Software firm's VP, "What's your caste?", to his program manager. After two mins, "It is not saying... Maybe a Sakkili (sic)", at Bangalore in this decade.
AR Rahman, "Not in the city, but especially whenever I go to the countryside... the things I hear.. the things we read about, that happen even today. These motivated me."
Kamal Haasan, "I feel for this, this is my politics too and not just a particular section of the society's. I hold this up, everyone needs to take this up as our politics."
Fahhad Fasil, "I am raring to act in a Mari Selvaraj film"
Vadivelu, "Avuu"
Udayanidhi, "This is my final film!"
Normally, I never begin my reviews with such comments, yet I feel this is the background necessary for appreciating the film in full depth. Mari Selvaraj had repeatedly told that Thevar Magan had impacted and tormented him heavily when he was a kid. Many online abuse him as be a jealous imbecile who cannot direct epics such as this. Yet, this is his vision for the (Thevar Magan) Vadivelu character's story from the point of view of his son, Athiveeran (Udayanidhi Stalin). Vadivelu's first serious role is a huge success, although his acting prowess comes as no surprise for the Tamil audience, who had been seeing him enact an increasingly complex set of emotions in his comedy scenes for decades. The critical reception and box office success of the film tells the success on paper of this film. Yet, the opposing waves of social media outbursts is the real success.
This is not expressed in a way to comment negatively on any community. However, when we continue to see many casteist incidents every day, the majority of negative reviews only talk about the mention of caste in the film and that this projects casteism back into reality when it does not exists nowadays. Will this poison today's youth as these boomer uncles hold? As much as taking a vaccine would kill you, before Covid gets you for good. "They always scream that they were attacked and bore us". Well, the film is a masala success too, with many commercial elements and is hardly boring.. A lot of negative comments that personally attack the director and his fellow community level, show the veiled casteism which pollute the society even today. Such voices are behind pushing "undeserving" students to suicides and at the same time gang up to steal with violence, the fish produce allocated to other communities.
As much as a pandemic is a global concern, casteist driven deaths and suicides are the society's concern. When ninety five percent of all marriages in Tamilnadu are within the same caste, how does just saying noone cares about caste make sense? The concern over the violence in the film hides the fact that many heinous crimes are committed even today, where Dalit lives are stolen at whim and some go as far as smearing human faeces on a stick to shove down some unfortunate Dalit's throats. Some crimes are so violent that one does not discuss online, such as the Dalit women who got gangraped by a 'first' community and beheaded to be penetrated again with a stick while another was erecting her head like a medieval trophy. These happened within the past few years and how can the society be polluted further with films which speak against this? If anything, having Stalwarts support this film only says such crimes will not go unpunished, which is not the message other common "caste pride" films communicate. Such casteist films which are a dozen a year, propagate the idea that certain castes have the authority to kill for "good" purposes. Casteist stereotypes are to be broken and Kamal Haasan commends this film as he accepts such views.
When you see this as a film, you can observe this film's script was not finished before the hero joined and several sacrifices were done for him. Many elements were added randomly, with a disjoint romance section, and several outbursts without background, which is so uncharacteristic of Mari Selvaraj's films. However, this is the first film where Udhayanidhi had opened his scenes, with his skin deep in the character. Coming from a deeply troubled childhood, he conveys his constant dejectedness at the society and even his loved ones, by his deep set face. He does not even talk with his dad, yet stays home and runs a martial arts dojo where he had grown up. The action scenes are fire and look methodical, accordingly. The film's problems with a jagged storyline get compensated by strong performances of all actors.. Karnan hid some aspects like poisoning of wells and cops abducting lower caste women, even pregnant ones to the police station for gang-rapes and torture, sometimes aborting the foetus. Similarly, electoral violence is hidden here, in form of animal fights. In reality, cases like Melavalavu had murders of lower castes who won elections. As a rebuttal to Thevar Magan, this film poses the Fahad Fahsil character as Kamal Haasan's and his brother's character as Nassar's. When Thevar Magan Kamal just says, "I have a lion inside me sleeping too. Don't wake him Maya!", this was a casteist trope that all "fighter caste" have a fighting genetics. However, this is laughable as Kamal's character did not have any fight training in the film. Here, Fahad's character saying, "Dumb guy.. All problems are because of you" to his brother is a similarly intense line.
Indians have to hold their head down in shame as many people are constantly displeased by such violent films, while supporting meaningless violence in 'commercial'/'soil-fragrant' films. Yet, the film does not propose non-violence as a solution like in Thevar Magan. This has both the Buddha's picture and a Sikh guru's picture, showing that peace is a good starting point, yet violence will follow if a Jalianwalahbagh incident happens to peaceful people. If someone does not want to watch films of a certain genre, many are welcome to do so. Yet, while not even watching such films, hundreds leave the worst review online, in an attempt to save "caste" honour and thousands resort to social media abuses, even lying that animals are tortured in the film (all such scenes were made with graphics). The film has succeeded in highlighting this -- that even in a technologically advanced world, people have not forgotten the roots of casteism that so many cling to religiously (in a literal sense too with religious doctrines). In an India where caste is the sole basis of judging 'merit' and giving jobs/projects/promotions many times everywhere from the modern institutions to IT firms, many lie online that caste is dead in today's society. What is dead is many people's conscience today and this film asks several questions about this. Watch this with an open mind if you have one, or else just accept the reality that you will never let go of casteism and reservations exist to protect the vulnerable.
