Sometimes silence overpowers noise!

Kottukkaali (The Adamant Girl, Tamil; 2024)

Director: P.S. Vinothraj

What do you do when your young daughter becomes catatonic, refuses to speak or eat, stares into oblivion and is hellbent on marrying her equally young boyfriend? You tell her that her choice of boyfriend is inappropriate and that she is way too young to be committed. That she is destined to achieve much more in life; she retreats and refuses to respond and goes all silent; what do you do? Perhaps you would sit down as a family and reason with her. Get a mental health professional involved. Words like puppy love, teenage angst, stress and even bipolar disease would be thrown into the ring.

What do Paandi, his sister, and the rest of the family members do when Paandi's sister's daughter, Meena, goes silent and says she is in love with her friend, who is not approved by the family? Paandi was supposed to marry his niece; it is legitimate in that part of interior Tamil Nadu. The whole family feels that Meena is under a spell. They go on a journey to see a holy man who would break the spell. En route, they would stop at a local deity temple. The whole story is told through this journey. In fact, a good hour into the movie, viewers are clueless about who is who and what is happening. It is all about self-exploration through cinematic experience. No wonder it got a raving review at the 2024 Berlin International Film Festival.

One can pick up many easter eggs as the movie progresses. At that start, we see a cockerel tied to a stone at one of its legs to prevent it from fleeing. We can see it standing on one leg, struggling to pitch the kick of the rope away from its other leg. In fact, this is what the main character, Meena, is doing. In the Tamil lingo, when someone is said to be standing on one leg, he is said to be stubborn or adamant. Hence, the title. An adamant person would kick away the obstacles that bog him down and move along.

The men in the story control everything. They tell the ladies what to do and even where to sit. In this patriarchal society, they are in charge. They know the best route to the places they need, when to go there and all the stops on the way. They can revive a dehydrated rooster and keep peace. They soon realise that diseases of the mind are beyond comprehension.

An angry bull parks itself on a country road, obstructing their path. Being farmers, they thought shooing the bull away was child's play. Not really, they realised. The nearer they went, the angrier the bulls became. The crow could land on its hump without creating a ruckus. All it finally took was its owner's daughter, a pre-pubescent girl, to pull the bull away. 

Not everything can be put in place with a stick and rod, so we need to dangle a carrot. We need the correct person to perform the proper duties. A snake charmer cannot tame a tiger. If a holy man can solve the problems of the nerves, so be it. 

We exert our authority and sell our ideas by just shouting and raising our voices. Sometimes, we realise we cannot overpower silence. Toxic masculinity cannot win over feminine silence.

The party finally reached their destination. After witnessing another client being exorcised, Paandi is not so sure his niece should undergo such a treatment. The ending is left to our imagination. It's a good movie; 4.5/5. See a comedian transform into a character actor. Also, learn a new film genre—road movie. 

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The bottomline of a fall!

Garudan (Vishnu's mythical bird, Tamil; 2024)
Director: R.S. Durai Senthilkumar

We all start life from the bottom of the shelf. We hope to one day be among the window displays and the envy of others. Invariably, he suddenly becomes philosophical once one reaches the top shelf or the window panel. He downplays his initial avarice as materialism, saying that real success is service to mankind and such. He goes on a rant that one can buy a mattress but cannot buy sleep, and he can build a house but not a home. 

Do not be surprised to learn that, behind the scenes, his rapaciousness to usurp wealth still lingers. To this end, he may use his influence, his followers' aloofness, and blind faithfulness to his advantage. Just like how the East India Company and ancient Indian Merchants held the government of the day at ransom, these successful individuals may choose the path of greed.

Just when he thinks he just got everything under his thumb, has his 'i's dotted and 't's crossed, invariably, three things will lead to his fall. That would be land, women and wealth (Mann, Penn, Pon). Sometimes, religion would initiate his downfall, especially when he uses religion to deify himself. With the advent of modern media, before long, his bluff may have been bared open. The hawk of time will be marauding high above us to keep track of our deeds and misdeeds to balance the chit in this life or the next. 

