative sense in the story line – which is a rarity for these types of films.
I’ll let the real film snobs debate relevance and symbolism of Snow White in the background.
I suggest North India join Pakistan. The newly created Nindopakistan would immediately plunge into civil war, and the real India could get on peacefully with more important business.
Garrrrrrrgi ! well said….. real india lies in south and east of India….. rest is truly NindoPakistan
Since someone brought up http://www.itwofs.com, I couldn’t resist posting this:
Here’s the shortened URL for a forum where they have a list of songs plagiarized from other languages mostly Tamil/Ilayaraja by Anand Milind; Very interesting:
http://ilayaraja.notlong.com
Enjoy. The most notable lift is Dhak Dhak.
I think there’s a reason why many Tamilians take offence when Ilayaraja’s work is criticized, as we believe he has reached a level where he has no equals and many of us grew up listening to his masterpieces.
Here’s a favorite of many and mine. The interesting thing about this clip is, at about 2:04, you’ll see a young Ilayaraja, lip synching for a song that was actually sung by S.P.Balasubramaniam which is an interesting twist. You’ll also notice he is a bit camera-shy as always. Tamil speakers might appreciate this remixed version of the same song, which in my opinion, was done without destroying the original.
Wonderful board here… I was introduced to this video from a friend of mine here and fell in love with the sense of humor and amazing music. Upon further research I came upon one other Kamal Hassan clip with fantastic music. To my surprise they were both written by the same person – Ilayaraaja. There’s actually a small amount of his music available on iTunes, but I’m having a very difficult time finding more of the disco- and rock-influenced songs like “Solla Solla” and “Ilamai Itho Itho.” Any recommendations on songs or where to find them?
@wonderboy
hey, I am a tamil speaker and a big fan of Ilayaraaja – and I have listened to hundreds of his songs hundreds of times. But even I was taken aback by ‘Solla Solla”s originality. 🙂 so the bottom line is, I am not sure he ever composed more than a handful of songs in the style of ‘solla solla’ or ‘ilamai itho itho’. :((
The thing is unlike western musicians he doesn’t go for a particular sound; he rather goes for a particular mood (or ‘situation’ in bolly/kollywood parlance) that’s in tune with what goes on in the movie. And so he does his best work when challenged with interesting situations. But unfortunately he happens to be far more original than Indian movies, so he ended up getting mostly stock situations (like guy and a girl dancing) and he managed to to astoundingly original and prolific (close to 4000 songs) work within the constraints of formulaic indian movies.
I think it’s possible to go through his output and come up with a dozen or so different ‘sounds’ and dozens of albums in each of those sounds, but that’s not the point of his music.
But anyway, if you want more overtly western influenced songs you should check out these:
(this was pointed out also by Manoj @35), kind of twist-ey 1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9tjTDyXSZA. (ram bam bam) Listen to this on headphones and listen to the trumpets, piano, guitar and the bass
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNaBmArxeeI (ninnu kori varnam) This is not really rock or any other genre you can point to. But this is a really cool interpretation of a really traditional south indian composition. Prominent drums, synthesizer sounds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzgaCmcw9Ss (vaa vaa pakkam vaa) This is again no obvious genre – but it has overt west influence – great chorus, some really bizzarre very low sounding wind instrument (I don’t know what it is), drums… but the video lacks the humor of ‘solla solla’.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzgaCmcw9Ss (po malarndhida) This is an overt carnatic (south indian classical) – western fusion piece. The reason I say overt is that most of Ilayaraja’s songs can be construed as east-west fusion, but they don’t sound like crappy self-conscious mish mashes a lot of other musicians’ fusion attempts tend to be, and sound really natural. But this piece is one example of a happy overtly fusion piece that Ilayaraja did. Prominent ‘mridangam’ – the south indian classical drum, and wierd strings that are in keeping with the somewhat humorous nature of the situation.
To round this list off, I will give you two good songs Ilayaraaja came up with for a totally stock boy-girl dance. You can probably call these fusion too. a. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pu5iUZa9OJY (pattu kannam thottu kolla) – the highlight of this song are the first 50 seconds or so where he comes up with a great section for multiple rhythm and vocal lines. (he is a big fan of Bach) b. This is a really standard Ilayaraja piece, but still very enjoyable: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSOpAa-lKkI (ABC nee vaasi) There’s a slight nod to a suite from Bizet’s Carmen. Ilayaraaja starts his voice melody with the ding-dong-ding bells melody of the Bizet song, (ding-dong-ding ding-dong-ding = A-B-C nee vaa si) but outrageously enough, Ilayaraaja ‘resolves’ the opening phrase with the the phrase that Bizet used to open his song – pay attention to the “sooo easy” phrase.
