Poetry in motion...

That's what I felt as I stepped out of the theater after watching 'Ye Maya Chesave' (YMC). Almost a decade ago I had watched 'Cheli' and its Hindi Version (Rehna Hain Tere Dil Mein) and I felt Gowtham Menon is one of the directors who is very good at that genre. His previous films, Kaka Kaka (Gharshana in Telugu), Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu (Raghavan), Varanam Aayiram (Surya s/o Krishnan), too had the episodes of romance, which were really worth watching. Almost for all of his films he had penned beautiful dialogues for those romantic episodes. I was expecting a full-length romantic film from him again and finally it materialized with YMC. I am jealous of him for amorous and gripping screenplay.

The chemistry between its lead actors Chaitanya and Samantha was superb. I always believe doing close-up shots for any actor is difficult compared to long shots as it give us audience a clear picture of his/her expressions, physical gestures etc.. The film has too many close-up shots and I had a quite satisfaction with their performance.

I did not see Josh, but Chaitanya was very natural in this film. This might be because he was just be himself and did not act. A few people whom I know said that he was not up to the mark, but I would say his character was so that he has to underplay. The only thing I hated about him was his dance (definitely better than Krishna and Jagapati Babu); they should have choreographed the songs (which has dances) without any dances.

Samantha is one of the finest actors of Telugu Cinema in the recent past after Charmee. She was terrific as Jessie and I was mighty impressed and obsessed with her performance. The lady who has dubbed for Samantha was simply superb and she is the same lady who dubbed Sameera Reddy in Surya s/o Krishnan. Always husky sounds better than sweet and I realized this after watching Chandralekha, in which Ramya Krishna dubbed herself. Moreover the voice of Savita Reddy for most of the heroines in both Telugu and Tamil has been monotonous.

The story deals with the complications of a woman's mind. Gowtham must had researched a lot on this subject and I was taken by surprise with the way he narrated with the presence of conflicting elements sharing the same space in each and every shot: sanity and insanity, love and hate, selfishness and generosity, truth and lies, anguish and joy, remorse and happiness, etc. and I was damn impressed.

Music and background score by Rehman was like slow poison. Manoj Paramahamsa did a fabulous job, especially the backer-water shots in Allepie; one just cannot close his eyes. Dialogues were totally conversational and I thoroughly enjoyed them.
'తన front కంటే backe ఎక్కువ సార్లు చూశాను; not that I was complaining'.
Conversation in the US when they meet after 2 years.

This one of the best love stories I have ever seen; next to Geethanjali; that's the best compliment I can give.

Title should have been ఏ మాయ చేశావే instead of ఏ మాయ చేసావే.

P.S: http://idlebrain.com/news/2000march20/kbc-ymc.html

I have seen tamil version (Vinnaithandi Varuvaaya) as well. Trisha was plastic sometimes; I was expecting her to perform better than in ఆడ వారి మాటలకూ అర్ధాలే వేరులే. Simbu was fantastic; he was too good in the first song.