Avinash Ramachandran

Redemption. There is something cathartic about seeing someone find a way to stand up despite the odds being heavily stacked against them. Such a redemptive arc isn’t accorded to the ordinary. It requires immense grit, perseverance, and of course, atleast a sliver of luck going your way. Probably why the majority, who resign to their fates, see the underdog as an extension of their own unfulfilled dreams. They want to root for the person who society leaves to rot. Be it Rocky, Saani Kaayidham, Captain Miller, or DC, director Arun Matheswaran is clear about the stories he wants to tell. These are not stories of the people Tamil cinema always loves to tell. These people are, let’s call them, Arun Matheswaran’s Irregulars. They are the people whose lives are forever on the fringe. People whose lives are never important enough for the majority. However, these stories didn’t always translate into convincing cinema since the sum of the parts didn’t do much for the whole. But the fourth time is the charm for Arun, and almost everything fell into place in DC, and it all started when he signed this one person called Anirudh Ravichander.

Hate. Mahatma Gandhi once said that the biggest enemy, as many think, is not hate, but fear. But the powers that be know that the easiest way to dissipate this fear is hate. If you are afraid of something, you might stay away from it. But when you hate something, you want it to be vanquished. That’s what is happening across the world right now, and H Vinoth’s latest film, Jana Nayagan, explores the agenda of hate. While the core idea of Tamil Nadu CM Joseph Vijay’s Jana Nayagan might seem similar, the agenda is more political, the electoral kind. Vijay’s cinematic swansong tries to balance both agendas, but warning bells for the future stand no chance against a fiery political speech that is delivered by a charming Pied Piper.

Arete. This simple Greek word holds the key to understanding why thinkers think, engineers build marvels, writers write magnum opuses, and filmmakers want to make great films. Arete is the realisation of one’s potential on the path to excellence. With The Odyssey, director Christopher Nolan has embarked on one such path. In fact, it is like almost everything he has done so far in his career has built to this moment. The Odyssey has every theme that has become synonymous with Nolan. There’s the concept of time, the promise of a father, the wait of a child, the fate of a wife, the betrayal of your faith, society’s descent into madness, sacrifice for the greater good, questioning the status quo, the idea of home, and flawed humans who don’t know what to do with the consequences of their ‘heroic’ actions.

Camouflage. It is always interesting to see how women empowerment films play out in Tamil cinema. Quite often, the makers try to mount a ‘male saviour’ film masquerading as a ‘women empowerment’ film. But smarter filmmakers know that the audience might see through this bluff, and they have started packaging it better. One such film was Chella Ayyavu’s Gatta Kusthi (2022), a seemingly entertaining ride about the ill effects of misogyny and the inherent need for women’s empowerment in society. On paper, it was empowering, but compromises were made to make it seem more ‘palatable’. Interestingly, in Gatta Kusthi 2, Chella doesn’t play the camouflage game. He throws caution to the wind, and goes all out to give us a battle of the sexes that tilts the scales clearly in favour of the man, but not without having him point out why women must be empowered. Basically, Chella and Vishnuu have the cake, and this time, they eat it, too.

Sacrifice. Every relationship is gauged by the compromises and sacrifices people make. More than the love shared, the hate espoused, the money spent, the resources exhausted, it is sacrifices that are showcased and remembered. And if Tamil cinema has taught us anything in its more than 100-year-old history, it is that a mother’s sacrifice is paramount. Director Sasi’s latest film, Nooru Saami, takes on the responsibility of not just placing the mother on a pedestal, visually representing every iota of her sacrifice, but also asserting that it was all done by a mere mortal, not a divine being, as is often proclaimed. How do you bring a mother down from the pedestal and say that she is a biological being with physical desires? Yes, technically we know how babies are born, but our ‘culture’ prohibits the concept of both sex before marriage, and sex after the couple has reached the socially acceptable number of kids in a family. It is in such a world that Sasi asks a very important question: Shouldn’t a woman be more than just a mother?

Circumstance. When a family is facing a particularly distressing period in their lives, what really matters is their response to the circumstances. Over the years, cinema has often told stories of families that stick together to face whatever comes their way. We have seen the Drishyams, the Koodi Vaazhndhaal Kodi Nanmais, the Kolamaavu Kokilas, the Doctors, and even last week’s release, Blast. Families finding themselves painted into a corner, and doing everything possible to get out of it, is a time-tested template, and yet… director Pandiraaj’s latest, Parimala and Co, does the one thing you shouldn’t do when it comes to making a whodunnit family drama. He makes things… boring.