Viduthalai Part 1 [2023]

 Vetrimaaran’s blistering Tamil film Viduthalai Part 1 – it was planned as a single work, but later decided for release in two parts – delved into inflammatory political topics and fearlessly questioned mainstream narratives, over its expansive scope. The director used both popular and agitational narrative devices while depicting how those fighting for their rights are branded enemies of the state; civic and judicial boundaries are brazenly transgressed – in the name of ushering “development” and battling “militancy” – while suppressing any dissidence against the state; flagrant police brutality and custodial tortures; and the ironic scenario wherein those representing the lowest rung within the armed forces – paid pittance, denied basic conditions, and treated like non-entities by the chain of command – are made to sacrifice their lives and their humanity while waging brutal wars. The said lowest common denominator here is the newly-recruited Kumaresan (Soori), who’s joined a police unit stationed at a dense forest in order to eliminate the rebel tribal leader Perumal (Vijay Sethupathi), who’s violently opposing handing over of their lands to a mining company. The naïve protagonist, employed as a driver and factotum, immediately falls foul of the savage OC upon disobeying orders while helping a villager; this, in turn, leads to a touching romance with an orphaned tribal girl (Bhavani Sre), growing consciousness upon witnessing the bending of truths and perpetration of brutality by his colleagues, and increasing awareness of the man who the state calls a villain but respected as “teacher” by the local villagers. The film’s bravura and stunningly orchestrated 8-minute single-take opening sequence – capturing the grief, chaos and myriad activities at the site of a devastating train derailment – had set the stage for this riveting work.

Director: Vetrimaaran

Genre: Crime/Thriller/Action/War

Language: Tamil

Country: India

Nasir [2020]

 Tamil filmmaker Arun Karthick’s Nasir – incidentally the 2^nd sophomore feature by a young Indian filmmaker that I’ve now watched in succession, after Chaitanya Tamhane’s immersive The Disciple – was laced with such deftly muted fatalist undercurrents and simmering inevitability that one might as well rename the film ‘Death of a Salesman (whose fate is sealed)’ (to borrow the title of Arthur Miller’s famous play). Through portrayal of a seemingly random day in the life of its eponymous protagonist Nasir (Koumarane Valavane) – one that’s filled with mundane activities, chores at the clothing shop he works at, a few “personal” moments amidst the routine of his lower-middle class existence in the city of Coimbatore, be it with his wife who’s leaving for few days, or his mentally challenged son, or discussing job opportunities at Dubai with an old acquaintance, or reciting poetry that he’s himself composed – that begins innocuously but ends on the most horrible note imaginable. Yet, as the background noise, stray conversations, political slogans and news announcements reveal, he’s been living within a combustible keg all along – viz. the poisonous but tragically normalized climate of unabashed (and entrenched) hatred, bigotry, socio-religious prejudice, Islamophobia and "otherization" perpetuated by aggressive populist majoritarian nationalism – which was always boiling up to this… just that Nasir, not because of any specific actions directly attributable to him, but by simply being a member of the “other”, gets shockingly subsumed and massacred by it. Thus, through this minimalist slice-of-life – adapted from Dilip Kumar’s short story A Clerk’s Story – Karthick took the vital stance of positioning Nasir’s victimization as an interconnected dot within a larger narrative which, despite its devastating culmination, was sadly neither isolated nor utterly unanticipated.

 

 

 

 

 

Director: Arun Karthick

Genre: Drama/Urban Drama/Slice-of-Life

Language: Tamil

Country: India

Nayakan (Nayagan) [1987]

