Jigarthanda XX Review(2023)

Spoilers

If many felt that my review for Leo was because I was being an anil, it was because Lokesh had attempted to do something different, focussing on characters and their lives. But what Karthik Subbaraj does here is not just attempting to do something; the man has made maybe his best film in his career up until now, where the influences of all the directors on him, has been visualised, not said, but visualised. If you are familiar with the story of Jigarthanda, you would know that it is the cross between the lives of an artist and a gangster. The underlying idea is still the same; Allius Caeser, played by a terrific Raghava Lawrence, is a dreaded gangster, who Kirubaraj, played by a brilliantly undramatic SJ Suryah, has to kill to be get his dream job of a police officer.

If you are wondering where the is artist in this, it is because here the artisan is a fake; Kirubaraj acts as a “filmmaker” Ray Dasan, to access Caesar, who wants to be the first Black skinned Tamil Hero. But then what comes along the way is not a Clint Eastwood-esque Spaghetti Western, of whom Caesar is a fan of, but with the kind of twists and surprises that nature brings in the course of life, and they end up shooting something which is the opposite of fake.

The meta touch is brilliant.

Nature is an important element in this film, with Karthik showcasing something of supreme importance

in the film, which involves the showcase of a tribe, its customs, its deity, its practises in such an extremely poignant and heartfelt way that it itself acts as a way to give the message that KS wishes to give. Karthik Subbaraj has stated in many of his interviews that Martin Scorsese is an important influence on him, and this film, along with Scorsese’s Killers Of The Flower Moon which released recently, are companion pieces which share a common purpose; the showcase of the lives of people who have been forgotten by time and society who want to be forgotten by the government, a subplot which involves political corruption and selfish, a clichéd but timely, subplot.

While it may appear to have been forcefully added, it makes sense that in the beginning the party head, who is the CM, says a party member’s importance is due to the stardom he has (he’s an actor), and not because of his political or acting skills.

The film does seem to be somewhat unfocussed till the portion where an autopsy takes place. The way the scene is staged and blocked is brilliant, with basically a physical Mexican Standoff taking place without guns and they way it is shot is basically so Tarantino. Post that, we get the best film in the film which is the pre interval sequence that takes place in a theatre.

Having known Caesar’s love for Clint Eastwood and the way he makes them watch Clint Eastwood films as he kills them in his theatre, we know on 1 level what is going to happen. However what Karthik adds to this scene is another layer where one of Caesar’s henchman Murugan, who had previously seen Ray Dasan with the man who has been captured, and this tension is further amplified by the film which is being projected on the theatre; the climax of “For A Few Dollars More”. While I don’t wish to spoil that film (spoilers only for this film), it only adds to the tension that is happening in the film that we are watching.

Or the interval scene where a particular revelation takes place which is shot absolutely brilliantly well. A little detail (I don’t if its correct) is that in the interval, a shot that Ray discusses taking is the same shot in which we see him and Caesar in the second half.

It is the second half where we see what Karthik actually attempts to do with the film.

With the film shifting away from the zone where we expected it to go, the second half is where it begins to show its true ideas. It shifts to show the tribal group, the difficulties they face, both by a faceless hunter Shattani ( to the police) and by the police themselves, who torture the tribal members in the name of investigation. It seems fitting that the police seem to be unaware of who Shattani is, an invisible force of the forest, who is bought down finally only by another forest man (Caesar who is a tribal member). The police haven’t seen Shettani who acts a great stand in for the Higher-Level Politicians who secretively order the execution of the tribals. Another little touch is how the Police DSP, played by Naveen Chandra as a despicable human, is fully bearded only to reveal a moustached look right when the CM arrives to see the apprehended Shettani, almost like showing his duality (though he can’t showcase himself as an unkempt man in front of the CM).

The primary flashback given for Caesar regarding his gangsterly-ways, has a beautiful resolution in the second half when he and his father (who was a hunter himself in the past) lost Caesar’s brother while hunting. His father, having gone mad due to the resulting incident, finally makes peace with himself only when Caesar helps save the same elephant and its kid.

The last 30-45 mins which begins with the shooting of an audience speech inside the film that Ray and Caesar are shooting, and it probably is one of the moving and heartfelt moments in the film. The amount of hopelessness and sadness that you feel when the tribal members begin beating the drums and singing their traditional song as the police members come in to cause their genocide (they hesitate to kill the police officers who have come to kill them, knowing that they are just innocent people following orders) is such beautiful writing which comes about as Ray Dasan reveals about the political moves behind the sufferings of the people.

The film’s climatic moments are definitely fascinating on so many levels. In the resulting massacre of the tribals, it is believed that all have died and everything regarding them has gotten lost as even Ray Dasan is shot with his camera tapes being lost. Whence finally, we think the villains are winning and all hope is lost, a film screening is what helps reveal the truth. The release of a famous film actor’s release gets hijacked by Caesar’s gang, and when it is revealed to the audience about the deception in screening, they have to be forcefully shown the other film and that is when they finally realise the truth.

After watching the film, the audience gets the truth and the government collapses.

Watching these events unfold, 2 things create fascination within us. One is the binary view of the past, where people didn’t have any information and the people in power had great control over them. The message that Karthik is going for here regarding the importance of cinema becomes simplistic; having set this film in the history where lack of technological developments made people live in simpler but also innocent times, it is easy to imagine a film, despite being far less artistically accomplished as this one, being able to create some form of societal impact. This can be seen as a form of wish fulfilment in fiction, but is it really? How can it be fiction when all of it is shot really though?

The most fascinating part about this film is that even though it is a story which is “constructed”, the shooting in the film itself is documentary like… The actions happening on screen with all the different characters are already cinema-fied that they needn’t add any more “fakery” to it. And this is just one of the many layers of this masterpiece that all of you need to watch.