Solid: Keerthy Suresh, Selvaraghavan
Director: Arun Matheswaran
Saani Kaayidham was good. Eventually, a Tamil movie which is price the perfect worldwide recognition. Arun Matheswaran has given us a movie which is mesmerizing and full of layers of narration hardly ever witnessed earlier than.
I really feel that this movie packs the mixed vitality of many movies. High on the listing can be Subramaniapuram by Sasikumar, Nandalala by Mysskin, Asuran by Vetrimaaran and Pithamagan by Bala and lots of extra such pioneers. The narrative is in fact strongly influenced by Aaranya Kaandam and Tremendous Deluxe by Thiagarajan Kumararaja with whom Matheswaran has labored earlier than. The movie can also be a tribute to the sluggish cinema traditions set by masters similar to Kim Ki-duk from South Korea, Paweł Pawkiloski from Poland and Ming-liang Tsai from Taiwan. I really feel the title of the movie is a tribute to Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, Saani Kaayidham interprets as “pulp doc”.
The first narrative
Final however not the least, this movie has deep influences of the well-known poem drama by Subramania Bharati known as Panjali Sabatham, a piece devoted to the tragedy of Draupadi within the Mahabharata. A vital line within the track says ‘eridhazhal kondu va da annanin kaiyai posukuvom‘. Draupadi, when she is humiliated within the court docket of the Kauravas over a sport of cube, she shouts out to Bhima asking him to convey the flaming torch with which she might burn the arms of his elder brother Yudhishthira, the good dharma raja who had the audacity of playing her physique away in a sport of cube. This rape of Draupadi or Ponni on this movie performed brilliantly by Keerthy Suresh is the central theme of Saani Kaayidham.
If the Mahabharata is centred round who must be the homeowners of the dominion of Indraprasth, the battle of this movie begins with a dispute over the inheritance and possession of property between two brothers. And poor Ponni is dragged into this battle due to the stupidity of her drunken husband.
Representations
Ponni represents fashionable India employed as a police constable who has to face the vanity of the feudal landlords within the hinterlands of Tamil Nadu. This brings us the viewers to deeply introspect — Has feudalism and the legacies of the smug landlords actually left India? I’m positive younger filmmakers like Matheswaran will need to have encountered so many movie producers and distributors who behave with such authority that may destroy the arrogance of those children.
Coming again to the movie, Ponni’s assist comes from her lengthy misplaced brother Sangayya performed by Selvaraghavan. Who’s he representing? Krishna, the one that is at all times imagined with the conch in his hand. And due to this fact he’s aptly known as Sangayya and just like the well-known charioteer that Krishna was within the Mahabharata epic, right here he’s seen as driving a rusty previous matador van. The narrative presents itself as ‘what occurs when Draupadi and Krishna get collectively to battle the warring feudals’.
Additionally Learn: Saani Kaayidham — Keerthy Suresh Skillfully Shoulders An Indulgent Revenge Saga
The true distinction
What makes the movie so completely different from the opposite latest anger-revenge primarily based movies like Pushpa: The Rise and KGF: Chapter 2 that are so poisonous? The characters on this legendary story should not depending on an inexhaustible provide of weaponry or on heavy-duty pc graphics and pyrotechnics. The heroes of Saani Kaayidham are uncooked, weak human beings such as you and me. The one distinction, in contrast to most of us who’re watching the film in affordable consolation, these characters are trapped in a dystopic, self-destructive social framework.
Ponni is trapped in a corrupt and merciless police cum authorized system whereas Sangayya has to play out the curse bestowed upon him by his impoverished household. What definitely stands out all through the movie is the pathetic poverty of our rural panorama. Even the so-called landlords dwell in abysmal circumstances, consuming their days and nights out.
The inventive technicians
All of that is brilliantly captured by Yamini Yagnamoorthy. What a cinematographer! Boldly experimenting with b/w, focus shifting and a few wonderful lengthy single takes. The music observe by Sam CS is likely one of the most unique soundtracks ever composed. And what a reduction to see a movie with no songs to amplify the emotional arcs of those characters.
That brings me to the luxurious efficiency by Selvaraghavan as Sangayya and Keerthy Suresh as Ponni. Each of them have ingested their roles in totality and blended with the areas in concerned manners. Be it on the arid sea coastal terrains or within the short-term cinema theatre tents, they mix into it like a wonderfully fitted glove.
The fight-out on the street abutting a temple as edited by Nagooran Ramachandran can be etched in my reminiscence without end. Arun Matheswaran’s screenplay and route are so deeply layered that it’ll require one or two extra viewings to seize the intrinsic essences that he has thought and labored via. If solely Tamil filmmakers have been present in a extra encouraging and internationally dedicated manufacturing system, this movie might have been the opening movie within the India celebrations slotted on this yr’s Cannes movie pageant beginning seventeenth Could. However alas, we have to be content material to observe it on a TV. And sadly many will even be watching this good work on a cell phone.
