MovieChat Forums > Anbe Sivam (2003) Discussion > subtle details..

subtle details..

posted 19 years ago by abitheone
3 replies | jump to latest

There are many subtle details in Anbe sivam which One is sure to miss on watching the first time. some of them are:
1. The rhyming of the character pairs: nala-bala, ars-saras. This may seem insipid, but these names play a major role in the twists and plot of the film.
2. Madhavan's name in the movie is 'Anbarasu' but he says he hates 'anbu' meaning 'love'. Kamal hassan's name is 'Nalla sivam' and he seems to be a disbeliever in 'sivam' or 'God'. I dont think this irony is unintentional.
3. In the ambulance, when the badly-injured boy says that his name is 'paun', sivam recalls his dead friend 'paun' and murmurs. When the boy asks what he murmured, Sivam first says "..I HAD A FRIEND CALL PAUN.." and immediately corrects it to ">>I HAVE a friend called Paun' so that the boy shuldn't feel bad.
Are there any other nuances I've missed?

[–] vidhu_sairam 18 years ago

well....those were great..the details you noticed.
I also noticed a tiny bit...kamal named the dog "shankaran"...meaning lord shiva. He might have seen God in that dog too...

[–] abitheone 18 years ago

yeah..in fact, thers a scene in the film where kamal says,"Dog a thiruppi poatta God varudhunga"!!-meaning 'dog is an anagram of God'

[–] tominmooney 17 years ago

Abi you listed a few poignant ones.

There's one that I thought.

Midway through their trip in the ambulance to get the injured boy to Chennai they stop in the early morning by the roadside shop.On the white plastered wall of the shop for a fleeting moment you see stuck is a fresh poster of the movie GLADIATOR. For those who have seen GLADIATOR and is struck by the power and beauty of its theme it would be natural to instantaneously "What is that poster doing there ?" Iam sure it was meant to be much more than merely coincidental. Afterall what we had here also was a more than a gladiatoral effort by a man to get back at life against all the soul crushing odds that it squashed him with. I wonder how intentional that poster being there was.

Though fleeting that was one among the more beautiful moments for me in the movie.