On Thalapathi's 28th anniversary, we take a look at Santosh Sivan's play on the sun-god motif in the film

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The sun as a framing device in Mani Ratnam - Rajinikanth 's Thalapathi: 15 Santosh Sivan frames that tell stories

Team CE

Updated:18th Dec, 2019 at 3:19 PM

In this debut film of Santosh Sivan Asc Isc in Tamil - his first ever association with Mani Ratnam - the man had to tackle the toughest challenge of all.

The challenge was to to portray dark emotions in the backdrop of the blazing sun. The reason?

In alluding to the friendship between Karna and Duryodhana (Karna being the son of the solar deity), a decision was taken at the script-level to synchronize most of Suriya's decision with sun rays.

This play on the sun-god motif is a tricky proposition as nuanced expressions get lost in silhouettes, when the sun is put as the back-light.

This particular shot involves the stirring transformation of ‘Surya’ into the ‘Thalapathi’, as he goes to war in a mystic silhoutte against a scorching sun.

Santosh efficiently uses the sun for the entire stretch of the Surya-Subbalakshmi romance.

This particular shot, where Jai Shankar tells Suriya the truth about his birth, is again framed with the sun as the backdrop.

This shot involving the young Suriya is framed with the backdrop of the sparkling sun reflecting on the waters.

These frames speaks a lot about Santosh’s caliber as it is never easy to shoot against the sun because of dynamic limitations of film stock.

A spine-chilling high contrast image is obtained, by keeping the key light low and allowing the all-commanding solar back-light to dictate the mood.

Santosh actually goes on to use this ‘low-key-high-contrast’ style through out the film to get the magical ‘Surya’ effect.

Even, in this action sequence set in the night, car lights are used to create the illusion of sun rays.

A special mention to the lighting work done for the fight sequences where fingers of light slowly filters through the interstices to highlight the emotions.

The river in this shot, bathed in golden light, adds a lot of emotions to this scene.

Another magical silhoutte set against the powerful sun.

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