AR Rahman, "Not in the city, but especially whenever I go to the countryside... the things I hear.. the things we read about, that happen even today. These motivated me."
Kamal Haasan, "I feel for this, this is my politics too and not just a particular section of the society's. I hold this up, everyone needs to take this up as our politics."
Fahhad Fasil, "I am raring to act in a Mari Selvaraj film"
Vadivelu, "Avuu"
Udayanidhi, "This is my final film!"
Normally, I never begin my reviews with such comments, yet I feel this is the background necessary for appreciating the film in full depth. Mari Selvaraj had repeatedly told that Thevar Magan had impacted and tormented him heavily when he was a kid. Many online abuse him as be a jealous imbecile who cannot direct epics such as this. Yet, this is his vision for the (Thevar Magan) Vadivelu character's story from the point of view of his son, Athiveeran (Udayanidhi Stalin). Vadivelu's first serious role is a huge success, although his acting prowess comes as no surprise for the Tamil audience, who had been seeing him enact an increasingly complex set of emotions in his comedy scenes for decades. The critical reception and box office success of the film tells the success on paper of this film. Yet, the opposing waves of social media outbursts is the real success.
This is not expressed in a way to comment negatively on any community. However, when we continue to see many casteist incidents every day, the majority of negative reviews only talk about the mention of caste in the film and that this projects casteism back into reality when it does not exists nowadays. Will this poison today's youth as these boomer uncles hold? As much as taking a vaccine would kill you, before Covid gets you for good. "They always scream that they were attacked and bore us". Well, the film is a masala success too, with many commercial elements and is hardly boring.. A lot of negative comments that personally attack the director and his fellow community level, show the veiled casteism which pollute the society even today. Such voices are behind pushing "undeserving" students to suicides and at the same time gang up to steal with violence, the fish produce allocated to other communities.
As much as a pandemic is a global concern, casteist driven deaths and suicides are the society's concern. When ninety five percent of all marriages in Tamilnadu are within the same caste, how does just saying noone cares about caste make sense? The concern over the violence in the film hides the fact that many heinous crimes are committed even today, where Dalit lives are stolen at whim and some go as far as smearing human faeces on a stick to shove down some unfortunate Dalit's throats. Some crimes are so violent that one does not discuss online, such as the Dalit women who got gangraped by a 'first' community and beheaded to be penetrated again with a stick while another was erecting her head like a medieval trophy. These happened within the past few years and how can the society be polluted further with films which speak against this? If anything, having Stalwarts support this film only says such crimes will not go unpunished, which is not the message other common "caste pride" films communicate. Such casteist films which are a dozen a year, propagate the idea that certain castes have the authority to kill for "good" purposes. Casteist stereotypes are to be broken and Kamal Haasan commends this film as he accepts such views.
When you see this as a film, you can observe this film's script was not finished before the hero joined and several sacrifices were done for him. Many elements were added randomly, with a disjoint romance section, and several outbursts without background, which is so uncharacteristic of Mari Selvaraj's films. However, this is the first film where Udhayanidhi had opened his scenes, with his skin deep in the character. Coming from a deeply troubled childhood, he conveys his constant dejectedness at the society and even his loved ones, by his deep set face. He does not even talk with his dad, yet stays home and runs a martial arts dojo where he had grown up. The action scenes are fire and look methodical, accordingly. The film's problems with a jagged storyline get compensated by strong performances of all actors.. Karnan hid some aspects like poisoning of wells and cops abducting lower caste women, even pregnant ones to the police station for gang-rapes and torture, sometimes aborting the foetus. Similarly, electoral violence is hidden here, in form of animal fights. In reality, cases like Melavalavu had murders of lower castes who won elections. As a rebuttal to Thevar Magan, this film poses the Fahad Fahsil character as Kamal Haasan's and his brother's character as Nassar's. When Thevar Magan Kamal just says, "I have a lion inside me sleeping too. Don't wake him Maya!", this was a casteist trope that all "fighter caste" have a fighting genetics. However, this is laughable as Kamal's character did not have any fight training in the film. Here, Fahad's character saying, "Dumb guy.. All problems are because of you" to his brother is a similarly intense line.
Indians have to hold their head down in shame as many people are constantly displeased by such violent films, while supporting meaningless violence in 'commercial'/'soil-fragrant' films. Yet, the film does not propose non-violence as a solution like in Thevar Magan. This has both the Buddha's picture and a Sikh guru's picture, showing that peace is a good starting point, yet violence will follow if a Jalianwalahbagh incident happens to peaceful people. If someone does not want to watch films of a certain genre, many are welcome to do so. Yet, while not even watching such films, hundreds leave the worst review online, in an attempt to save "caste" honour and thousands resort to social media abuses, even lying that animals are tortured in the film (all such scenes were made with graphics). The film has succeeded in highlighting this -- that even in a technologically advanced world, people have not forgotten the roots of casteism that so many cling to religiously (in a literal sense too with religious doctrines). In an India where caste is the sole basis of judging 'merit' and giving jobs/projects/promotions many times everywhere from the modern institutions to IT firms, many lie online that caste is dead in today's society. What is dead is many people's conscience today and this film asks several questions about this. Watch this with an open mind if you have one, or else just accept the reality that you will never let go of casteism and reservations exist to protect the vulnerable.