The MGR-starrer Vettaikkaran is the first film I remember watching — I was five or six years old then. It was at Sathya
theatre
, a touring talkies, in Thoothukudi. I have many memories of enjoying movies that I watched at Sathya and Murugan theatres there. The
celebration
of the release of Vettaikkaran was no less than a kovil thiruvizha. People used to throw sand, bits of paper and lottery tickets for almost every
scene
apart from dancing and whistling. Watching
Enga Veetu Pillai
, too, was a similar experience. The audience burst crackers and played thaarai thapattai when the iconic song, Naan Aanaiyitaal, played on screen. Everyone was standing and celebrating it.
Saraswathi Sabatham was another film I loved when I was a kid, for its songs. A few years later, Rajini sir’s Paayum Puli also had a grand celebration; I watched it from Chandra theatre, at Eral. Later, after coming to Madras, watching Thalapathi at Udhayam theatre was a phenomenal experience. The movies that I watched the most times were Nayakan and Sathya. The latter is still my all-time favourite film.
Nothing can replace the feel of watching films in theatre. I consider the present lockdown as a temporary crisis and believe that normalcy will return.
Theatres will witness celebrations like earlier times soon, and all sections of the audience will be back. Our bond with the theatres is so strong, it won’t fade away, no matter what.
There are several limitations with regard to watching films on OTT platforms. You can’t watch certain kinds of films sitting at home. After watching a few of them, you feel empty, like you feel you are missing out something. The feeling of enjoying songs, dance, and action scenes in a theatre is beyond words. Imagine a few friends coming from different parts of a city to watch a
movie
, all waiting for each other to assemble at one place, and then going inside the theatre together and celebrating their favourite star — no OTT platform can offer this.
I have never been a big fan of the first-day-first-show as you don’t get to hear the dialogues in many scenes. But I thoroughly enjoyed watching Rajamouli sir’s Yamadonga, the first film for which I did stunt choreography and Yennai Arindhaal, in which I played a notable role. The joy of watching such shows is that you also feel like shouting and whistling along with fans.
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