7am Arivu

A R Murugadoss attempts to chronicle the life of Bodhidharma (Surya), a Buddhist Monk from the 5th/6th century, a leading patriarch and transmitter of Zen who hails from Kanchipuram and a Tamilan! Did he succeed? I guess one will have to wait to see the mass medias' reaction before ruling it out. However, IMHO, he didn't fail miserably.

7am Arivu starts off like a documentary and ends like one too except everything else in the middle. I am not a fan of A R Murugadoss, in fact, I was furious at him for tying to rip off Memento (Christopher Nolan) in the name of Ghajini failing miserably as he did not even understand the original.

Here, ARM gets inspired by his and many other young and aspiring directors/actors Godfather, Mr. Kamal Haasan. Anyone who has seen Dasavathaaram will be able to see the resemblance. Bio-war, Chasing a Virus, evoking a Hero from the past to save the planet, money hungry Professor and villains interest in the commercial profit of the life demolishing germ compound are all the common elements of the two.



Like Dasavathaaram, 7am Arivu opens in a non-traditional fashion (for Mass South Indian cinema) with a preface that recounts the Pallava dynasty, and the surroundings of Kanchi, to a land that is at the height of both martial and medical prowess. In Dasavathaaram, Kamal draws a parallel between Rangarajan Nambi and Vincent Poovaragan (apart from the more obvious adversarial relation between Govind and Rangarajan), both of whom go down fighting for their principles and what they think is the meaning of their existence. In 7am Arivu, ARM brings together Aravind (Surya), a circus artist and Bodhidharma casing Proprioception Deficit Disorder, also known as Sack's Syndrome which is a complete and total failure of the body’s knowledge of itself. Both the movies tries to breakdown the complex Chaos Theory in a movie form. 7am Arivu would have been a better film if only the screenplay did not abandon the scientific credibility of the subject it took in the beginning towards the fag end to give way to a commercial climax action sequence. Enough said!

Moving on to performance, Surya's (as Bodhidharma and Aravind) performance has made 7am Arivu a successful movie. He has come a long way from his earlier movies and seems to be learning quick and steady. I hope to one day see him reach the acting heights of Kamal, Karthick and Raghuvaran.

Shruthi Haasan may not impress phenomenally with her Tamil debut, but she sure has acting in here genes! And, coincidentally, the film also deals with how abilities are carried forth through generations by genes.

Ravi K Chandran’s cinematography proves that nature is marvelous and mysterious. He proves that in the right kind of eyes/hands, nature presents herself as one of the most fabulous works of art ever wrought. One can see that every frame was carefully constructed, especially in the initial 20 minutes or so. Same can be said about the art too. The visual effects also are a treat to watch, except for a few instances in a fight sequence right in the heart of the city.

Harris Jeyaraj’s tunes may have already delighted you, but do not expect the same with his BGM except a few places. Moreover, the songs are thrust onto the narration.

Overall, if you do not have any expectation for the movie like myself, it will not fail you. However do understand the capacity of the director of the movie!!!