Kaithi: A movie that has been jailed in the mind for an year
A year since its release, we look back at why Kaithi is a great example of how star vehicle movies can be made even without the usual cliché template sequences.
To start off, the most impressive thing in Kaithi was that the build-up to an introduction of a lead character was in line with the events of the movie. We generally see a forced introduction sequence for the stars in the movie and not for the characters.
It is impressive to see that a Lokesh Kanagaraj (director) has stuck to the point that unless there is utmost necessity for a character to be there in a scene or even in the whole arc of events, the character reveal before its cue would not do justice to the character itself. Dilli’s is probably one of the best introduction build-ups for a character.
The first half goes on with an intensity and pace quite similar to an Express train. The sequences keep building up the premise of the storyline brilliantly. At the end of first half, one would believe that the time works directly relative to the speed of the lorry that Dilli (Karthi) drives in the movie.
Cinematography by Sathyan Sooryan could probably be one of the best of the best works in recent times. The lightings and the shot settings were technically prominent to the nascent eye.
The eagle-eye view shots of the Lorry chases, the trap setting sequence with the Bamboo tree branches and the beer bottle attack sequences could not have been this perfect without Sathyan’s vision.
The technical aspects of cinematography was so strong that it elevated the quality of the movie to a completely different level altogether.
Editing by Philomin Raj has to be given an equal credit as well. Unless the editing is being done perfectly, we wouldn’t have got an intriguing and an immersive experience. Particularly, the first half had a lot of edge-of-the-seat moments, which heavily contributed to the screenplay using crisp editing. The action choreography during the fight sequences and the lorry chase sequences requires more than just a mention. Incredible choreography on the stunts.
Music director Sam CS was terrific with his background score. The habit of having a quality output from every department has indeed seeped into the music department as well. The background score and the sound design of the movie seems to have strengthened the movie in every aspect. Particularly, the placement of the old songs was just perfect, which was like an icing-on-the-cake thing to have such cute moments in some serious situations.
Karthi as an actor has grown manifold in the last few years and Kaithi gives Karthi a lot of scope to perform. The scenes involving his daughter brings out the best in him. His eyes speak what his lips cannot. The vulnerability that he shows during the scenes where he is being forced by the police is just brilliant. And in the action sequences, the vulnerability changes form into anger as the situations delay his meeting with his own daughter.
There are a couple more characters that stood out along with Karthi. It was good to see Naren back on the Tamil screens after a long time. His role of an honest cop (Bejoy) looked picture perfect for him, his performance was commendable. A memorable movie for Naren.
Arjun Dass as Anbu was terrific. The kind of ferocity he shows throughout the movie is just brilliant. Not to forget that his booming, Magizh Thirumeni kind of a voice comes as a surprise and delight as well. The scene where the students cry due to a loss of a friend, but he just laughs it off like a victory lapse brought out the ultimate “villain”-ism in his character.
Last but not the least, the character of Napoleon, played by George Maryan, should unanimously be listed as one of the best characters in recent times. The character starts off as a slightly feared person, with a vulnerability that George Maryan is capable of vending off easily. With this, he guards the Commissioner Office from a major attack.
There is this one “mass” scene for George Maryan, which fuels the intensity of the situation quite brilliantly and evokes the much needed hype for the final face-off.
However, the incredibly staggering premise that was set in the first half was just let off wandering a little in the Dilli parts in the second half. Dilli fighting off 15-20 goons felt a little recursive. But the George Maryan part of the half held its place strongly.
The climax felt a little too open-ended for the build-ups set for the character of Adaikalam (Harish Uthaman), but since the director had said that there is going to be a prequel to show how Dilli is linked to all of this, it was quite alright. However, if there had been a small premise set on what the prequel would offer, it would have been extraordinarily satisfying.
Remembering one such we had at the end of Viswaroopam 1. The connection between Wasim and Omar Bhai shown as a montage during the end credits set the premise of what to expect in the second part. Something similar would have made the movie entirely complete in all aspects.
In an interview with Film Companion’s Baradwaj Rangan, Lokesh emphasized on the fact that it was entirely possible to present a Star-vehicle movie without the clichéd template scenes, and he also confidently put across that a movie with technical brilliance in terms of vision and storytelling can achieve everything that the former would achieve with all the so-called required commercial elements in it.
Theeran Adhigaaram Ondru is one such example. It was almost an entirely content driven movie, ALMOST. The scenes involving Karthi and Rakul invariably slowed down the flow of the movie. The kind of compromise H. Vinoth had to make for this made the movie as just a commercial one with an incredibly great content. However, Lokesh Kanagaraj strictly stuck to what he wanted. He believed that a movie with no songs, no female leads, no flashbacks, not even flashback montages can achieve more than what it would if it had all these “template” things.
