Genre-Bending and Metaphorical Exploration
Genre-BendingOn a surface level it appears to be a Horror-Revenge-Thriller, a genre beaten to death in our films till date. However when we look deeper we see its a challenging film with many layers. Selvaraghavan demonstrates that even the dumbest genres can be used to profound ends, not cheapening serious things but kicking them to the next metaphoric level. Genre-bending is not common in Tamil cinema but Selvaraghavan pulls it off in great style by bending a cliche horror flick to a satire-black-comedy. How the corrupted system has become a new normal and how indifferent we have become towards gruesome crimes like rape and murder is thought provoking. We do live in a world where we evidently see the dance of the devils -the song in the police station represents exactly that.
Metaphorical Exploration
The film is an epic in every sense of the word. The protagonist arc is the same as any protagonist arc in the ancient Epics -God taking an avatar to kill the demon. In the age of darkness (Kaliyug) where the legal and judicial system are messed up its only God who can save the innocent in some form be it Jesus or Rama or Mariyam (avatar of Jesus indicated by the fish and bread loaf, crucification, the previous care-taker in jail for theft - like the other 2 people crucified with Jesus where thieves etc. -the detailing is mind-blowing). And like in every epic God has to go through all this pain and torture before resurrection -some assurance or evidence of sorts to make sure demon is for real and then avenging it to finally protect the innocent (child as per movie and we people as per epics)
Take-Away
"Nenjam Marapadilai" is a wonderful movie with a deep lesson for all of us. We blame the circumstances for all the troubles in our life and we fail to realise that these outer circumstances are simply and fundamentally the manifestations of our own inner demons. We all have darkness within us, that deny our essential goodness and these require work to allow awareness of them and explore them if we are ever to get rid of these demons. We change our outer world and our lives, by the inner engineering that we do. The greatness of the film comes from it's metaphorical exploration of vital themes for living - depth psychology on the big screen. Brilliant work of of art!
score 9/10
madhan-mm 29 March 2021
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw6755958/35708
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