I think I have lost it
I think I have lost it.
I think I have lost my sense of balance. Too much of thinking has spoiled my brain.
While every one saw a straight forward ‘feel good sports movie’ with a screwed up ending, I saw a scathing tragic commentary hidden beneath the layers of enticing feel good ‘underdog’ movie. Probably that is the reason why I was able to accept – no no – not just accept – but fully understand why the ending was the way it was. I dont know what the creator of the movie thought of – but I have my reasons – thanks to my screwed up ways of thinking. My reasons – are good enough for me, reasons that have been haunting me for one full month since I saw the movie – for I was entirely apprehensive that such reasons would even make sense to another person – leave alone a league of blog consumers who want to see only the discussion of ‘quality cinema’ in this blog.
I think I have lost it – for I have thrown my shame away and sat in front of the computer to type away my own perverted reasons for accepting a seemingly unpalpable climax in the thamizh film ‘Vennila Kabaddi Kuzhu’. I think I have lost it – for I have shown utter disregard to whoever might read this and say ‘He has lost it’.
Vennila Kabaddi kuzhu – the latest hit movie sensation in Thamizh nadu is directed by debutant Suseendran – makes you wonder ‘Is this really a person’s first feature length film?), for it is technically well created, well planned and shot, thoroughly publicised, and above all – a superbly written movie. Smallest details have been carefully assimilated and recreated by the director and crew. Lightest of moments have been well presented to create the biggest impact – accentuation is apt and within the bounds – so as not to appear as another ‘Over the top’ South movie. If not for anything, I am sure no one will bother about ‘ah one more mediocre south film’ in the blogs of PFC. For it is an absolute delight of a film. The film is being lapped up in thamizh nadu and is running well inspite of the ‘Naan Kadavul’ onslaught.
The technical merits can be easily written in more than one post for the cinematography(J.Lakshman), art direction and music (V.Selvaganesh – Son of the chatam maestro Vinayakram) are all equally blemishless and classic. The cast comprising of mostly new faces except saranya mohan and ‘Polladhavan’ Kishore, have performed uniformly well speaking the ‘South Thamizh Nadu’ thamizh which was puzzling to me at some places – but effective overall. All of these praiseworthy aspects are duly appreciated in all popular websites and media critics and the public too is happy. However in this senseless post I am not going to discuss any of these aspects further. At this point in time I would advise the hapless reader of the post to continue only if you have seen the movie already and wondering what this guy has to say or you are someone who has no interest in seeing the movie but simply read and give a comment on my English and writing. For the reasons I lay out will be absolutely stupid and could have been result of some hallucinations and a result of venturing into too many thamizh blogs discussing politics and cinema.
The story structure of the film that most of the sane and appreciative public saw:
A perenially loser team of kabaddi players in which our hero is a part of , meets with sudden change of fortunes that make them a ‘winning team’ whose final moments of triumph are marred by a sad incident. This story is interspersed with the story of our hero – his past and his love.
Public verdict: Unanimous appreciation for the first ’sports movie’, lagaan type movie, Chak de type movie, first underdog movie, however the climax – sad incident could have been avoided – Reminds one of Balaji Sakthivel’ s Kalloori.
The story that I saw (not that I claim to be a visionary or Anurag Kashyap).
The story of a lower class boy denied of his childhood, education, fun, opportunity, makes use of his first chance to liberate himself of the bonds of caste and his economic penury – yet letdown by the age old caste barrier – is unable to escape the stifling caste pyramid in his village – with the only escape route available to him shown by the director – The ultimate great leveler at the disposal of the director summoned to drive home the most understated message possible in a most overstated manner – in the most emotionally manipulative manner.
Probably I am giving too much credit to the director, or as I will say again, I have probably lost it. The film begins with a boy who loses his father physically and his mother emotionally and his education practically. All he has in his life sold to slavery in a farm tending to goats while his friends (socially and economically in the top tiers of the caste pyramid) have education and jobs. The boy – our hero who is initially seen playing kabaddi with them is soon reduced to the person who has to keep the clothes of his ‘friends’, safe, while they play. He is a bystander watching their lives progress while his life is an absolute non-starter. Again – probably I am reading too much into this sketch by the director, however there is no ‘feel good’ in his life except for a brief race on his cycle he has with a ’sympathetic’ bus driver who always lets him win a ‘fake’ race . While the bus driver is a character – I somehow am reminded of a ‘reservation system’ that our politicians and social overlords have allowed the people of the downtrodden society one of whom is our protagonist. It is a system that is born out of guilt and benevolence fast getting subverted in all possible ways. Lets keep this point in our back burners for a while and proceed to the next major metaphor the director brings to the table – The Kabaddi team itself.