A similar idea sealed the success of his first film, Maanagaram, a movie that was well guarded from the commercial clichés of multi-story movies.
Kaithi makes way to a whole lot of opportunities for the young crop to draw a lot of inspiration from this. We are already seeing a lot of such thriller movies – Dhuruvangal 16, Vellai Pookal, Game Over, and many more, but Kaithi is an important movie to show the directors, producers and the actors that it is indeed possible to make a story driven movie with a touch of commercial elements infused into the screenplay.
What you should know about the Manu Smriti
On 25th June 1822, Thomas Munro, the then Governor-General of Madras province commissioned an extensive of survey of the indigenous education system in his province. He ordered the district collectors to collect information on the state of village schools. Around the same time (1819-1827), the Governor-General of Bombay, Mountstuart Elphinstone gave orders to the Commissioner in Deccan and to the district collectors of Gujrat and Konkan to report on the state of education in their respective districts. A similar exercise was carried out in Bengal in the 1835 when Governor-General of Bengal William Bentnick appointed William Adam to survey the indigenous education systems in the regions.
In all these surveys, it was found that neither was the Manu Smriti taught nor was it used as a syllabus material.
The early European travellers to India have all reported repeatedly that the country overall, was working in a sustainable manner with a decentralized system of administration in place where most of the disputes were settled at the village level itself, by and large, to the satisfaction of all.
Such a dispute redressal system, surprisingly for the British onlookers, was not based on any one legal book of the land. This was indeed surprising for the British administrators, because back home in England, justice was dispensed based on a legal book. Thus, William Jones, who served as a pusine judge at the Supreme Court of Judicature established at Fort Williams in Bengal, began the search for a book on laws through which they can administer the native subjects.
William Jones’s search for a book of law for the Hindus, exposed him to the world of Smritis and the decided that Manu Smriti was the legal code, best suited to be practiced for the Hindus in India. He took out components from Manu Smriti, and incorporated it into the law book of India.
However, he didn’t have any problem with finding a law book for the Muslims because they had only one book – the Quran and the Hadiths which draws from the Quran.
He thus made a separate digest of Hindu and Muslim laws.
Even today one can find the Marble Frieze of Sir William Jones in Chapel of University College, Oxford, inscribed with the words, “HE FORMED A DIGEST OF HINDU AND MOHAMMEDAN LAWS”
The marble frieze depicts William Jones learning law from 3 Indian scholars.
For this effort, the British referred to him as “Justinian of India”.
It was this singling out of Manu Smriti by Sir William Jones that gave Manu Smriti the pre-eminent position in favour of other Smritis. Until then, a host of other smritis had equal status and were used by different communities, in different places and in different eras, depending upon the need and applicability of the Smriti.
The comment of Warren Hastings, an English statesman , confirms how, Manu Smriti was not the only and standardized law book of India and how, India had been following many law books until William Jones standardized Indian law based on Manu Smriti.
This standardization by William Jones even sowed seeds of hatred among different communities of India, especially towards the Brahmins, as if it was the Brahmins who had imposed Manu Smriti on the society.
In fact, the law codes, Smriti, change regularly with periods of time, Yuga. It is mentioned in Manu Smriti that it was created for a particular period in societal evolution, namely the Krta Yuga (1,72,800 years ago).
We are now living, two Yuga thence, in the Kali Yuga and one of the suggested referral law code texts for the Kali Yuga is Parasara Smriti, which too remains unheard of for today’s practicing Hindus.
Sir William Jones took Manu Smriti out of obscurity in 1776. It was this Manusmriti that Dr. Ambedkar burnt on December 25, 1927.
Since the time William Jones came out with the translated Manu Smriti, for the past 200 years and more, the codes of suggestive law in this Smriti, meant for a different Yuga, have continued to stay imposed on the Indian polity.
This erroneous perception and the myth has to be cleared first, for clarity in the political dialogues of the current decade.
The rabble rousers who hide behind Dr. Ambedkar’s coat, should know that even Dr. Ambedkar was careful enough to not demean the entire Sanatana Dharma in the name of being progressive. As much as he hated Manu, he did acknowledge the high respect given to women in ancient India.
He even quoted Manu when the Parliament was debating on the Hindu Civil Code Bill to make a point on succession and property rights.
So, before Thirumavalavan, Periyarist cabals and other Hinduphobic elements call for the ban on Manusmriti, a text that 99% of the Hindus do not even care about, let them at least make an effort to what Dr. Ambedkar has said about it in different writings and speeches.
Hindus should realize that when Dr. Ambedkar critiqued Manu Smriti he did not spew venom on a particular faith or community unlike these foul mouthed coolies of breaking India forces.
(With inputs from Autobiography of India: Breaking the Myths, Volume 2, by Dr. K. Hari and Dr. K. Hema Hari)
Views expressed here are author’s own.