Maamannan to Jailer: Tamil Cinema’s after Interval Descent

Team FC

First Half – Good, Second Half – Weak

How often have you seen a Tamil film described this way? An intriguing build-up that’s squandered away with a meandering second half that doesn’t quite have the conviction of the first. 

How Social Media Influences The ‘Interval Block’

But in Tamil cinema, Interval is considered compulsory, it has to be “mind blowing”. Saravanan pointed out that the word-of-mouth for a film now begins from the interval point when the audience starts tweeting their experience.

Take The Powerful Interval Block in Maamannan

Where an estranged Dalit father and son confront a dominant caste politician together. But post-interval, the film visibly sags with a lacklustre election campaign taking centrestage. 

Jailer Starring Rajnikanth

It has a whistle-worthy interval block After the interval though, the plot takes an unnecessary detour and transforms into a heist film, and is saved only by its massy climax involving three superstars. 

The Resolve

For Tamil cinema’s perennial ‘second half’ problem to resolve itself, the obsessive focus on the interval block should expand to other parts of the screenplay too. After all, if the audience must embrace a film whole-heartedly, one can’t do things by halves.

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