The Kabaddi team that starts out as a group of boys from a village who played ‘Sadugudu’ or Kabaddi for the heck of it, soon evolve into an amateur team that doesn’t win a single game wherever they go. The introduction of the team and its members – each with a distinct physical and emotional characteristic – most of them with the aim of tickling some funny bones and keep the gullible audience entertained – for they have not acquitted themselves well of understanding a strong message – a message in which most of them (which includes us) are chastised. The team tastes its first semblance of victory when the hero participates in a match when the person who had to participate doesn’t show up on time. In the next big match, the captain of the team (a young man belonging to a dominant caste) decides to include the hero in the team against the general ‘murmurs’ about hero’s caste. This role, I thought was the toughest in this whole movie – This role is played by Nitish, a young actor who also did a role in Thangar Bachaan’s ‘Onbadhu roobaai noattu’ and he has done this beautifully well. Before and after these scenes, there are some romantic developments shown in a tasteful manner with melodious songs. The whole romantic track, in my view point was a clever misdirection by the director and another sleight of hand to keep the audience engaged.
This kabaddi match sequence in their home village is where the director establishes the third most important character – an urban, secular face of our society in the form of the kabaddi coach who is the judge. The team they play against is from their neighbouring village and are shown to have some past tensions. The game is evenly poised and it ends in a brawl by the act of insult by the opposition team player on hero – who beats him and chases him off. The entire festival ends in a sour note and tension builds in a screen play which was feel good so far. Now the hero has a village that despises him for having marred the festive mood and a person who is waiting to kill him if he crosses the border of his village.
By a set of perplexing coincidences helped by the buffoonery of one of the team members. After a flurry of funny engaging scenes, the scene finally shifts to the final field where the drama will eventually pan out – in a semi urban setting(Madurai) with a lot of new friends for the team and particularly the hero in the form of an ex kabaddi player who lives the life shunning the despicable caste system and his daughter who has a soft corner for the hero. The hero also makes new enemies in the cit. The team itself has another stroke of luck in the form of a team unable to make it to the tournament and the ragtag village team getting the ‘chance of their lifetime’. Egged on by the coach (played astutely by Kishore) the team suddenly seem to be defeating experienced and thoroughly skilled superior teams. The feel good, underdog genre helps the director immensely as the audience comfortably lap up the proceedings without any questions asked. Then begins the macabre stroke of bringing in caste of the hero into the proceedings again as the ‘reservation quota’ for railway jobs(bring back the point on reservation mentioned earlier) is the trump card used by an opposition team supporter to subvert the team and expectedly the team is divided and they suddenly seem to be too aware of the ‘lower caste’ of the hero. Before this sequence, the hero escapes death and injury twice more and his path to victory and recognition seem very certain more than ever. In the final game, the captain of the team boycotts and the coach does some damage control to put the team and the fate of the hero into the play again. This constant pattern of hero facing obstacles, threats to his life that glide away mostly due to fortuitous circumstances and everything is set up for the climax where the team triumphs and its victory is reduced to a Pyrrhic victory by a quirk of fate – a fate that seemed to help the team all the while getting them out of a village in an obscure place to a city to participate in a wild run of victory unknown to them in even their wildest dreams. The cruel strike the director seemingly deals in the end is to teach them a bitter lesson in caste unity, for their victory means very little to the oppressed lot in their village condemned to watch the celebrations that would have eventually happened in the village when the victorious team returns to their village. The whole victory is perverted by the director with a valid cause – the oppressed caste will have to migrate to caste blind cities and urban areas to live with dignity denied to them through generations, for their villages have not yet learnt to throw away their caste stained kaleidoscopes to look at people. Without the villages where the roots of the oppressed and oppressing sections of our society lie, not reforming, any amount of victories, kabaddi, hockey or cricket mean nothing to the suffering people who remain marginalised, without voice, resigned to their fate, much like the mother of the hero who let go of her son to slavery in a goat farm, never to regain him back.
The fatalistic ending of the director, perplexing it is to the audience drenched in the ‘feel good’ , ‘underdog genre’ , Oh yeah I got that word of the season, ‘Fairy tale’ movie till the climax, is a perfect tool to kindle the question ‘why was the ending like that’ in the minds triggering a debate. At least it triggered me to come up with this rant/rambling that has been burning inside of me since I watched it legally online in Indiaglitz.com site. I hope for people to take a deeper look at the ending of the movie instead of walking out of the hall and for all those who continue to do so, I have one word, ‘Chickens!’. The ending of this movie reminded me the end that another character in a recent movie – that of one vincent boovaraghan in a movie ‘Dasavatharam’.
Now with the rant out of the system, I look back with relief at the medium called cinema that we at PFC so fondly love. For here is the wishing glass that shows so many things to so many who look at the same thing. Everything is in the perspective, Thanks and welcome to Suseendran for bringing a story with many perspectives, least of which is that of a genre that is being used to sell it to the public or so thinks this poor soul that wrote this long winding rant.
Tags: Kishore, Saranya Mohan, Selvaganesh, Suseendran, Tamil Films, Thamizh cinema, Vennila Kabadi kuzhu, Vishnu
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
It’s a superb film, but I still maintain that the ending was just downright random.
