Tag Archives: Santhosh Narayanan

Kadaisi Vivasayi (2022)

Posted on by

I’ve enjoyed every film from M. Manikandan so far and I’m impressed by the variety of the subjects he tackles. From a reflection on globalisation in Kaakka Muttai to the thriller Kuttrame Thandanai and the very funny Aandavan Kattalai, his films have been entertaining and thought provoking, and Kadaisi Vivasayi is no exception. This time his focus is on an octogenarian farmer and preparations for a ceremony at his village temple. Mayandi (Nallandi) has lived all his life simply, used to back-breaking labour every day and farming using traditional methods. But when an incident forces an unexpected change in his life, the consequences involve everyone in the village.

What impresses me most about Kadaisi Vivasayi is the excellent cinematography and the almost documentary feel to the early part of the film as Mayandi, his life and the village are all introduced. When I worked in Tamil Nadu I stayed in small villages, one near Tiruchirappalli (Trichy) and one near Thanjavur, where I saw scenes just like this every day. My family are farmers back in Northern Ireland as well, so this felt like a real step back home for me, especially since my Great Uncle’s farm had no electricity or running water, similar to Mayandi’s house here. Mayandi and his life are introduced by the camera following him through his normal activities. His care of the land and respect for all living things is clear at every stage, while the sheer amount of hard work that he gets through each day is impressive. The slow pace also allows appreciation of the countryside; the shimmer of leaves against the sky, the lush green of new crops and the glory of peacocks, spreading their feathers against the rocks beside the fields are all featured as Mayandi makes his way to the fields.

When the village tree is struck by lightning, the elders decide that this is due to not praying at their temple and devise a festival to appease the village god. This involves an offering of rice and as the only farmer left in the village, Mayandi is tasked with producing the first grains needed for the festival. At the same time, the villagers approach the last potter to make the clay pot and horses needed for the ceremony. He too is elderly and frail, and the idea of traditional expertise being lost and time-honoured knowledge squandered as no-one takes up these customary trades underlies the plot of the film. There are caste issues in the village too and most of the villagers have sold their land to developers as the lack of water makes farming unprofitable and just too hard. Once of the villagers (Yogi Babu) has bought an elephant from the proceeds and points out that he makes more money each day from his elephant than he ever did farming. Against this backdrop, Mayandi’s decision to keep farming seems inexplicable, but he explains that without farming, he would have no reason to get out if bed each day. It’s all he has ever known, and it is his life – it is as simple as that.

But Mayandi isn’t as sanctimonious as that makes him sound and M Manikandan adds comedy though Mayandi’s interactions with the local shopkeeper who tries to sell him seedless tomatoes amongst other more modern innovations. There is comedy too with Kali Muthu as a bald man so desperate to grow back his hair that he is willing to try any outlandish remedy and a police officer (Kaalaipandiyan) who is consistently mistaken as an electrician, auto-driver and various other professions except his real job.

In addition to being old and illiterate, Mayandi is also hearing impaired, so when he is arrested for a crime he clearly didn’t commit, he doesn’t understand what is happening or why he cannot go back to his farm. The farcical nature of the court proceedings is kept grounded by the sympathetic but punctilious judge (Raichai Rabecca Philip) who would like to release Mayandi but is bound by strict rules and has to follow procedure. One story arc follows the police officer who is tasked with looking after Mayandi’s crop and how that allows him to become a more sympathetic character. While in jail, Mayandi also shows one of the other inmates how to grow a plant from seed but despite this brief respite, Mayandi is still lost without his usual day to day routine. Poignantly he can only see the tops of the trees from his cell and is reduced to looking at the sky, waiting to be able to go back to his fields.

A side plot involves Mayandi’s son Ramaiah (Vijay Sethupathi) who is said to be mentally disturbed following the death of his girlfriend. He is a follower of Murugan and wanders the area with all his possessions in two jute bags. Ramaiah wears numerous broken watches on his arm and appears and disappears randomly, seemingly unaffected by time and the burdens of everyday living. He is a spiritual figure who stops to tell his father about Murugan and it is hinted throughout the film that he is actually the most sane character despite his mental illness. Vijay Sethupathi is excellent and his portrayal here is the main reason why the character works within the film. He conveys an other-worldly quality to Ramaiah and his relationship with the natural world creates a bond with Mayandi who also has a great respect and belief in Nature.