Mani Ratnam has often been referred to as a ‘popcorn auteur’, and Nayakan, regarded by most as his best work, provides a great elucidation of that. He infused elements of both arthouse and mainstream in it, thus making it appear as a highbrow film from a popular standpoint. This is a tale of how Velu, a young Tamilian boy, goes on to become a powerful gangster and a ‘Robin Hood’ figure for poor slum-dwellers in the city of Bombay. Kamal Hasan provided a superb and layered performance as the mobster with a heart – especially in his seamless portrayal of Velu’s journey from an idealistic young man to an all-powerful patriarch via personal tragedies. But the movie doesn’t seem to have aged very well. Further, it provided enough moments of déjà vu for someone like me who has watched Coppola’s Godfather trilogy. Though based on the real-life story of Varadarajan Mudaliar, the number of sequences and themes ‘inspired’ from each of the three Godfather films made it seem like a compressed and Indianized version of the Corleone-saga. It suffers from a few more pitfalls as well – poorly developed characters apart from that of the protagonist, incoherence and abruptness in some of the plot developments (as in the police officer who’s chasing Velu with such fury as to make one wonder if there’s some bad blood between the two), convenient usage of deux ex machina to create emotional tension, a rather lackluster background music by the renowned Illayaraja, subpar production values (specifically, editing), etc. Thus, despite the copious concoction of melodrama, and standard mainstream tropes and clichés, with faux-realism, moments of grittiness and violence, and the epic nature of the storyline, made this a reasonably engaging film, and also provided an apt illustration as to why the director has earned the rather pejorative epithet mentioned earlier.








Director: Mani Ratnam
Genre: Drama/Gangster Film/Family Drama/Urban Drama
Language: Tamil/Hindi
Country: India

Roja [1992]

A pet theme of some of Mani Ratnam’s films has been “love at the times of war” – an emotional human drama unfolding at the backdrop of a socio-political upheaval. This journey began with his much-loved Roja. This was also the movie that ensured that thenceforth his fame was no more restricted just among Tamil cine-goers. It told the story of Roja (Madhoo), a young woman belonging to a small village in Tamil Nadu, who gets married, against her wishes, to an educated city-dwelling guy called Rishi (Arvind Swamy), only to be falling for him after their marriage. Soon after, he is sent to Kashmir, a hotebed for Islamic terrorism, accompanied by his increasingly doting wife, only for misfortune to befall them when he gets kidnapped; the terrorist outfit (the leader of which was played by Pankaj Kapoor) demand the release of a notorious ‘jihadi’ in lieu of the engineer. The film was filled with simplistic political ideologues, along with large contents of melodrama and populist jingoism. However, these facets got successfully masked thanks to the simplicity of the touching love story, the strong emotional connect that it managed to establish with me, the soulful and mellifluous music by A.R. Rehman, and fine acting by the leads – Madhoo provided an especially powerhouse performance as the simple-natured and helpless wife trapped in a place utterly alien to her, especially linguistically.








Director: Mani Ratnam
Genre: Drama/Romantic Drama/Political Drama/Musical
Language: Tamil
Country: India

Kannathil Muthamittal (A Peck on the Cheek) [2002]

Mani Ratnam sure loves making movies on the backdrop of troubled times and places – Roja & Dil Se (religious extremism in Kashmir and the North-East, respectively), Bombay (Bombay riots), Yuva (a modern day Naxal-type student movement reminiscent of 1970’s Calcutta). Kannathil Muthamittal, interestingly my first Tamil movie viewing with subtitles instead of with Hindi-dubbing, has LTTE as its backdrop. Though this blog is strictly for cinema, I must state that it was quite obvious from the movie on which side the director’s sympathy lies, and I found that a tad disturbing not just because they turn children into gun-toting warriors and women into suicide bombers, but also because they were responsible for the assassination of an Indian prime minister. But political views aside, I couldn’t help but develop quite a liking for this otherwise gem of a movie. A small girl and her adopted parents’ quest to find the girl’s real mother takes them into the heart of the violent struggle between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE. The movie is very well enacted. Madhavan is spot on as the angry-young-man but loving father; the strikingly beautiful Simran, too, is quite good as an emotionally torn mother. But the real star of the movie, undoubtedly, is the little girl who is hell-bent to find her mother – her surprisingly mature performance belies her age and has played an integral role in making this intense movie a strong commentary on the futility of violence and bloodshed, and the need to harbour love.








Director: Mani Ratnam
Genre: Drama/Family Drama/Political Drama
Language: Tamil
Country: India