This film is a typical Tamil village drama in which lawlessness and abuse of power are the order of the day. A corrupt minister makes an elaborate plan to usurp a large chunk of land, a family ancestral land donated to a temple. The minister tries to kill the trustee and bribe the closest relative to get the land transferred clandestinely. 

The trustee, an elderly grandma, adopts three boys who grow up tooth and nail, supporting each other. Little trouble starts brewing within the family, and the baddies take the opportunity to fan the embers until it turns into a bloodbath.

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Control is key!

La Luna (2023)

Director: M. Raihan Halim

It is not just confined to one religion; it so happens that Islam is the reference in this film. Leaders of any religion, way of life, or cult take it upon themselves to be the de facto spokesperson on how the religion should be practised. They want to have the final say as if they had an audience with the Almighty, who whispered the secrets of life in their ears. 

To the young and restless, they give the impression that their lifelong purpose in life is to screw up everybody's happiness. Just to show who is the boss. 

Take this example. Occasionally, at the temple I sometimes frequent, there will be public service announcements of some good news or achievements. Naturally, the congregation would display their pleasure and admiration by clapping. That was the most natural thing for us humans to do. "But no!" said one elder, who raised his hands angrily to stop them from clapping. Strangely, a few minutes later, everyone was seen ecstatic, clapping and chanting to chants of 'Hare Rama Hare Krishna'. Nobody seems to know that there is such a rule and the rationale for having one when I ask around. After all, how does clapping in felicitations differ from the one during the recital of hymns? Finally, a very senior attendee just said that it was traditional. Period.

The lesson from this example is that people put rules and regulations in place because they can and want to. It is all about control and showing who is the boss.

This film got many of the religious people hot under the garbs. This comedy questions our blind faith and how leaders use it for selfish needs.

Kampong Bras Basah is a closely knitted village overseen by the conservative local holy man. He determines what is preached in the Friday prayers and micromanages peoples' affairs. Troubles come knocking when a plucky young lady starts her lingerie business in the village. Even though initially the villagers looked at the shop with scorn, they eventually flocked to the shop when one of the couples in the village showed remarkable improvement in their intimate relationships. The holy man digs up his sleeves to shut down the business. The storyline includes hints of spousal abuse, women empowerment, and the need to stand your ground and not blindly follow rules. 4/5.

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An unfair tale!

Madaathy, An Unfairy Tale. (Tamil; 2021)
Director & Writer: Leela Manimekalai

It is said there is a back story behind every village deity. Madaathy is one such goddess. A representative of the feminine powers of the Universe, it is said that she is the embodiment of the spirit of a wronged low caste adolescent girl. 

The first scene itself sets the mood for the rest of the movie. A newly-wed couple, in their best attire, goes on a joyful motorbike ride to Madaathy temple. En route, the bride realises that she just started her menstruation and insists that they stop to get some kind of sanitation napkin. It would flash upon viewers that we are into something taboo. Are they going to cancel their journey or continue to the destination? We are left to wonder.

The story revolves around a group of the lowest of the Dalit community, the Puthirai Vannars. Sometimes, I wonder whether these types of communities and such levels of oppression do actually exist. According to the director/writer, the story was well researched and based on actual events when she was interviewed during the film launch. The Puthirai Vannars comprise a particular group that clean garments. Not any garment but articles of clothing used by the sick, diseased or recently deceased. Sometimes they are summoned to clean the menstrual cloths of villagers. They are cleaners but are considered too polluted to be seen in public. They must never be in full view of others and even live at the edge of the village, delineated by a river. They are too cursed to be seen.

Being impure or outcast does not cross the men's minds when they lust for these Dalit women. They are regularly raped. The Dalits have no recourse to state their predicament.

The film tells the story of a rebellious adolescent girl who runs wild in the forest and builds a crush on one of the village boys. She builds sandcastles in the air only to be gang-raped by her crush and his friends on a drunken night of the Madaathy temple consecration. The girl dies, and her spirit lives in the deity.

