‘Vanaangan’ movie review: Arun Vijay is the sole highlight of Bala’s problematic, predictable drama

like movies Forest Garden You have to wonder if a directorial signature can be a double-edged sword. In the case of filmmaker Bala, it’s hard to enter the screen without any idea of ​​the experience that awaits you. In the ten feature films he has made so far, Bala has stuck firmly to his themes and ideals – his stories revolve around the most marginalised, downtrodden communities, his lens largely focused on attracting your sympathy. Is for; His heroes are outcasts, often with a violent streak, liberating themselves for the only family relationship that gives them some semblance of meaning.

But without the support of solid logic, purpose, and writing, ideals become stereotypes, and Bala’s recent works such as Tharai Thappattai And Naachiyar They suffer from both a collapse of purpose and a weak plot. Forest GardenWhat was expected to be Bala’s return to form, and was much hyped given the previous involvement of a superstar, also fell victim to the same.

This time, Bala takes you to the shores of Kanyakumari to tell the story of two orphan souls. With bustling streets and beaches, the city comes alive with tourists and locals, and there is communal harmony here (but you are asked to ignore a racist comment about Chinese tourists that came across as a joke. has been passed under the guise of).

Kotti (Arun Vijay; gives his all in a career-defining role), a deaf and non-speaking man, is left to fend for himself and his sister, Devi (Ridha), who works as a tattoo artist. Does many small tasks. His well-wishers include a church priest (Balashivaji; his looks resemble Sivaji Ganesan), Tina (Roshni Prakash), a travel guide and his London-obsessed parents. Comedy has not been Bala’s strong suit, and the scenes that establish these characters and their dynamics test you, especially Roshni’s annoyingly animated performance as Tina (remember Varalakshmi). Tharai ThappattaiIt’s just one notch below that). Tina is madly in love with Kotti. But you wonder what she sees in him. This is a man who, in his very first scene, happily kills her in response to her teasing. We’ve seen casual violence between couples in movies before, but here, it’s gone bloody, and we’re asked to take this problematic trait as a joke! Beyond political correctness, this becomes a major flaw in the writing, adding to the inconsistency of Cotty and Tina’s characters. More about Coty later, but Tina is an educated woman with enough agency, someone who would take this not as a joke but as a problem.

No doubt Coty has a ton of problems. Portrayed as a benevolent man who cares for the people of the town, he is the typical warrior of justice who struggles to stop himself when witnessing atrocities. Things get out of hand when he vandalizes an illegal liquor shop and fries the owner’s face with a hot pan. To ensure that he remained disciplined and out of trouble, Kotti’s well-wishers got him a day job in a special home for the underprivileged.

With such a limited number of characters and locations, it’s easy to guess what will happen next. A troublemaker with no financial or political support, a female dependent member of the family and a home for the underprivileged. Does something happen to Devi that makes Kotti enraged to take revenge? Well, feel bad, because Bala’s tendency to go after our weak hearts in hair-raising situations knows no bounds here. Three men enter the toilet of a deprived house to take a look at the blind girls. As if showing these women entering open bathing stalls and watching the men inside is not enough, Bala’s camera shows them taking off their clothes, taken to voyeuristic extremes and shows them applying soap to their buttocks (!! ). This is a scene that deserves criticism for its insensitive staging.

What happens next is messed up, and how our warrior for justice goes about it is confusingly out of character and retarded. Sure, he’s not going to the police – his disregard for the justice system is visible early on – but something must have happened for this God-fearing kind man to turn into this beast, right? You wait for a flashback that shows the ridicule he might have had to endure, or the lathi marks that force him to treat a police station and a liquor bar as one and the same. Such character details are lost in the air, and there is little scope for finding any justification for why he does what he does in the latter half of the story, when his actions cause harm to his own family.

is a big blow to Forest Garden lacks a strong antagonist; You will find nothing in seeing that a typical monitor easily eliminates one-dimensional distortions. The bigger issue is how the film uses the plight of these underprivileged women as mere pawns to garner our sympathy. A problematic aspect of Bala’s films is the gaze; You can’t shake this feeling if the filmmaker, claiming to be documenting harsh realities while demanding sympathy from those close to him from marginalized social groups, himself uses a voyeuristic lens. Even if you miss it in an arbitrary entry Naan Kadavulmalnourished conspiracy Forest Garden Does not provide any such relief.

This is why you feel much less impressed by the climax, a typical Bala scene. Forest Garden There is a layer to it that shows how the victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami are still literally and metaphorically searching for what they lost. In a different film, the climax would have reminded you of Bala. Nandaha Day. In Forest GardenThe effect wears off quickly, as does Mysskin’s admirable cameo.

Now the time has come for Bala to take a conscious step towards revamping his cinema. In today’s Tamil cinema, which is rich with the cinema school of the 2000s, mere shock value is not going anywhere.

Vanangan is currently running in theaters