SCFZ poll: Mani Ratnam

[flip]

Polling the films of Mani Ratnam

The rules:

- your list can include no more than half* of the Ratnam films you've seen, up to a maximum of 8. So if you've seen 6 films, you can vote for 3, and if you've seen 20, you can vote for up to 8.

* If you've seen an odd number, you can round up when deciding the length of your ballot -- e.g if you've seen 7, you can vote for 4, and if you've seen 15, you can vote for the maximum of 8.

- i'll assume ballots are ranked unless you tell me otherwise. unranked ballots are fine.

- deadline for ballots: next Friday, in seven days, whatever day that is

umbugbene created an index on letterboxd of all of our previous polls here: letterboxd.com/umbugbene/list/index-of-all-scfz-director-polls/

[flip]

i'd like to encourage everyone who has seen a lot of ratnam to post as long a ballot as possible (if you've seen 15+, you can vote for up to 8), because that will help me to get enough votes to make a good top ten

i've seen zero unfortunately but have been meaning to watch some, so maybe i'll do that this week!

[mesnalty]

Seen 4:

1. Thalapathi
2. Dil Se..

[therouxxx]

Geethanjali
Mouna Raagam
Bombay
Kannathil Muthamittal
OK Kanmani
Dil Se..
Kaatru Veliyidai
Alaipayuthey

[brian d]

only seen dil se and not really a fan of its politics so going to give it a pass. i'll probably use the list for recs though (if i ever get into a movie-watching groove again...)

[...]

Kannathil Muthamittal
Raavanan
OK Kanmani
Dil Se..

(I watched Raavanan and Raavan back to back and thought one was a good bit better than the other, I'm fairly certain that I preferred Raavanan, but can't quite remember for sure whether that's correct since it's been a while, but I'm gonna vote as if it is. Gonna try to finish Thalapathi and hope to get to Mouna Raagam or Geethanjali too, but that might be a bit too ambitious a plan and need to see two before I can add another movie to my vote as I've only seen seven.)

[rischka]

geethanjali
dil se...

seen four, need to see more

[nrh]

Iruvar
Raavanan
Mouna Raagam
Nayakan
Geethanjali
Bombay
Thalapathi
Kaatru Veliyidai

hard to overstate how important mani is in indian movies. he may be the first really national director in a giant country where the film markets are split into 8+ different cinemas, each with their own language and aesthetics and music and star systems.

blind spots are the yuva/aaytha ezhuthu duo, guru, and kadal. and of course the early films that don't have subs.

[roujin]

KAATRU VELIYIDAI
MOUNA RAAGAM
DIL SE...
OK KANMANI
RAAVANAN
ROJA

[Rabie]

Dil Se...
Kannathil Muthamittal
Iruvar
Thiruda Thiruda
Anjali
Nayakan

[charulata]

ranked:

Iruvar
Mouna ragam
raavanan
Nayagan
thalapathi
bombay
kaatru veliyidai
anjali

[flip]

i don't know ratnam's work at all, so i might be off base with my comments, but i think we have a surprise winner? when i list ratnam's work by "film popularity" on letterboxd, the film that comes 1st in our poll ranks near to the bottom of ratnam's work (it's his 16th most popular film) and our #4 finisher is even lower. we also got votes for 15 different films, more than half of ratnam's output as letterboxd lists it (imdb has a few more titles). his most "popular" film that got no support in our poll is guru (2007).

results

1. Mouna Raagam (1986) — 15 pts
2. Iruvar (1997) — 13 pts
3. Dil Se.. (1998) — 11.5 pts
4. Raavanan (2010) — 11 pts
5. Kannathil Muthamittal (2002) — 10 pts
6. Geethanjali (1989) — 8 pts
7. Kaatru Veliyidai (2017) — 5.7 pts
8. OK Kanmani (2015) — 5 pts
9. Nayakan (1987) — 4.5 pts
10. Bombay (1995) — 4 pts
11. Thalapathi (1991) — 3.3 pts
12. Thiruda Thiruda (1993) — 2 pts
13. Anjali (1990) — 1.1 pts
14. Roja (1992) — 0.5 pts
15. Alaipayuthey (2000) — 0.1 pts

[nrh]

mouna raagam at #1 would be kind of like mean streets (also at #16 on letterboxd) winning a scorsese poll - surprising but not totally out of left field.

the movie that's lower than mr on letterboxd is raavan - the hindi version starring abhishek, a commercial disaster when it released - where our #4 is raavanan, with vikram in the lead (as well as other significant changes).

[flip]

the movie that's lower than mr on letterboxd is raavan - the hindi version starring abhishek, a commercial disaster when it released - where our #4 is raavanan, with vikram in the lead (as well as other significant changes).

oh right, thanks for the correction! i actually googled the two titles to see if they were the same film, and the little preview box google shows you from the wikipedia article said "the film was titled Raavan in Hindi, Raavanan in Tamil and Villain in Telugu" and i assumed from there that they were two titles of the same film. but now i see that they're different and letterboxd has entries for both versions, and i was mistaken about the popularity of our #4 film -- it's 12th and not 17th on letterboxd's popularity ranking.

[flip]

now up at letterboxd:

https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... -poll-298/