@wonderboy
to follow up on my earlier post, here are two more songs with an 80s feel to them. Also please please don’t watch the videos 🙂 they are mostly horrible (the two songs you referred to are exceptions)
2, http://youtube.com/watch?v=6robs2bJrn8 (Mella Mella ennai thottu) – You can imagine this is the Tamil equivalent of Erci Prydz’s “Call on meeeeee” (http://youtube.com/watch?v=K-2iwGeZ2O4) I mean, musically they are very different, but they are both hormonal; what is achieved with an abundance of pelvic thrusts in ‘call on me’, Ilayaraja is trying to do with his music (and he has to overcome the horrible video) This song in fact is really different from anything else that Ilayaraaja did that I am tempted to thing he got the tune from elsewhere.
what Ilayaraja did and did not mess around with:
Ilayaraja was very innovative in many ways, but what he didn’t meddle around too much with was the structure of a song. Now, if you are familiar with forms in western music (like sonata, rondo etc), most of Indian film songs probably fall into the rondo form – they keep coming back to the a ‘subject’ which is the opening vocal melodic phrase. So a typical song is structured like: X1 A A* A X2 B B* A AA X3 B B A A* A ; Looks complicated, but it’s really not. X1 is usually a purely instrumental overture, A is the main subject, A* is closely related to A, X2 is a purely instrumental bridge to B B; then repeat A A A, X3 is a purely instrumental bridge to a repeat of B B* etc. Most film songs (or for that matter most songs of any kind) are like miniature western classical ‘movements’
By and large Ilayaraja stuck to this, but where he let his imagination roam free was in the instrumental passages and how he transitioned between the various melodic material (basically, the chord and key changes; now I am not good at recognizing chords and keys, but I can tell the changes, and I think I can spot imaginative progressions). The weird thing about Ilayaraja’s progressions (at least for me) is that they are both unpredictable and very smooth. So he is kind of like Mozart in this, I suppose – not messing with form too much, but being so imaginative in melodic transitions.
Instrumentation was Ilayaraja’s other big strength. There have been others who have been great melody makers (almost any successful film music director, for in India melody is the king in making a song a hit) and others who have been great sculptors of sound (A. R. Rahman and his later clones), but in my humble opinion, no one else made such amazing orchestral arrangements. His specialty was the ability to use a wide array of instruments and engage them in a lively conversation. His orchestration often has lively ‘call and answer’ parts – like in ‘solla solla enna perumai’, in the second instrumental passage (X3) there is an amazing duet between Sax and rhythms+guitar. Or in this song ‘Andhi mazhai’ there’s a great piano – mridangam duet, again in X3 (mridangam is the south indian drum).
If he used both western and indian drums, their beat would fall on different counts in a cycle (like in this song: Poongathave http://youtube.com/watch?v=-0HJvBjUn5g)
In terms of songs, I think this ability for orchestration has been the hardest for other composers to imitate (no one excepted). To be fair Ilayaraja has found it hard to deliver some sounds too (Rahman’s song always seem to have better produced sound, and Ilayaraja has never given a convincing song with a techno/hiphop influenced sound like Rahman has been able to).
In my opinion, there has been one and only one other movie by any other composer that has come close to Ilayaraja’s style in terms of both melody and orchestration (this is for Tamil music geeks) – and that is Devendran’s ‘Vedham Pudhithu’.
hi all – Kamal Hassan is a genuinely trained/accomplished classical dancer
check this site: http://asiarecipe.com/inddance.html
“Kamal Hassan proved to all those parents who are afraid of their sons joining in dance studios that male version of classical dance is glamorous, masculine, tasteful and elegant. Even though he was trained in Bharata Natyam, in this film Kamal Hassan performs many other styles also.”
and also these videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6VCxXno848 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r17Fq3m_Jk
its my humble retort that Kamal hassan is much MUCH more than just someone who duped an entire state with just three dance moves!
i want the song of and a quick and a quick my ile.could you please type that song in for my