99 songs

#99

The highest of the double digits. The penultimate to that particular series. 99. A number that falls one short of a miracle. Google number 99 and you will find that it denotes spirituality and leadership. Let’s say spiritual leadership. Ring a bell?

 We’ve all been there. You score 99 and you wonder where that one number went. ARR’s 99 songs is nothing short of magic for those who go in search of it. Remember, SEEK AND YOU SHALL FIND. 99 songs is a movie not for the faint hearted. It isn’t from the horror genre but it grabs your heart by the fist and squeezes every ounce of blood from the inside. The muscles of the heart tear apart with a sound louder than that of a MACH and yet managed to beat for you.

The movie revolves around the premise of ONE SONG. It was very evident from the Movie’s trailer that there was a search for a particular song that had the energy and power to change the world. Change the world it does by the end of the movie. Something one cannot fathom, the effect a particular song can have. It took me to the time when a few Indian songs would become blockbuster hits on a scale unimaginable to Indian markets. Songs that would grab so many views on YouTube, they became an unstoppable force, a snowball effect which rolled on and rolled into hearts; millions of them.

I will not divulge parts of the movie or the beautiful thin story line that runs the whole show. I will of course talk about the MUSIC. The Music that is the soul of this movie. The music which is the accelerator that drives this machine. The music that is the breeze that sends waves crashing on the shore and bubbles up near the yellow sand. The music that makes the clouds float across the sky like white sheets of cotton candy. The Music that makes you feel that the world that is revolving around you. The music that raises curiosity to your very existence. The music that makes you feel human.

99 songs is a platter of what ARR has always given us. A sense of excitement, a sense of beauty, a sense of feeling, a sense of feel and a sense of catharsis. If there are people wondering what catharsis means; in a sense, when you cry watching a movie or while listening to a song because that piece of art brings out hidden or bent up feelings from inside your being is catharsis. I have heard ARR sir use that term, Probably just once. This movie will take you there.

I walked into the theatre during these COVID times, safe and sound with all the equipment I needed to wear, just to listen to a story that ARR sir had in mind. Have you ever sat with your uncle or your grandfather, as a little child and listen to them intently as they spun a story around the tips of their fingers? They might have started with something like “Once in a far-off land, there was a prince”. This story has a prince. A prince who turns to be a king. A king who has undergone all the suffering and the pain for the sake of music.

This movie reiterates to us who ARR sir is. This is a blatant representation of his story. 99Songs represents the way his music grew on him and how it grew on all of us. I am having trouble trying to explain how I feel about the movie at this moment in time because I cried. I cried during the movie. I experienced a few moments of catharsis. I met my maker in those few minutes of tears. Tears that rolled down my cheeks as though they were drops of water from the ever-falling Niagara Falls. Tears that made sense of who I was as a person. Tears that shed the weight of life off my shoulders. Tears that made me human. Tears that made me realise who I was as a person in this world. Forget asking google questions about the meaning to life; ARR has the answer.

I don’t want to talk about the storyline or the movie or how it felt as of this moment because I will end up talking about the movie. I would plead to the goodness in your souls to go watch this movie in the theatres as it is nothing short of a magical experience. Go back in time when you were 4 or 5 years old and your elder cousin would have played a magic trick with you as he bit his thumb off and fixed it back again. Do you remember how it felt? Do you remember the way your eyes opened up and your jaw dropped in excitement as his finger was reattached by magic? That is exactly how I felt at the end of the movie. Nothing but exhilarating excitement through music. The last 15 minutes will make you weep like a child, no matter if you are in your 50s or 60s, it will make you cry. Take someone with you and show them what it feels to be loved.

Dear Vishwesh, Thank you. I have nothing else to say but thank you for having been the artist or the animator to ARR sir’s beautiful story.

Dear Ehaan, You are a heart throb and a natural. Thank you for playing your role and the tears that you shed. Thank you for learning to play the piano from KM and from Sir. You played Jay every so perfectly.

Dear ARR sir,

It has been a while since I opened up as a person and as an artist. Thank you for restoring faith in life. Thank you for restoring faith in humanity through 99Songs. And, yes sir. It took just one song to change my world. Thank you sir. I might cry tears and have them roll down my cheeks, they slide off my skin out of happiness and happiness alone. Once a lot of people have watched the movie and felt the essence of your story dear sir, I will once again come back to you to talk about how I truly felt.

Dear WORLD,

99 songs is an experience. Live it. Live your life this once. It is worth it.

 

In the words of Southern Cinema

This write up is just a trailer. Wait for the main picture.

 

Dr. Izhar Vinson Iyapillai