To see the kind of movie the evocatively named Poovarasam Peepee wants to be the title

refers to a toy trumpet fashioned from a leaf we have to get past an awkward opening stretch.
Its the last day of school before the summer holidays. The bell rings. Kids stream out of
classrooms. And, for some strange reason, sentimental violins flood the background. hat could
be happening here, before weve even been introduced to the characters, that warrants this kind
of emotional underpinning! There are no answers because we cut, abruptly, to a dynamic song
se"uence, where kids pour glue on the seat of a hapless student and do cartwheels in the corridor.
The shift in mood is disorienting, and if it is to hint at the mi# of wistfulness and merriment that
lies ahead, it isnt at all effective.
$ut a little later, the film begins to settle down and we see what the director, %alitha &hameem,
is after. 'rom the sea of children, we (oom in on the apparently inseparable %arish )*raveen
Kishore+, Kapil ),asanth+ and ,enu )-aurav Kalai+. They climb trees. They catch e#otic insects.
They stuff these insects into cigarette bo#es and sell them to buy a carton of ice cream, which
they scoop into coconut shells while talking about the future. .ne of them wants to become a
scientist. .ne wants to be a politician. The third dreams of fighting fires. The future scientist lies
down on the grass and begins to play the harmonica. In the background, we see hills.
Poovarasam Peepee is the kind of film we rarely see in Indian cinema, leave alone Tamil cinema
the /one idyllic summer0 movie, best e#emplified by 1ob 1einers Stand by Me. 2ike that
film, this one too deals with a bunch of boys and a killing and a search for the killers, and this
3adult angle is tempered with the reality of these boys being... well, boys. )Throw in canned
peaches, tongue sandwiches and ginger beer and we could be in an 4nid $lyton adventure.+
Theres classroom comedy. There are friendships, with the attendant ups and downs )the latter
caused by a diary with entries such as /&he asked me 3duster0+. There are knotty negotiations
with the world of grown5ups an alcoholic father, the death of an elder. Theres some fledgling
romance. Theres even se#. %arish, Kapil and ,enu are fascinated by a rape scene in a movie
shown on television, and later, we witness the events around a wet dream, which are superbly
structured as a counterpoint to the coming5of5age rituals for girls that we usually see in Tamil
cinema.
This sort of mi#, delicate and te#tured, needs a sure hand, the kind of skill displayed by An6ali
7enon in her stunning 7alayalam debut, Manjadikuru, a similar story of kids being kids while
dipping a toe into the world of grown5ups. %alitha &hameem, a first5time director, has good ideas
and instincts, but her filmmaking isnt "uite there yet. The scene segues are herky56erky, and
sometimes, theres no finish to the scenes. 7oments like the one between %arish and his
grandfather or the one where %arish and ,enu make up after a cold war needed to be lingered
on, but &hameem seems to be in a tearing hurry to get to the ne#t scene. )4ven so, the film is
overlong, almost two5and5a5half hours.+ And she doesnt yet know how to stage scenes for
ma#imum impact. The stretch where %arish, Kapil and ,enu scare the killers with homemade
tricks needed to be near5magical, seen through the eyes of these children it comes off like
cheap gags, seen through adult eyes. %ere, and elsewhere, we sense that all the bits are in place,
but they dont cohere organically, which is what happens in a great movie. Theres no
overarching mood, thanks to the films fondness for straying into hastily assembled subplots
about sand smuggling and star tortoises.
And yet, this isnt a film that can be easily dismissed. There are many funny lines, funny scenes,
and when &hameem puts her mind to it, she seems capable of brilliance. The se"uences where
the kids turn into rogue radio broadcasters are delightful for a while, everything comes
together. Another impressive portion renders religious violence through animation its as if
the kids were reading a comic book that spoke of these events. And the tree festooned with
answer sheets is easily one of the years best visuals. The most surprising aspect of Poovarasam
Peepee, whose title and milieu suggest a touch of the rustic, is the casual incorporation of
4nglish. The kids know about %arry *otter and they speak of /forensics0 and /presence of
mind0. Tamil is usually so valori(ed in Tamil cinema and other tongues and cultures so
vilified that these unfussy e#cursions into a globalised India )which arent intended to make
too ma6or a point+ are refreshing. There is a mind at work here, and there is a voice. It will be
interesting to see what &hameem does ne#t.