Nallandi was a farmer rather than an actor and here he seems to be just living his life rather than acting throughout the film. He is the archetypal farmer and has a clear connection to the land. One member of his family describes him as someone who always knows when it is going to rain, and Mayandi himself tells the judge that by keeping him in jail she is killing thousands of lives, meaning his young rice seedlings. His face is mostly expressionless which fits the type of man he is playing as does his placid acceptance of everything that happens. Even during arguments in the village square he is quiet and still, clearly seeing the village issues and problems as nothing to do with himHe clearly has no time for anything that doesn’t relate to his work, as is shown when he buys what appears to be a decoration or charm in the village. When stopped by his grandson he explains that it’s actually treatment for snake bite and each part is useful in some way. Mayandi reminds me so much of my Uncle who is similarly quiet and just gets on with things the way he has always done them, without any fuss or bother! 

For much of the film, the background noise is that of nature, the sound of birds and insects, the bells on the cattle and the sound of the wind through the grasses. Santhosh Narayanan’s music suits the film and is used sparingly making it unobtrusive but effective. M. Manikandan touches on a number of social issues but they don’t impinge too much on the film and mostly occur as a brief conversation. A man who is accused of beating his wife is released by the police without charge (it’s not serious!), while Mayandi with his less serious crime is held in jail for weeks. Corruption is the police force is touched on a number of times but the funniest is when the young village girl with dwarfism mentions that she would vote for the judge without being bribed when she scolds the police for arresting Mayandi. All small moments that are effective but don’t overshadow the main story. 

The other members of the cast are excellent and the slow pace of the film suits the storyline. I really enjoyed this film and found it a real delight to watch and a feast for the senses. Enjoyable in every aspect, Kadaisi Vivasayi is simply an excellent film and one I fully recommend watching. 4½ stars

Jagame Thandhiram (2021)

Posted on by

I’ve been a fan of Karthik Subbaraj’s previous films, even his venture with Rajini, but he seems to miss the mark this time. Despite an excellent cast and some good ideas, Jagame Thandhiram fails to engage as it should, mainly due to its over 2 ½ hour run time. But there is also a clash of themes, with the first half of the film being a typically violent gangster film with flashes of comedy that doesn’t mix well with the political ideology and humanitarian motif in the second. The supposed redemption of the lead character is also problematic, but at least Dhanush has enough charm to induce a whiff of plausibility to the change.

The film sets the scene with a violent murder in the streets of London before moving back to Tamil Nadu and introducing a local rowdy Suruli (Dhanush). Suruli’s reputation is such that his bride prefers to leave him immediately after the ceremony rather than go through with the marriage, but when a London gang is looking for a murderer for hire, they decide that Suruli would be the ideal fit. Lured away from his parotta restaurant by the promise of vast sums of money, Suruli finds himself working for a white supremacist by the name of Peter (James Cosmo) while his childhood friend Vicky (Sharath Ravi) translates Peter’s demands. This actually works well as a device to show that we tend to hear what we want to hear and not what is actually being said. However, with so much else going on, the translation issue tends to get pushed to the background.

Peter’s target is a Tamil gangster Sivadoss (Joju George) who was behind the murder of one of Peter’s men in the opening scenes. Sivadoss is a smuggler, primarily trading in guns for gold, but he also is involved in assisting refugees to settle in the UK. As a bigoted anti-immigrant, Peter is violently opposed to immigration and decides to use a brown man, Suruli, to solve a brown man problem – Sivadoss. So far so good, with Peter’s over the top posturing not too unrealistic given similar behaviour has actually occurred far too frequently in real life recently. But just when everything seems to be settling in for a nicely violent gangster film, Karthik Subbaraj decides to introduce a secondary theme that ultimately derails the film.

On one of his outings with Vicky, Suruli spots Attilla (Aishwarya Lekshmi) who is singing in a bar. There follows the usual tired and very outdated love at first sight trope that really needs to be allowed to rest in peace, but at least Attilla does push back – at first anyway. The whole romance feels like a bad fit with the rest of the film, and more like a nod to appeal to a mass audience rather than a genuine attempt to add something different to the screenplay. But in the second half, Attilla shares her past which moves the story in a different direction although unfortunately, none of this proceeds in a way that fits with the previous storyline or is even slightly believable. Added to that, both leads look uncomfortable with each other, which ensures the romance never takes off either and makes the final point of using Attilla as Surali’s redemption a step too far that misses by a mile.