I wanted a formula, feel-good end. The movie made me so happy throughout, I wanted to go home happy. Instead I felt cheated at the end of it.
Had the ending been what I was looking for, I would have seen the movie several times. But because the ending was so random and the payoff so tragic, I stopped with my first viewing.
I think you have a valid point there…i nver looked at the film from your perspective.
Maybe i will watch it again to see if the director is really trying to give such a message.But i do agree with the random majority of ppl who’ve seen this film.
The climax is totally random and unwarranted.BUT,if not,the only reason the director gave us that climax could be like what you have posted.
Good post mate…one of few films which is meaningful compared to the constant stream of trash being churned out!!
Yes, you are giving too much credit to the film and director. And you constantly ranting about itself does not take away the insidious insanity. However, it is your view and i admire your depth of thoughts in whatever direction you intend to go.
for me VKK was clearly inspired from chennai-28, which in turn was inspired from lagaan. if chennai-28 was all about city and cricket, transporting it to a village milieu brings kabbadi into the fore. And any sports based movie should be inspired by the lagaan formula of underdogs overpowering and achieving. And any village milieu movie should be inspired by paruthi veeran. This is not a trap i as a viewer is into, but the directors are. paruthi veeran effect is very much visible in how a tension is created as much in many ways as to indicate a tussle or a tragedy is simmering to be burst. and you make the tussle,which actually the viewer expects to be treated in a easy but effective manner. But you are not done yet with the tragedy part which the director have decided to wreak on the audience. And hence you bring an entirely unwanted element (that u can’t say abou the paruthi veeran climax u see) to create that tragedy. This is entrely equal to a kalluri climax and an entirely unwanted one. For in lagaan the underdogs, sincere honest to whatever they are win and we are over joyed. In paruthi veeran kinds insincere, unhonest in everyhting the protagonist finally does lose. But still we yearn for he having done all this to himself. VKK and kalluri are kinds which made a unnecessary mish mash of these two kinds. I can bet that having any other climax than the current one would have made the movie more affable. It was just a climax of the sort of being different for the sake of being different. But again it is suseendrans movie and it is his right to have his story filmed. And as so do i have the right to not accept it.
Even as a movie, which you have not discussed much i had serious problems with it. the director getting confused in terms of caste difference and the economic class differences. And distractions in terms of a heroine characer, in that who just keeps walking and bus riding in the movie rather than help push the story or any character any further. Though it does brings in some shades to the protagonists’ character, but stops and falls very short of any appreciation. And so on. on a whole a decent movie in whatsoever context it has been made which is spoilt by a may be unwarraned climax. One other movie of similar kinds runnin parallely is siva mansuleh sakthi
Unlike Paruthi veeran, the lead char here is not a machete wielding wastrel. he is a kind hearted gentle soul and I didn’t get to see any violent goons in his village. The only reference to the violence in society comes in the form of the neighbouring village kabaddi captain who follows the hero to finish him off the moment he crosses the village. After the interval there are enough moments of tension to make us think ‘Will the hero die in the hands of any of the bad guys’ (remember the drunkard who has a grudge on the hero in Madurai). The interesting aspect of the story is this. Consider the point where the hero is having an injury engineered by an oposition team coach – he gets well and there is tragedy in climax – what if he had not recovered – probably he might have been alive. Same way, the team never gets to play their first match in madurai – however some other team doesn’t turn up for the match and they play and eventually the climax still comes up. There were so many of those minute plot points which all aligned up to create the so called ‘Random’ climax. Even forgetting my rant and alternate look at the allegories of VKK, the screenplay tricks pulled by the director are remarkable. I felt like – this was a better exposition of ‘chaos theory’ in screenplay than the mega budget Dasavatharam.
Another movie that pops up in my mind is the Brian De Palma’s, Al Pacino starrer Carlitto’s Way, which had similar plot buildup whether carlitto will survive or not and when the end comes, it is surprising because of how it came and not why it came. Here too I felt that the way it had ended, had the same pattern, however the diversions director pulls up to distract us were an entire genre of ’sports, feel good’ format. Lagaan was at best just a genre movie running on superficial levels – satisfying to the genre addicts who had not experienced the genre before in Indian movies.
Nice capture of the movie’s plot and the twists and turns. Except the caste angle, I agree completely with your views. May be from the poor-rich angle, the twist in the climax to dump the poor may be director’s message. Or just that the general belief that having a tragic ending could make it easier to lift it to a classic status (remember ‘moondRam piRai’? and many others).
Other than the ending, this is similar to lagAn, in that there’s a more important issue -other than the game- is the theme (and hence different from chak de, chennai-28). It’s the difficulties of those poor & low caste in villages (which could have possibly redeemed thru sport).
There is also another similarity in the “one-sided-love” of the motivational female :-), though nicely localized.
Obviously British and the lagAn are gone but the troubles remain in our villages, so the tragic ending is more apt :-(