Referred to the yellow bag (Manjapai)
is a family entertainment (Tamil) film based on grandfather-grandson
relationship. Manjapai is a popular concept used in Tamil cinemas, where the
hero or any other characters coming from village to city is often shown
carrying a yellow bag. In this film the Manjapai is related to the grandfather
character, who comes to the city for the first time to stay with his grandson
who is suppose to pursuing career in US.
The film has many funny scenes
and light-hearted moments to sit back and relax except for the emotional break
up at last. The young actor Vimal had chose to play a software engineer in the
film, dream to settle down in US and in a brief time he created the opportunity
and working towards achieving his goal. Meanwhile he brings his only
grandfather from the village to stay with him until he left to US and his
grandfather, being so ignorant, pulled him into lot of trouble which even
threatened his US dream.
The veteran Rajkiren has lived as
grandfather, not only to Vimal but he reaches up to the audience watching the
film! He had played father role in many Tamil films but first time he becomes full-fledged
grandfather who rise up his orphaned grandchild single-handedly. He comes as a
brisk old man and innocent being, brings out a perfect rustic in his
perspective. The film housed him in an apartment,
finds intolerable as his approach seems so naïve and provoking due to the
residents indifferent attitude, only make console later when they all miss him
to search.
Lakshmi Menon has nothing much to
do rather being Vimal’s love affair, enhanced the usual commercial aspects that
a heroine deserves at love unrelated subject but she tried to bring some
beautiful expressions. Their introduction at the same traffic signal quite
bores… I have watched few films in latter year with same situation. What I
liked in the film was the emphasis given to relationship and sharing tendency
amid neighbors. In today’s apartment culture not many know who’s in next door
and coming across a smile is a hard thing, but the grandfather role in the film
celebrates their events.
The film shot in and around
Chennai has good cinematography and made colorful songs using simple backgrounds.
NR Raghunanthan’s music plays a wonderful part of the film, where the
expressions were fine tuned in lyrics which are written in an unusually way of later
watching the videos. There’s nothing to complain about director (N.Ragavan) who
has stitched carefully the yellow bag to bear enough, but what if the bag
slipped from the hand is what the ending. Appreciate the team for a decent
picture!
P.S. After long time writing a
film review, watching it in drive-in last week