Of movies and messages

There is no wrong publicity – this is the underlying mantra behind every action taken by any public personality of this decade. The more negative it is, the more beneficial. You can allow the flame to blow up explosively and claim your fifteen minutes of fame for as long as you can. Once the flame subsides can claim fringe benefit of sympathy as well. Looking at the ROI, it is no wonder people literally set out traps for falling head long and gain negative publicity. This applies more for movies, especially ones that come with big banner or over hype. The teasers or word of mouth usually try to sow the seeds of negativity about themselves and if nothing works, ask any of the leading cast member to throw in a comment or two about any political party or about some controversial statement. If nothing works, at least bad mouth about their own industry members or some famous film from the past. People are that desperate to ensure success and it gets justified looking at the millions that are pumped in to get a movie released. Maamannan (great king) ticks almost every box in this list. Starting with the storyline and director, who has a penchant for stirring castiest sentiments, milking on the sympathy of the oppressed people. I will come to this topic a bit later. Casting Vadivelu was seen as a coup in teacup for he was red carded by the industry several years ago. Considering that the movie was bankrolled, lead by arguably the most influential politician in TN now, any and every color card that Vadivelu might’ve carried would’ve hardly mattered. The audio launch function played the role of Helen of Troy for the movie makers, by launching a thousand discussions on what was said and left unsaid on the stage. The director cleverly played his cards, by quoting his views about “Thevar magan”, having invited kamal as chief guest and with him sitting in front row. He mentioned about how badly the movie affected him and his people when it got released and how his views have changed since then, resulting in Maamannan, which he claimed as an offshoot story based on a possible character from Kamal’s movie. Decency and etiquettes be damned, for shaming your chief guest in front of everyone more so with him being present. But the double-edged sword has hurt the director and his intentions as much as what he was trying to achieve in his own movie. 

Growing up I’ve seen so many movies based on what were supposedly the major castes in TN. For starters, I had no clue as to who was the oppressed or who were superior in every district of TN and as a kid, all those movies, including Thevar magan, felt commercial ones where the omnipotent hero will bash up wrongdoing villains, amidst couple of rib-tickling comic scenes and couple of hummable songs, with a dash of family sentiment thrown in. When one such story becomes a hit, the industry quickly piggy backed on the same topic resulting in a slew of such movies, a tradition that follows till today. All those Nattamais, gounders, thevars where never seen as caste names, by me but an extension of the name of the characters played. Now when I look back at those movies, after having seen movies made by Mari selvaraja (director of Mamannan) or P. Ranjith, I wonder how such movies were even allowed!!! Either we’ve been more tolerant as a society 2 decades back or we’ve become hypersensitive now. One cannot imagine a “Chinna gounder” or “Naattamai” or even “Ejamaan” for that matter to get a censor certificate leave alone a re-release. Does that mean that Mari’s and Ranjith’s are wrong in their story telling? Absolutely not. Having undergone such cruelty shown in their movies, many of the scenes having been factual than fiction, they literally show the mirror back to the society and cry their lungs out by shouting from top of every high rise available on the plight of such people. When the upper castes were shown as benevolent in nature, taking care of the downtrodden, no one questioned or criticized such themes, as it was trying to whitewash the sins made by their ancestors. Primarily because of the industry setup at that time, the mindset of the audience and not having gutsy artists who are also crowd pullers. Now that the industry has tasted success of such themes, everyone wants to come out and pour the anguish about the sins committed against their castes and it includes people from castes across the spectrum. There is nothing right or wrong about this situation for as long as there is someone to bankroll a project, any creator can commit to any story of his choice. If the censor board finds no harm in issuing a certificate, individuals have only the option of either to watch it or leave it.

My take on the movie, after watching it has been bit mixed. I feel the director need not have resorted to shaming Kamal. I am never a fan of Kamal or his views. But calling out your chief guest and dressing him down is not my cup of tea. Even without such gimmicks, the movie would’ve run its own course. Of course, the free publicity helped in hyping it up more. But the content is strong enough to compete on its own is my feel. I liked the much talked about interval portion, where the son, insists his dad to sit which is resisted by the villain. But I loved the scene where, having been seated outside the room, while is father is discussing with the CM, he imagines his dad being not offered a seat inside and rushes in, only to find him sitting close to the CM. That was not just mass but class scene, which iterates the message of the movie. The plight of people doesn’t change even when they are given power. The need to use the power and realize it. Only then their plight will change. It was possibly one of the hard-hitting scenes I have ever seen in a movie. Rest of the story and scenes, felt like mish mash of news clippings from recent past. Such has been the brazenness with which such events happen that, like Kashmir situation decade back, which used to occupy first para of every news page, these events have already numbed most of the public that they’ve gone accustomed to the shock effect. But still those stories must be told, and voice of such people must be heard. For that sake at least we need more of such movies that disturbs our consciousness which has gone numb long back. It should make one feel uncomfortable and eventually start thinking about themselves in such situations. Till then, we’ve to put up with such disturbing themes which are unfortunately the need of the hour, despite after 7.5 decades of calling ourselves independent.