Pariyerum Perumal

Pariyerum Perumal

2018, Tamil, Amazon Prime, 8.8/10 IMDB, Directed By Pa. Ranjith

Discrimination as never seen before and it's pain as never felt before.

The debutant director Mari Selvaraj has etched the pain in our minds with beautiful characterizations.

The opening scene with 'Karuppi' the hound dog accompanied by the nellai slanged 'Madhayaanai Koottam' boy Kathir, both emote organically to translate the suppressions that staunchly affects us viewers as the rivals kill the dog in the railway track.

The story dates back to 2005 where the social media wasn't in play which justifies the incapacitated instances in the storyline.

The story evolves away from not just being a mere revolutionary kind due to its unique treatment.

The unnamed relationship between Kathir and Anandhi in the Thirunelveli law college, has been spun refreshingly, though inevitably reminds 'Autograph' Sneha and Cheran.

The immensely naive female lead who doesn't understand the discrimination shown to Kathir by her family, does make you question her sanity but that turns out to be the game changer in the climax, the justified dilemma in the upbringing of the next generation without sowing the seeds of discrimination.

This transitional phase of the deep rooted discriminations are inspiringly captured by making the father character of the heroine have the fear quotient and moral policing creeping in and out to curtail his urge of discrimination.

Kathir's dad's profession a well kept secret, when revealed shakes you and the scene where his dignity is sabotaged, you are made to question the sadism in humans, behaving like uncivilized savages, which they indeed are.

Santhosh Narayanan transports you to those lives on the barren land and the picturization of creepy crawlies in Naan Yaar song makes you understand the disgusting feel they are put to live with.

Significant characters are plenty, like the law college professors, principal, the mason of a temple who fills in as kathir's father, the outstanding among them are the honor killing old thug (ervamatin advertisement dub voice could have been avoided) and Yogi Babu has a flair for subtle tickle simultaneously drawing respect to the character he plays.

Characters from Ranjith's Madras and Kabali distracts one as the mind plays tricks tracing back to the roles they played in those movies, but its all short lived as the main stream grips gently creeping on you.

Ambethkarist references from the blue painted black hound in flash backs and blue painted revolutionary montage sequences, but one doesn't need those to say what the movie stands for.

The clarity in the climax just slaps you on the face when he says, 'discrimination will continue till the person discriminating doesn't change and the person being discriminated is treated a dog'.

As an Indian movie goer one is tuned to expect the hero to retaliate violently to the suppressions but the reality scenario plunges in to remind us, thats not how a person would react in real life when he is insulted.

The scene where the camera is inside the car with Anadhi's father and when Kathir breaks the front glass, you get to have a peek of his life's grievances and his suppressions through the broken hole in the glass and the father is still making up his mind whether to pick the knife or not, is a shot which makes each of us the caste discriminating self of ours to whine and lower our head in shame.

Mission accomplished Mari. Make us experience more of what we have only heard off and read about in papers.

Thappad

 Thappad

2020, Hindi, Amazon prime 7.2 /10 IMDB, Directed by Anubhav Sinha

A strong content, told from a weak person's perspective. Somewhere the powerful message fails to touch the audience, the way it ought to.

The movie starts with Amrita, pampering her husband in his everyday involuntary chores, right from waking him up with a drink as the alarm goes off, to reminding him to carry his wallet to work. She literally is like a mom spoiling her child. She is in fact celebrating her housewife's role thinking, it translates as - 'Service to the husband'.

She is so hung up on the daughter -in-law's role, that she doesn't realize that she neglected her passion, and didn't bother to think of having a career. People in her new house don't think she need either of those as its not on the requirement list of a daughter in-law of a wealthy household. But they wouldn't have stopped her if she had the drive in herself to pursue her passion or to find a career for herself. That's a worry isn't it. You can't blame anybody other than Amrita.

For a split second, I wonder if the movie was set in the 1980's or 90's. She does exactly what her mom had trained her to be - 'A good daughter in law', by putting the needs of her husband's, before her own.

If the husband is brough up with an affluent family's patriarchy values, Amrita is brought up with middle class family's values, where girls are groomed only to become an ideal homemaker and if she gets lucky, may be in an affluent family.

If I think calmly for a moment, that's what I personally was trained to be, by my mom in the 80s, - a good homemaker and I turned out to be minimally ambitious as well. But I am not cringing over it either. I believe I am reasonably a good homemaker. I am pretty efficient in what I do, and most importantly, I have my self respect and self esteem and yes, all thanks to my husband.

But the question arises, what if I was not treated with the respect that I think I deserved. Irrespective of the decades that I belonged to and even with the very few ambitions that I had, I'm sure I would have seen it as an instant panic alarm in the arranged marriage scenario of mine.

I would have tried to discuss with my husband that I am NOT OK with the way I am being treated and that I am hurt. But then, that's me. It's got to do with my personality I guess, irrespective of my mother's brought up. But where will I get that instinct to protect my self respect - is it from the education, the society, the people around me? No, it's from within me. My own nature needs to urge me to do so.

I wonder why Amrita, Taapsee's character never spoke about it until the day she was slapped in front of the guests at home. Mind it, the slap was not a specific one, like the husband beating up the wife kind. It was an impulsive one, originating from the frustration of the news on his failure to excel in his dream career. And the poor wife had to end up taking the brunt. It looks like he would have slapped or man handled or pushed anyone who had tried to calm him down at that time.

The husband is a spoilt brat, caught up in the career rat-race, doesn't know to treat women, thinks a dinner or a diamond necklace could fix any issues with his wife, all this instead of saying a heartfelt apology for his behavior - the ultimate unbelievable kind. Yes, he is a moron. But why did she take so long to put the relationship the way she would have loved it to be, right from day one of the marriage. She felt inferior to do so may be. Or there are some 'Slow Bloomers' like Amrita, who realise it ever so late, because their values of obedience to their husband and his family are so damn deep rooted. May be it takes a bang on their head or a tight slap to awaken such people from their fairly tale dreamy world.

The movie's biggest success lies in bringing to light that, whether we like it or not, such systems do exist, which handicaps the women folks even today, in the Indian subcontinent.

Do we blame it on the, 'arranged marriage system' in the country, which is thankfully fast dying, at least amongst the educated corporate lot. Again, we can't point to the system of marriage alone, as this is not exclusive to that type of marriages alone. It again points to the kind of person that you are. The personality that you have become irrespective of your upbringing, your education and society.

Some subtle yet powerful acting from Taapsee and this is completely in contrast to the role of hers in Manmarzian. The girl is on the roll, creating a niche for herself like Ayushman Khurana and you are glad that such female talents are let to shine through in the 'so called' male dominated industry.

The lawyer and maid's abuse stories were two end of the spectrum but the lawyer liberating herself after the cues she gets from Taapee's character, was however not depicted powerfully enough.

On the other hand, I keep wondering how the Taapsee's character would have reacted if the husband had genuinely apologized to her for slapping her unintentionally. Would she forgive him and get back to the normal, No:1 housewife contender that she was before?

Yes, not all people would behave the way we want them to and they let others walk all over them. They allow them to be taken for granted until one fine day, when it all dawns on them.

I am happy Amrita files for a divorce but I am not content because she never discussed with her husband the issues that bothered her in their relationship, as any normal couple would do, right from day one of the marriage. If the in equal economic background and low self esteem are the barriers that refrained her from speaking her mind, then it's sad, and she needed that slap to free herself.

A good watch. It could have been a great one, if the pacing was faster. Is it that our expectations are high from the director Anubhav Sinha's previous work, Article 15? May be, may be not.