Much like Karnan’s protagonist, Maamannan’s Adhiveeran (Udhayanidhi Stalin) boils in rage. He might walk and talk like a normal man, but you can feel anger/stress/pressure/call-it-what-you-will eating him from within. Mari Selvaraj, in arguably his finest first half yet, shows mastery when he shares affecting information about these characters. More than Pariyerum Perumal, more than Karnan, Maamannan—in that first half—captures the depression and rage of being oppressed and stifled in a million different ways. You can’t drink water where everyone does. You can’t swim where everyone does. You can’t study where everyone does. You can’t sit. You can’t talk. You can’t look. And here’s how it gets even worse: You can’t even vent. When under such duress, how do you not implode into a flaming fireball of destruction?
And this is why the filmmaker won’t have Adhiveeran and friends cower in fear and docility. “Fight back!” as Adhiveeran, a martial arts trainer, tells his student. “Do not be a ‘kozhai’ to an ‘ayogyan’.” While Adhiveeran is a martial arts trainer, the woman he’s interested in is a well-meaning upper-caste ally, Leela (Keerthy Suresh), who imparts education for free. balam from Adhiveeran; budhdhi from Leela. The twin pillars of rebellion. I wish, however, that Adhiveeran’s martial arts prowess came in for sustained use in the film.
As for Leela, I wish she came in for more sustained use. When Adhiveeran rallies his allies for a vengeful act of vandalism, Leela joins in too—and I thought, “What an unusual visual to see a woman joining an angry group of self-righteous men as they smash some property about.” And yet—and this can be said of Mari’s previous two films as well—no one woman rises into the upper echelons of narrative importance, let alone match the significance of the main men. This is a strange, consistent miss for this thinking filmmaker.
Mari Selvaraj’s use of animals as metaphors is, by now, an expectation in his films. The pigs and their plight, in this film, stand for Maamannan, Adhiveeran, and their trampled people. This time, the dogs seem to stand for oppressors. The docility of pigs on one side and the ferocity of dogs on the other is a picture in contrast.Fahadh is fantastic as the casteist psychopath, Rathnavel. The way he’s dressed in white, the way his facial hair is designed, the name given to him… it’s hard not to wonder whether this is a reimagination of Sakthivel from Thevar Magan. There are some father-son dynamics as well, with Rathnavel striving to live up to his late father’s expectations. Maamannan could well be seen as a story of two fathers, and their sons. The big difference, of course, is how Maamannan is so full of remorse, while Rathnavel and father seem to be, like your garden-variety psychopath, remorseless. In fact, Rathnavel is worse than his father.
His psychopathy is in full display, particularly in the best portion of the film—that interval scene in which Maamannan, Adhiveeran, and Rathnavel explode off each other. At the heart of this scene is the overtly simple idea of a man sitting down. At one point, Fahadh is distraught—and it’s not because he has just been kicked by a man he considers to be inferior. It’s because another man he considers to be inferior has taken a seat in his presence. The politics of it all lends itself to irresistible drama—and the politics over who should sit and who shouldn’t gets explored later as well. It’s all a searing takedown of every leader, who expects those below him in the pecking order to remain standing in obeisance. It’s also a film critical of political parties that claim to work for the downtrodden while craftily never upsetting the status quo in order to preserve power.
These touches aside, it’s hard not to wonder what the casting of a political heir like Udhayanidhi Stalin (despite a no-problem performance) means in this film. It’s hard not to notice that when Udhayanidhi’s Adhiveeran is beckoned forward by a group of commoners—a scene shot and executed to communicate the sensations of a new leader—the sun features prominently in the shot. It’s hard not to notice how gentle the film is towards the Chief Minister portrayed in the film. It’s hard not to think about what it all means and why the film is as kind towards a powerful leader.
Where the politics of the first half makes for such an entrancing, affecting experience, the same cannot be said about the journey the film takes post-interval. With the premise perfectly positioned for a clash of its pivotal three men, the film then gets busy with capturing election shenanigans. Alliances are forged at the cost of dignity; news channels peddle their version of entertainment. When some assistance comes Adhiveeran’s way, it feels a tad too orchestrated. When Maamannan records a video to fire up his campaign, the scene doesn’t feel as powerful as it should. Even Rathnavel becomes a shadow of the menacing antagonist he was earlier. Despite Adhiveeran and Maamannan learning a crucial quality from each other—restraint and rebellion, respectively—there isn’t a whole lot of interpersonal drama to be experienced as the film tapers away to a tepid end.
Even if I walked out feeling like the film had gone astray, there are still enough powerful moments to make this a worthwhile experience. There are tasteful narrative echoes too. At various points, both Adhiveeran and Maamannan find themselves unable to understand how one person’s quest for justice ends up being derailed by a thousand opponents making it an issue of honour and pride. Another beautiful echo is how Maamannan, taking a moment to gather himself before resigning to his fate, finds a companion in Rathnavel doing something similar later. I’ll remember the film for these tasteful details, sure, but if this film endures in my memory, it shall be mainly for how Mari Selvaraj has reimagined Vadivelu.
It’s a film in which Maamannan and his son, Adhiveeran, learn the difference between restraint and cowardice—and realise that they are both the better for it. The mere urge to fight, as advocated by Karnan and Adhiveeran, won’t do. It’s important to know the when and the how. Future Mari Selvaraj films will no doubt dig more about this—and there’s enough in the imperfect Maamannan to be excited by prospects.
Director: Mari Selvaraj Cast: Vadivelu, Udhayanidhi Stalin, Fahadh Faasil, Keerthy Suresh