Although the story fails to deliver to Karthik Subbaraj’s usual standard, the cast mostly fit well into their roles. It’s just a shame they are all acting in a different film to each other. Dhanush has played this type of gangster film many times before and perhaps that’s why he seems less than thrilled with some of the scenes. The action sequences are great, but he seems as bemused by the romance as I was, and it’s really only the scenes where he is double-crossing anyone and everyone that genuinely come alive. Joju George and James Cosmo are both very good in their roles but of the two, Joju has the better role. The character of Peter is one-dimensional to a point that makes him almost a cartoon figure, while at least Sivadoss has more shades and better dialogue. The various other gang members are mostly interchangeable and superfluous with even Vicky being relegated to the background as the violence heats up. Aishwarya Lekshmi is totally wasted in a role that probably looked good on paper, but doesn’t work at all within the context of the rest of the film. 

What does work well are the action sequences which are beautifully choreographed and flow easily into the storyline. The music from Santhosh Narayanan is also good and the songs also fit well into the film. It was also good to see parts of London on screen and the usual chilly British weather ensuring everyone (apart from James Cosmo) looked suitably frozen in any outdoor scene. James Cosmo benefited from a rather warm looking coat and cashmere scarf and so looked much more comfortable, but then as a Scot is probably more used to the cold anyway! And if you’ve ever wondered how Scottish dancing would look with Tamil music, wonder no more.

Jagame Thandhiram could have been a really good gangster film, or a really good refugee film, but it can’t be both. The combination storyline makes for an overly long running time and the two halves never gel together. As a result Suruli’s character is also problematic, having made too many bad decisions in the first half for any of the events in the second to ring true. There are lots of good ideas, but for once Karthik Subbaraj fails to bring them all together and the usual deliciously wicked humour is totally missing. Perhaps if it had been a 4 episode web series it might have had the space required to fully develop the story, but even with two and a half hours, there just isn’t enough time to make it work here. 2½ stars.

Vada Chennai (2018)

Posted on by

Vada Chennai

Vetrimaaran’s Vada Chennai is an excellent gangster film and a promising start to his planned trilogy. As with his earlier work, Vetrimaaran’s characters here are complex and their relationships with each other are tangled and multilayered, while the action is more straightforward although often brutally violent. The film lays a solid base for the character of Anbu (Dhanush) but also provides a detailed introduction to a multitude of other characters, all of whom contribute to Anbu’s development and his gradual fall into rowdyism. However, this isn’t a film solely about Anbu, but rather a story about an area of Northern Madras and the people who live in ‘the hood’, which ensures the film delivers more of an impact and gives a larger canvas to develop the main players. With an exceptional cast, detailed characters including strong female roles, and the exemplary performance of Dhanush, Vada Chennai is a compelling story that has all the elements to be a classic of the genre.

The first half of the film switches back and forth in time as various key characters are introduced and their background story revealed in a series of ‘chapters’. Anbu wants to be a carrom player, and Vetrimaaran plays on this throughout the film, using the analogy to show that every small action starts a reaction, the impact of which start yet more reactions, and so on in an ever-widening ripple effect. From that perspective it’s hard to say where the story of the film starts. Is it at the beginning of the film where there is a gruesome murder, or where Anbu saves one of Senthil’s men from being knifed during their registration at Chennai prison? Or is it when Anbu meets Padma (Aishwarya Rajesh) during a thieving spree when a riot breaks out after Rajiv Gandhi’s death? The constant throughout is Anbu’s reluctance to enter into the violence he sees all around, and his desire to succeed as a carrom player, although his ambition seems doomed almost from the start.

Initially the film revolves around the rivalry between two gangsters, Senthil (Kishore) and Guna (Samuthirakani). Both are out to kill each other and they each control separate wings in Chennai prison. However, they don’t start out as enemies and the beginning of the film shows Senthil and Guna along with Velu (Pawan) and Pazhani (Sai Dheena) collaborating in a murder. In a particularly grisly moment, they throw their blood-stained weapons, still festooned with goblets of flesh, onto the table in a restaurant before discussing the recent death of MGR and the likelihood of Jayalalitha replacing him as Chief Minister. After the murder, Guna and Velu go to jail, expecting to be swiftly bailed out by Senthil, but when this isn’t the case, their rivalry is quickly escalated to an all-out war between the two factions.  Vetrimaaran brings politics into the story early, showing that the gangsters are canny enough to use the politicians for their own ends, but also as a foreshadowing that politics; local, gangster and state are behind much of the skulduggery later in the film.