Agreed the storytelling, characterisation and cinematography are world-class par excellence. But sometimes, I wonder if all the numerous accolades attached to the film were given not because of its quality but rather because it puts the sub-continent and its dwellers in a horrible light. They like to assume that India is still the same backwater as was depicted in Katherine Mayo's 1927 novel 'Mother India'. They find joy in continually degrading Indian society, religions and culture and portraying the whole of India as worse than the Dark Ages of medieval and savage Europe.

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The rest, all side show.

 Thithi (ತಿಥಿ, Lunar day, Kannada; 2015)

Our wants and needs vary as we grow older (and hopefully wiser). In the spring of our youth, we are brimming with raging hormones. Our biological needs somehow shut off our cognitive powers. The pudendal nerve and illusive higher centres control the more rational neuronal connexions. Unfortunately, the seeds and the ghosts of our action persist in haunting us in the later phase of our lives.

Supposing we pass through youth unscathed, in the next phase of our lives, stuck with baggage of our past, we are expected to provide for our kin. Social hierarchy dictates we are responsible for the seeds that we sow. The emphasis of life is to provide for the living and to accumulate material wealth for an uncertain future. If we are 'cursed' with a long but unproductive life, we have to fend for ourselves. Conversely, a short affluent one will only benefit the dependants.

After completing the deeds that we are assigned to do, to fulfil our karma, we finally understand everything. The dents and blows of the Hard Knock School of Life open our eyes to reality. The heartaches and betrayals lay bare the illusory nature of life. We become pessimistic. Somehow, all our prior chase for material and bodily gratifications do not matter anymore. That is when others think we are fools.

This simple neo-realistic movie using non-professional actors utilising natural backdrops and naked sounds of nature is a multiple-award-winning offering from the Kannada cinema, often labelled as Sandalwood. It tells the tales of a centenarian, Century Gowda, who dies suddenly. Gowda had been a hunk in his heydays, and that created a rift between him and his son, Gaddappa. Gaddappa is disillusioned with material things and prepare to live as an ascetic (or vagabond, pick your choose). Gaddappa's son, Tamanna, is a householder who is striving to keep his family intact minding his sugar cane plantation and erratic water supply. Tamanna's son, Abhi, a loafer who gets on by doing odd jobs and surfing porn on his mobile phone, and has both his eyes hooked on a pretty goat shepherd girl.

The rest of the tale tells about Tamanna, fed up with his father, Gadappa's, lackadaisical attitude with life wanting to sell off his grandfather's land to support his family. Unfortunately, Gadappa does not want to write off the plot of land to his son. Tamanna then plots a convoluted plan to create a fake death certificate of his father whilst sending him off on an extended vacation towards this end. 

The story shows us how these members of the three generations are embroiled in their own shenanigans as each of them pursues their own purpose in life. It all ends up in a twisted comedy of errors. The rest of the villagers are there to enjoy the party; the party being the final funeral rites of Century Gowda. Here, they celebrate his full life by feasting on the family's mutton meal and the stage show that was arranged. The rest is all sideshow for them.

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Death, not the last frontier!

Settum Aayiram Pon (செத்தும் ஆயிரம் பொன், 

Even after death, worth a thousand sovereigns, Tamil; 2020)

Netflix

We paint our faces to make them presentable to the outside world, just like how we dress our dear departed as they leave on their journey to the other side. A make-up artist does that to make the actors look desirable. The undertaker does the same - to showcase the deceased so that the mourners can only see a pleasant looking corpse; devoid of the pain and misery of the tail end of his life.

In a way, life and death are the same. A make-up artist and an undertaker do the same job, masking the unpleasantness of reality. Like a birth which is celebrated with revelry, so should death. The joy of the cry of a newborn child is comparable to the wailing of the aggrieved mourners.

In most Eastern cultures, deaths are noisy and long affairs. The graphic display of emotions and rituals are actually ways to help the relatives resolve the separation issues and put closure to the death of a family member.

