| Kalaabak Kadhalan | |
| Director: | Igore |
| Producer: | Vishnu Talkies |
| Starring: | Arya Renuka Menon Akshaya |
| Music: | Niru |
| Cinematography: | R. Madhi |
| Runtime: | 165 minutes |
| Country: | India |
| Language: | Tamil |
Kalaabak Kadhalan is a 2006 Indian Tamil-language erotic thriller film directed by debutant Igore, starring Arya, Renuka Menon, and Akshaya. This film was a low-budget production, and the soundtrack was composed by Niru. It enjoyed relatively quiet success. It shared a similar storyline to S. J. Suryah’s Vaali and another 2006 film called Uyir. The film was released on 17 February 2006.
An IT manager named Akhilan and a Tirunelveli girl named Anbarasi are a newly married couple. They shift to their new house in Chennai and begin to live a happy life, even though their marriage is not based on love.
Soon, Anbarasi's family comes to visit them, and they leave Anbarasi's stepsister, Kanmani, as she wants to pursue her post-graduate studies in multimedia. As Kanmani stays with Anbarasi and Akhilan in the same house, she begins to develop feelings for Akhilan, even though he is her brother-in-law. Kanmani continues to dream of romancing with Akhilan whenever Anbarasi is not around.
Akhilan does not want to hurt his beloved wife who becomes pregnant and has given birth to their son. Tired of dodging Kanmani for almost a year, he seeks advice from a psychiatrist on how to solve his problem. The psychiatrist tells him to try and marry Kanmani off to anyone else. Akhilan secretly comes to Kanmani's village and requests Kanmani's cousin to pursue and marry her. Following Akhilan's advice, Kanmani's cousin decides to marry her, but she rejects him constantly. After about a month, Kanmani's cousin kidnaps her, rapes her, and leaves her at Akhilan's apartment. This shocks everyone in the family, especially Akhilan. He admits secretly to Kanmani about his action and also tells that the plan to rape was not his advice. The whole family forces Kanmani to marry her cousin because of the shame of rape being taboo. The marriage takes place, and Kanmani's family leaves for Thirunelveli.
The next morning, Kanmani commits suicide. Akhilan, Anbarasi, and their child go back to Kanmani's village. Anbarasi's aunt hits Kanmani's husband as she thinks that it was because of him Kanmani died. Akhilan, standing right beside him, is all over guilty because it was he who planned all this to avoid Kanmani disturbing his married life. The film ends with the note "Good love, bad love, what is there in love?"
The film, produced by Vishnu Talkies, is scripted and directed by Iger who has directed some commercials and worked with directors, like Velu Prabhakaran, Narayanamurthy, and Nanda Periyasami. The film has been shot at locations in Chennai, Nagercoil, Tenkasi, Kutralam, and Mahabalipuram.[1]
The soundtrack was by debutant Niru, based in France, who has released several Tamil music albums there.[2] The audio launch was held on 12 December 2005, at Sathyam Cinemas.[3]
Nowrunning wrote: "Kalaba Kadhalan explores relationships, marriage, romance and sex. Importantly, this lurid subject matter is handled subtly where no one gender being offended. Debutant director Igor has made this movie honestly, convincingly and believably. The plot, details, characterization and dialogue are good".[4] Indiaglitz wrote: "Igor shows a skill for handling a difficult subject. He traverses the tightrope of seduction and vulgarity quite nicely. Something you don't expect a debutant to do. On the whole, Kalaba Kadhalan is watchable despite some glitches."[5] Lajjavathi of Kalki praised Igor for handling an plot which is against culture without vulgarity while also praising the casting choices, Akshaya's acting, art direction, cinematography and Balakumaran's dialogues but panned the music.[6]