Vetting the victory of Vetri Maaran!

Deaths must count in movies Else those living in them wonrsquot matter I guess itrsquos just a Shakespearean device to simply kill characters off one by one overused in thrillers for a climaxmdashthatrsquos been my perennial petpeeve as an audienceI thought of this with much reliefsatisfaction in an early lingering action sequence in Viduthalai Part I recently dropped on Zee5mdashof a random cop hit by a bullet in a stray ambushHis colleagues kinda surround him in the moment of truthmdashreminding him of a life that awaits him once he survives The injured cop is yelping uncontrollably like a pup in pain It feels the most real Camera stays on him for more than a few seconds Death is meant to countViduthalai is directed by Vetrimaaranmdashcurrently the indisputable champion of empathetic and superrealistic toughmen moviesrsquo genre from Chennai Hersquos selfadmittedly Shakespeareanmdashin the way he patiently mines drama and multiple charactersAlso Read OK letrsquos do some TP in Delhirsquos CPLike Shah Rukh for Shahrukh Khan or Ram Gopal for Ramgopal Varma I notice Vetrimaaran has numerologically benefitted much from splitting his name as Vetri Maaran in his later moviesrsquo credits He shot to national fame among nonTamil audiences with Visaaranai 2015 getting picked as Indiarsquos official entry to the Oscars in 2016Director of the film Vetri Maaran PicsTwitterAs director Visaaranai was Vetri Maaranrsquos first film without his filmmaking partner plus muse Dhanush as lead actor As with Viduthalai with the staggeringly subdued Soori instead playing the protagonistmdasha lowly soldier in a special police forceDhanush Asuran Vada Chennai of course being to Vetri Maaran what Amitabh Bachchan was to SalimJavedmdashhis own lsquoAngry Young Manrsquo Under Vetri Maaran Dhanush is inevitably the believable guy of the street that audiences can instantly repose their faith and passively reflect on themselves throughItrsquos this proper young vulnerable workingclass hero that Hindispeaking masses have missed in their mainstream films all the way since the rsquo90s Which isnrsquot the same as suave versatile leads playing workingclass parts here and there The identification isnrsquot completeItrsquos perhaps for the lack of the star Dhanush himselfmdashwhat unites Visaaranai and Viduthalai is the absence of a more obvious movieheroism The former was shot in the style of cinema veriteacute largely shorn of setpiecessplendourThe latter is way more visually craftedmdashopening with the ambitiously long sequence of a massive train sabotagewreck by a militant outfit headed by Vijay Sethupathi thatrsquos been attacking the state in response to the usurping of their forest lands and other demonic excessesWhatrsquos common to Visaaranai and Viduthalai further is how deep it dives into a police barrackcampstation exploring several shades of grey As if literally reporting like an insider on the policepunishment system Which along with the network of politicians is seemingly not very different from a life of crimeNow Irsquom usually a bit iffy on the auteur theorymdashmeaning all creditstylevoice of a film must be solely credited to a director whose filmography in turn reflects something consistent and overarching as a wholeAnd yet while settings and characters unrecognisably change there are few directors like Vetri Maaran whorsquos been securely telling the same storymdashof a man from the underclasses unsuspectingly drawn into a chaos he never asked for Hersquos ultimately compelled to toughen up and lead himself out of the strange cosmos or remain caught within it foreverCaste differencesatrocities is somewhat central to the theme as well Spears swords machete are the preferred weapons of choice Which also tells you so much about movies isnrsquot it Itrsquos about the tellingmdashnot so much the storyAs a mentee of the more classical Balu Mahendra 19392014 you also sense Vetri Maaran 47 veering closer still to a snappier slicker crafttreatment gloriously wading through gunkmdashalong the lines of say Lijo Jose Pellissery in Malayalam or Nagraj Manjule in MarathiSaying this only because I canrsquot think of a better hattip to Manjulersquos Sairat than Vetri Maaranrsquos disturbingly brilliant short Oor Iravu in the Netflix anthology Paava Kadhaigal 2020Unfamiliar with one of the worldrsquos oldest languages I donrsquot know what those film titles mean so find them hard to recall Which is my other pet peeve over alternate English titles not being given equal prominence for films once deemed regionalforeignmdashwhile that concept in a flat online world barely exists anymoreAlso a reason Irsquove to always Google quite possibly my favourite Malayalam film to recco Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum 2017 No such issue with the Oscartoast Parasite for whatever itrsquos called in Korean Same with the other Telugu Oscarwinner RRRVetri Maaranrsquos The Interrogation Visaaranai shouldrsquove made the Best International Film Oscarnom The director along with producer Guneet Monga Alif Surti from Fox camped for long in LAMaybe the TeluguTamil language confusion between characters so essential to The Interrogation plot set around AndhraTamil Nadu border was lost on the jury As a Hindi speaker I can rattle off Vetri Maaranrsquos directorial debut though Raja Taqatwar 2007mdashthatrsquos how I watched Polladhavan in HindidubThe quantum leap from lsquoMasala Taqatwarrsquo to the studied solid splendidly political Viduthalai Part Imdashwith a sequel soon it is set for a fiveandhalfhoursrsquo gloriously brooding epicmdashis the latest reason filmbuffs must globally discover dig Vetri Maaranrsquos worksMayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture He tweets mayankw14Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper