Ponniyin Selvan - Part 2 Review

Mani Ratnam's second instalment of Ponniyin Selvan returns after a seven-month-long wait, reanimating a chequerboard of characters frozen mid-conflict at the end of the first.

Prince Arunmozhi (Jayam Ravi), the youngest of king Sundara Chola's children, was last seen disappearing into the waters off the Lankan coast. A mysterious woman known only as Oomai Rani dives in to save him.

We return in PS2 to the news of Arunmozhi's death making its way across the Chola empire. Convinced that his ex-lover - now wife of the Chola Chancellor Pazhuvettarayar (Sarathkumar) - Nandini (Aishwarya Rai) masterminded Arunmozhi's assassination, Prince Aditha Karikalan (Vikram) sets off to avenge his brother. We know, even as Aditha rides to meet Nandini, that he rides towards danger. "Either she dies in my hands, or I in hers. It's the only way," he says.

We see why it's the only way. In a poetic flashback, we catch a glimpse of the love, one between a prince and a beautiful orphan girl, that was cruelly cut short by a protective royal family. Banished from the kingdom and into the arms of the Pandyas, Aditha is consumed by a primal anger fuelled from the sparks of this love story. And again, we peek into that hut on that night when an older Nandini begs Aditha to spare the life of the Pandya king he has just defeated, but an enraged Aditha slices off Veerapandya's head anyway. We come to realise that Ponniyin Selvan starts and ends in the combat zone that opens between these two wounded hearts all those years ago. That the Cholas battles with the Rashtrakutas in the north and the Lankans in the south are mere proxies for the war between two lovers that can't seem to move past their traumas.

While PS-1 laid out the pieces of the grand game, as imagined in Kalki's Krishnamurthy fiction novel, PS-2 brings it to an epic conclusion.

Thota Tharani's sets and Eka Lakhani's costumes, framed by Ravi Varman's camera, once again create vivid cinemascapes that you could spend days picking out the details from: a full-moon festival in Lanka, bursting in colours, presided over by a resurrected Arunmozhi; a late evening inside the Thanjavur palace, with the curtains swaying gently to reveal a king in siesta, oblivious to the encroaching Pandyan threat; a moment of Zen as the boatwoman Poonghuzhali floats down a meandering river.

Then, there is that heart-stoppingly tender moment between princess Kundavai (Trisha) and prince Vanthiyathevan (Karthi) as they reunite on a small island?—?just the two of them, surrounded by water. As Rahman's "Aganandhe" begins to play, softly at first and then rising up like a slow and steady wave, their tender tryst feels suspended in time, like a perfect moment frozen forever in a snow globe.

It is a rare moment of quiet, to be savoured as the plot picks up speed and moves between geographies at a dizzying pace. As allegiances shift as revelations are made - who are Nandini's parents? who is Oomai Rani to Sundara Chola? what becomes of Maduranthakam, the usurper? - there is barely any time to let all these sink in.

In an interview, Vikram once remarked, "We [actors] are all prisoner's of Mani sir's world." A compliment, but also a comment on Mani Ratnam's larger-than-life status as a director. With PS2's story, though, it feels like it was Mani Ratnam's turn to be imprisoned by a greater force - the 2,000-page source material that asserts itself on the movie in ways that make it a cinematic spectacle, yet also, at times, dense and difficult to follow.

There are moments you wish the movie had broken free from the book. For instance, a minor plot involving Aditha's friend Parthibhendran that finds him in collusion with the Rashtrakutas, takes up precious time while other more significant character arcs are hastily resolved with wordless glances, or diffuse scenes. Kundavai in particular is a casualty of the plot's rapid pace - an astute political mind that is relegated to the sidelines.

But amidst the flurry of intersecting plotlines of PS2, there exists a singular moment of intensity - a collision of two worlds in a room. Aditha and Nandini, two stars hurtling toward each other, meet once again and determine their fates in an explosive scene that ignites like an inferno. The weight of their relationship is palpable, a force that threatens to consume everything in its path. Vikram and Aishwarya Rai give their career-best performances, leaving the audience gasping for air by the end of this climax.

In the aftermath of Ponniyin Selvan, it's hard to conceive of a world that won't reference it, that won't be moved to imitate it in some way. The series is a once-in-a-decade phenomenon, a triumph of grand scale and cinematic storytelling. For Mani Ratnam, it must be a spectacular realization of his dream - to bring this sweeping novel to life on the silver screen. For us, it is a bittersweet moment, knowing that this confluence of talent, these vivid characters, will never again grace us in quite the same manner again.