Pandavar Bhoomi

Pandavar Bhoomi
Official DVD Cover
Directed by	Cheran
Produced by	Media Dreams Ltd.
Written by	Cheran
Starring	Arun Vijay Shamitha, Rajkiran Ranjith Vijayakumar Charle
Music by	Bharathwaj
Cinematography	Thangar Bachan
Distributed by	SEVERAL
Release dates	September 21, 2001
Running time	150 mins
Country	India
Language	Tamil

Pandavar Bhoomi is a 2001 Indian Tamil film, written and directed by Cheran. The film has Arun Vijay, Shamitha and Rajkiran playing the lead roles. While Vinu Chakravarthy and Mukesh Tiwari played the antagonists, Chandrasekhar, Ranjith, Manorama and Charle played supporting roles. The film met with critical acclaim and went on to win the Filmfare Award for Best Director – Tamil.^[1]

Plot

Dhanasekhar (Rajkiran) returns to his ancestral village after twelve years only to find his house in a dilapidated state. While living in a neighbor's house, he approaches an engineer to rebuild his house. Thamizharasan (Arun Vijay), son of an architect Vijayakumar is an architect himself who specializes in traditional building techniques. He agrees to rebuild their house to their liking. As the construction work progresses, Thamizharasan gets closer to Dhanasekhar and his family members. He befriends Jeeva (Shamitha), Dhanasekhar's niece and eventually falls in love with her. When Dhanasekhar comes to know of this, he reveals the tragic past of his family which forced them out of their own village years ago.

Dhanasekhar's family consists of his two brothers Chandrasekhar and Ranjith, a sister Thamarai (again played by Shamitha), and their loving mother Manorama. They are a close-knit family living a happy life, setting an example for the entire village. Dhanasekhar is an old-fashioned man strongly rooted in the traditions. He along with his brothers do agriculture in their land. Vinu Chakravarthy, another landlord doing agriculture is a money-minded person. One day, he suddenly buys tractors and employs modern farm equipments, rendering many of the farmers employed with him jobless. When Dhanasekhar voices for their plight, the situation becomes worse starting an enmity between the two families. Meanwhile Thamarai falls in love with Vinu Chakravarthy's son. To avenge for his father, Vinu Chakravarthy's other son Mukesh Tiwari poisons a water body killing all the bulls owned by Dhanasekhar. So, Ranjith beats up Vinu and his son Mukesh. That is when they see the couple sitting together. This angers both the families. Dhanasekhar's family arranges Thamarai's marriage with someone else and gets her engaged. But she is in no mood to pay heed to her family and elopes with her lover. As a result the family is devastated resulting in the death of Manorama. At her funeral procession, Thamarai comes in a car with her husband and is shocked to find her mother dead. On seeing her back, Ranjith in a fit of rage beheads her and her husband. Due to this Ranjith gets a jail term for 12 years. With lost peace, the family moves to Tirupur and gets settled there. To give Ranjith something to live for when he comes back from jail, Dhanasekhar and his family decides to marry off Jeeva to Ranjith. Citing that this is the only way to get back their long lost peace, Dhanasekhar asks Thamizharasan to stay away from Jeeva.

Back in the present, while the old and aging Vinu Chakravarthy is still at logger heads with their family, Mukesh Tiwari pretends to be friendly with them. As the construction work nears completion and the house is been furnished, Mukesh plots a bomb in the new house. Thamizharasan gets to know of this and foils the plot. Ranjith gets released from jail around the same time the house gets ready for occupation. Dhanasekhar and family welcomes home Ranjith with much love and asks him to marry Jeeva. But Ranjith turns down the proposal because the reason for all their suffering was they forced their sister Thamarai into marriage without her consent and now they are doing the same mistake with Jeeva. This makes Dhanasekhar realize his err. He unites Jeeva with Thamizharasan .

Cast

• Arun Vijay as Tamizharasan
• Shamitha in a double role as Jeeva and Thamarai
• Rajkiran as Dhanasekar
• Chandrasekhar
• Ranjith
• Manorama
• Vinu Chakravarthy
• Mukesh Tiwari
• Charle
• Ilavarasu
• Vijayakumar
• Neelima Rani

Soundtrack

Pandavar Bhoomi
Soundtrack album by Bharathwaj
Released	2001
Genre	Film soundtrack
Length	30:05
Language	Tamil
Producer	Bharathwaj
Bharathwaj chronology
Parthen Rasithen (2000) Pandavar Bhoomi (2001) Roja Kootam (2002)

The soundtrack album was composed by Bharathwaj.

Tracklist

Critical Reception

The film received mostly positive reviews from critics. Malathi Rangarajan from The Hindu praised as "Inundated with talent from every quarter" and said: "has to be welcomed, with open arms because decent, meaningful cinema deserves encouragement".^[2] Rediff.com particularly heaped praises at Cheran for his screenplay and said "With directors of the calibre of Cheran in its rank, Tamil cinema would not be discredited or degenerated".^[3] Thiraipadam.com lauded Cheran saying "Cheran is one of the few filmmakers who has not succumbed to the commercial bug and continues to make movies that satisfy his own creative spirit and also convey a valid message to society."^[4]

The film also received mixed reviews. Sify.com criticised the length of the movie and said: "Cheran has churned out yet another village based sob story to torment you further" and concluded that "it is a typical overdose of Cheran melodrama masala".^[5]

References

External links

• Pandavar Bhoomi at the Internet Movie Database