This film reminds me of the many Tamil films made in the 1980s with the villages as their backdrop. Like those movies, the actors are generally newcomers, and the theme is something intertwined with the traditional village folk practices. Here, the filmmaker narrates about the meeting of a grandmother and her granddaughter and the handling of the issues that kept them apart. The grandmother is the official 'village mourner', someone assigned to create the tone of melancholy in a funeral by belting rhymic songs interspersed with playful use of words in painting the deceased's life achievements and setting the mood of loss.

The granddaughter, a make-up artist from Chennai, is summoned to come to the village to settle some property issues. She grudgingly comes. Her parents had bad blood with the villagers and had to leave, hence, the resentment. The granddaughter was apparently married off at the age of five to the opposition of her mother. The supposed husband is the one who dresses the dead. In a way, applying make-up is the family tradition, one for the living and one for the departed.

Because of delays in the paperwork of the land transfer, the granddaughter has to stay behind. This becomes an opportune time to rebuild the broken bond and her understanding of the village practices—a great movie with natural acting. The spoken dialogue may appear vulgar, but we have to admit that is reality. Nobody bothers with niceties in real life. The style of photographing is surreal, as if the viewers are there in person witnessing the charade. A memorable scene is when a two-timing husband dies in the embrace of his lover, and the two women of his life fight over to perform the final rites. This commotion is reminiscent of a moment in a 2009 Japanese movie, 'Departures', where a closet crossdresser is wrongly dressed in the wrong garment to the furore of family and relatives.

The title of the film refers to a Tamil proverb, 'Yaanai irunthaalum aayiram pon, iranthaalum aayiram pon' (யானை இருந்தாலும் ஆயிரம் பொன், இறந்தாலும் ஆயிரம் பொன்), which tells the insignificance of the human body. A corpse is worthless once life departs, perhaps only useful as a cadaver in a medical school. An elephant is worth a thousand gold coins, dead or alive. A living elephant is helpful for hard labour and a dead one for its tusk and hide.

Worth the while. 9/10.

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Every system needs periodical revamp

Rangasthalam ( రంగస్థలం, Theatre, Telugu; 2018)

You think he is alright as your leader. He seems well composed to hear things out. He exudes an aura of confidence. He always has people around him who love him. He gets things done. He must be doing something right. He is even to be personally partaking in religious functions. He appears charitable enough. The same divine forces that govern your life must be the same one that runs his. The Ruler of the world must have sanctioned him to rule over this piece of land.

Then you realise one or two things do not match. It does not seem fair; not proper. You pass it off your own naivety. After all, a person with so much public support and approval cannot be wrong. Then it hits you. Your liberty is snatched away. You scream injustice, but then it dawns upon you the whole administrative machinery has been turned to suit him. You and the ones wronged by the once thought to be the saviour of the land is actually a wolf in sheep's clothing.

You have no recourse to highlight your plight. What do you do? An uprising at the risk of losing everything you have accumulated like a sparrow slowly building its nest? A violent revolution causes the destruction of lives and property. Psyop needs time and resources. What avenue is left when the powers that be controlled the amenities that were created to serve you, anyway.

One website described this movie as one of those movies from South India over the last few years that changed the cinema landscape. This is just baloney. In the 80s, so many movies came out highlighting the nonsensical administration of the village panchayats and the cruelty of the land zamindars. Now it is the cooperatives, that is all. This formula of a lone wolf fighting a corrupt system, coming out unscathed and winning the heart of the beautiful lass is as old as the industry itself. The redeeming factor must be the excellent cinematography and its soothing melodies.

The film tells the story of a young hearing-impaired agricultural worker, who after seeing too many injustices happening under his very nose, takes the Village Cooperative Society President head-on. Mysteriously villagers who opposed the President's decisions committed suicide or went missing. The last straw came when his learned brother was killed when he decided to stand against the President in the local elections.

Can give it a miss but the massive box office earnings and the remake in Kannada may mean that the producers are just riding on its financial success.

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