Anbu enters this atmosphere in the prison and after a number of incidents finally manages to fall under the protection of Senthil, with whom he shares a common bond in their love of carrom. Anbu is almost an ‘accidental gangster’ having grown up in a shady area of North Chennai and associated with various gang members for all his life. But it’s after he meets Padma and the two begin their relationship that his problems really start. When local rowdies start to give Padma a hard time, Anbu is moved to protest their actions. One thing leads to another, and Anbu is suddenly running for his life along with Padma’s brother (Saran Shakthi). From here Anbu continually tries to get back to life as a carrom player, but it turns out that the gangsters have another role for him to play.

The rich detail in every part of the film ensures that every character is realistic and the various events occur organically within the plot. Every aspect of prison life seems to be captured by the camera, including the method used by the inmates to smuggle drugs in and out of the jail, while life in the slum area of North Chennai is just as intimately shown. Each character is built up from numerous different interactions along with the flashbacks that add depth and a rationale for their behaviour. Ameer is brilliant as Rajan, a smuggler and gangster who was also a protector of the people and who stood up to the local politicians when they wanted to clear the entire area for their own money-making projects. Rajan is the man who first encouraged Anbu to take up carrom and his influence is felt across the story, although he doesn’t appear until late in the film.

Also excellent are Samuthirakani and Kishore as Guna and Senthil, while Daniel Balaji is another standout in his role as Thambi. In contrast to Vetrimaaran’s previous films, he has two strong female characters here who also have important roles to play in the story. Aishwarya Rajesh’s Padma bursts onto the screen as a foul-mouthed thief, but her interactions with Dhanush are brilliantly done, with the romance between the two always feeling realistic and plausible. The scene where Anbu goes to ask her father for her hand in marriage is a rare spot of comedy in a generally dark film, but it still fits well into the narrative, as does Padma’s insistence that Anbu shaves before his wedding. Unfortunately the gangsters intervene and it seems as if Padma will also take a second place with her husband.

Andrea Jeremiah is also superb and has an almost Shakespearean role as first Rajan’s and then Guna’s wife, Chandra. She has a godmother who interprets various omens and predicts the future, most notably proclaiming Anbu as ‘the one’, while Chandra herself is a complex character whose dialogues always seem to have a number of meanings. Andrea Jeremiah initially seemed out of place, but as the film develops and her character evolves she ends up fitting perfectly into the role and her initial aloofness makes perfect sense. Dhanush is perfect as Anbu and completely fulfils the role of a gentle man, driven to violence by events outside his control. He easily slips into the role of a teenager but his real strength lies in the more complex older Anbu who has to deal with his time in prison where everyone seems out to get him. The gradual development of Anbu’s character over the course of the film is brilliantly done and Dhanush captures each facet of his personality and slowly allows the persona to develop. It’s another masterful performance and it’s only at the very end where the change from gangster to ‘voice of the people’ seems rather too abrupt, perhaps because the rest of the characterisation has been so slow and detailed in development.

This rushed feeling at the end is really the only downside to the film. In interviews Vetrimaaran has said that he initially had over 5 hours of film which he has condensed to 164 minutes, which may account for the hurried feeling and the final fast metamorphosis of Anbu. However, despite this, the detail included in the film is comprehensive and the layering of events and characters is a major plus that works to build the entire world of North Chennai inhabited by the characters. There are also some stand-out action scenes in the midst of all the character development. A fight that breaks out at a carrom competition in the jail is beautifully filmed as the protagonists battle it out while simultaneously holding up the shelter over their heads. The initial murder, which is shown in detail later on, is also excellent with a brilliant build-up of tension in the moments leading up to the actual attack. Velraj perfectly captures all the action and despite the dark tones, his cinematography paints a surprisingly colourful picture of life in the area, while some scenes, such as a pursuit though lines of hanging washing are excellent in their picturisation.

Although there are a number of songs in the film, these are used only in short bursts to highlight a particular scene, but Santhosh Narayanan’s background score is perfect and thoroughly enhances the film without being intrusive. Some of the melodies are beautiful and it seems a shame that they aren’t heard in full in the film, but there really is no opportunity for any love songs or dance numbers and with so much else in the film, they really aren’t missed.

After working together on Polladhavan and Aadukalam, Vetrimaaran and Dhanush have again produced another excellent collaboration in Vada Chennai. As the first part of a trilogy there is inevitably a lot of time spent on setting up the story, but here that is so detailed with numerous interwoven threads, that the film is almost complete in itself. The strong cast and compelling storyline ensure that even at almost three hours the film doesn’t feel overlong and the final scenes deliver plenty of anticipation for the next instalment. Hopefully there won’t be too long to wait!