Avinash Ramachandran

Theeyavar Kulai Nadunga opens with the gruesome murder of writer Jebanesan (Logu NPKS) on a lonely road, in the middle of the night, by someone wearing a black suit, black shades, and a black helmet. Is it a serial killer? Why was the writer in tears when talking to his daughter? Why was he killed so brutally? Even as these questions crop up, we are introduced to Inspector Magudapathy (Arjun), a no-nonsense cop, who casually reads the book, “Hidden Evidence”. The film wastes no time in plonking Magudapathy right in the middle of this murder, and he is assigned the case since it happened in his jurisdiction. So far, so good, and I hoped this feeling would stay longer… Alas!

Mask opens with a heist done by a masked gang, and a quirky voiceover by director Nelson. He introduces the players in a rather whimsical way. We have a gang of robbers. We have the philanthropist Bhoomi (Andrea Jeremiah), who needs to find the robbers. We have politician Manivannan (Pawan Krishna), who also needs to find the robbers. And then… we have Velu (Kavin), who… You guessed it right… has to find the robbers. And what do the robbers have to do? Exist in plain sight and wait for the various players to find their way to them. But Mask doesn’t build up to a crescendo as most of the films in this genre do. Instead, it is happier giving brief bursts of energy that might not stay for long, but it is entertaining while it lasts.

In a country that is so diverse that there is a new language, a new cuisine, a new landscape, a new cultural ethos, and even a new set of rules and regulations every 100-200 kilometres, perspective is everything. That is why it feels futile to try to make sense of the things that are ‘different.’ Why not just embrace the vibrance of diversity without trying to burden it with the monotony of uniformity? When Lakshmipriya Devi’s Boong presents us with her view of Manipur, it doesn’t ask us to analyse the differences, but to appreciate the similarities. And the best way to do it is to tell a film through the eyes of a boy, who might be corrupted by the world around him, but he has the excuse of saying, “But I didn’t know better.”

Power. In this world, which is all about the ones on top governing the kinds of lives lived by the ones on the bottom, power is ultimate. Of course, there is the adage that ‘Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ But when presented with the possibility of having absolute power, there are not many who would deny that opportunity. Shakthi Thirumagan is about a person who refuses to deny that opportunity. One which he carefully crafted over time, greased more than a few palms, did more than his fair share of nefarious activities, and gained the key to ultimate power: information. In many ways, Arun Prabu Purushothaman’s Shakthi Thirumagan is a film about how the biggest power in a democracy, even if it might seem increasingly futile in an intolerant world, is the right to ask the right questions to the right people at the right time to get the right kind of information.