Aval Appadithan

Infobox_Film
name = Aval Appadithan


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director = Rudraiya
writer =
starring = Sripriya,Kamal Hassan,Rajnikanth,Saritha
producer =
music = Ilayaraja
editor =
released = 1978
runtime =
language = Tamil
budget =
imdb_id =

Aval Appadithan ("That's How She Is") is a Tamil film is directed by C. Rudraiya. Acknowledged as one of the finest films made in Tamil, it starred Sripriya, Kamal Hassan and Rajnikanth, with Ilayaraja as music director. The film was noted for its very stylized film making and cutting-edge dialogues, a large portion of it in English.

Plot

The film revolves around the lives of 3 people. The central character is a woman, played by Sripriya. Raised in a dysfunctional family with a wimp of a father and a philandering mother, she hurtles from one disastrous affair to another. As the movie begins, she has denegerated into a cynical, man-hating 'modern' woman. Into her life enter two radically different men. One of them is her boss (Rajnikanth), who owns the advertising agency that she works for. He is a prototype of the successful man - money-minded, opinionated, arrogant and a male chauvinist. In sharp contrast, Kamal Hassan, who has come to Chennai from Coimbatore to make a documentary on women, is an early version of the metro-sexual male. Sensitive and sincere, he believes his job has a purpose and is both shocked and amused at the cynical attitudes of the other two.

As the movie begins, Sripriya has been drafted by Rajnikanth to assist Kamal Hassan in his documentary. As Kamal and Sripriya start working together, Kamal starts understanding the complex personality of Sripriya. He recounts these over his whiskey-and-cigarette conversations with Rajnikanth, as the latter keeps warning him to not get too involved with such women. As he states famously, "Women should be enjoyed, not analysed".

Inevitably, Kamal Hassan falls for Sripriya. But Sripriya incurs the wrath of Rajnikanth. Just when it seems that she is about to lose her job, she seems to have a change of heart and starts courting Rajnikanth. Kamal Hassan is devastated to see that she has turned out to be just the sort of woman that Rajnikanth said she was - opportunistic, money-minded and fickle.

The truth finally emerges that Sripriya was merely baiting Rajnikanth to teach him a lesson, but it comes too late for Kamal Hassan, who has already married a small town girl (Saritha, in a guest role) identified by his parents. In a final discussion in Rajnikanth's car, Sripriya asks Saritha, "What do you think of women's liberation?". Saritha replies, "Oh, I don't know anything about that". Sripriya replies with a cynical "No wonder you are happy". The film ends with Sripriya standing on the road as the car carrying Rajnikanth and the married couple pulls away from her. A voice-over says, "She died today. She will be reborn tomorrow. She will die again. She will be reborn again. That's how she is".

Film-making style

The film uses sharp contrasts of black and white to lend an almost surreal atmosphere to the movie. The dialogues are sharp and (for that era) almost vulgar. A lot of English is used, particularly during the "whiskey-and-cigarette" discussions between Rajnikanth and Kamal Hassan, which are the highlight of the movie. Ilayaraja's brooding background score adds to the sombre nature of the movie. The movie has two songs - Uravugal thodarkathai (rendered by KJ Yesudas) and Panner pushpangale (rendered by Kamal Hassan himself).

About the director

Very little is known about C. Rudraiya, the director of this movie. He directed just one more movie "Gramathu Athiyayam" (A village chapter). It is rumoured that he was disillusioned with the film industry and went back to his native village to become a farmer.

It was the first film dedicated to ANANTH (late) outside banner of Rahini Recreation, Kala Kendra and later Kavithalaya. The person behind the success of KB and Kamal who had been intellectual associate with K.Balachander for about 3 decades. The person who changed the name of Arumugam as Rudraiya in the film industry.