R.Parthiban: A man without an identity

"Buthi ulla manidharellam vetri petradhillai
Vetri petra manidharellam budhisali illai"


I am reminded of this chandrababu song which says, "not all intelligent people are successful, not all successful people are intelligent ".


I caught my weekly episode of Natchathira Jannal and was pleasently surprised to see Parthiban in the show. Parthiban has always been a man with lots of wit, stating those which are not so obvious and have a different view of the world.


Started as a director-actor, parthiban quickly got lost doing mundane roles in other peoples direction. When he came back to direction, he couldn't sustain.


The problem with the actor parthiban was that, other directors didn't know how to exploit his USP. His USP was ofcourse dialogue delivery. Intelligent dialogue delivery. But the only intelligent dialogues that would work where those written by him.


So, the other directors gave him another role. Those without dialogues. Movies like Azagi, Barathi Kannamma, Vallamai Tharayo succeeded in bringing out the quie persona in him. But there was not much to go from there.




Every movie personality needs an identity. While everyone lauds when an actor is multi-dimensional, we all want the actor to have an identity which doesn't change.


Rajini - has an identity of a super hero
Kamal - his identity is to turn out with a different character, each time, everytime, with looks, accent, performance, plot
Vikram - follows the footsteps of Kamal where he transforms himself into that character


Basically, we like actors who are likeable and can transform themselves into likeable characters on screen. Two examples come to mind:


Vijay Sethupathi - Very likeable character in real life, doing different roles on screen which are likeable
Prithviraj - Same as Vijay Sethupathi




Inspite of all our accusation of sterotypes, we like steroetypes. We like to have an identity for our actors. Look at hollywood identities


Jack Nicholson - A blunt, no nonsense guy who will get into the nerves of everyone around him with his arrogance.
Robert DeNiro - Either a rough and tough mafia or a humorous character
Al Pacino - Tough guy, rude
Dustin Hoffman - Nice guy, transforms into a character
Woody Allen - The compassionate loser. The awkward and shy yet witty person.




This explanation also gives why some of the actors who are forgotten. They don't have an identity:
Simbu
Karthi
Vishal
Bharath




Parthiban, for all his talent, could have been a workoholic like Kamal and churned lot of great movies as director. He could have gone the route of his mentor Bagyraraj and ventured into a self deprecating hero or even into thrillers. He is capable.


But Parthiban doesn't enjoy these. He enjoys being different ( he has been getting more attention for this than anything he does ). His comedy timing with valivedu, his dailog delivery is one of a kind. But dialogue delivery will get you only so far. Ask Ganja Karuppu and Vinu Chakravarthy. But he needs to make an identity of himself which is easy for others to cast him with.


A nice guy in real life, he couldn't create a nice guy image through his characters. When wondering about who can do a good job with Drishyam remake in Tamil, I didn't think of Parthiban first, though he would be ideal. Heard that Kamal is going to be a tirunalvelli saiva pillai while potraying mohanlal. Parthiban needs to take such kind of risks.


Parthiban would also be good in roles which Jayaram does, like in Panchathanthiram.


I hope he finds his sweat spot. Its a loss to tamil cinema if he doesn't.

 

Yes, Housefull was a good movie!!