Maaveeran Review (2023)

Spoilers

Synopsis

A cowardly man must wake up to fight for his slum who have been scammed with a shoddily constructed building by a corrupt politician

Review/Analysis

This Is What the MCU should learn: Chloe Zhao, who was an Indie Director, was cast as the director for Eternals, which spectacularly bombed. Similarly Madonne Ashwin, who directed Mandela (which I haven’t seen unfortunately), directs the spectacular Maaveeran, arguably the best film of the year currently for me (while still being in competition with Pathaan) except for it’s, again arguably the best stupid climax of the year currently. Madonne Ashwin packs this social issue film by not making a social issue film and mixes it with the daily issues of the protagonist and the people he lives with. The opening intro of Sathya, Played by a really good SivaKarthikeyan, who is crafting his cartoon describing a brave warrior and when we come to reality we see him cowering in fear seeing his mother clash with politician’s people regarding water supply issue.

The contrast is perfectly apt for Sathya, who unlike his name, keeps forgoing the truth and adjusts to life rather than face it and solve. The shot we see him in is an aesthetical frame in a frame shot where we see him inside the window of his house, again showing how he constantly hides. There is also a beautiful play of red and blue colours throughout the film and we see that in the dresses of Nila, played by Adithi Shankar and Sathya’s Mom Easwari, played by a terrific Saritha, representing fierceness and bravery of them whereas, in a twist of cinematic language, red is used to show a weak and cowardly Sathya. Red is a bright and powerful colour but Madonne brilliant subverts the usage and even gives the colour its own arc throughout the film. In the beginning we see Sathya dressed primarily in red and he is also cowardly. When he gains the “voice”, it instils courage in him and we see him dressed him blue just like Nila and Eashwari.

But he remains scared still. When he “loses” the voice, he again goes to wearing red and when he finally gains the courage (which takes place at the sea, again blue), he is still wearing red but drowned in blue(water) and later he no longer needs that blue to give him courage (Easwari and Nila are not present during the climax during the fight). Even the building that the slum people move in is painted in blue predominantly and the crowd is itself blue during the climax showing their own courage and tussles living in the building. The irony is that the slum in a wide shot is shown to be in a reddish hue where they lived without any worry and perhaps fear and they come to this new building painted in blue where they have to learn to fight for themselves. The Villain Jeyakodi, played by an eccentric Mysskin, is frequently shown in red symbolising his cowardice behind the courage of the political power he wields.

Sathya, though meek, is a talented cartoonist and uses his art to express his inner emotions such as anger (he portrays the building issues through it) and love (he tells Nila to come home through the cartoon for that day) creating a parallel to the film which through this story presents to us the plight of such people. The film also is sprinkled with the right proportion of humour in the first half which gels well with the seriousness such that we don’t feel the heaviness of the serious 2nd half , because the seriousness got imbibed with the humour. Yogi Babe as Kumar, is terrific here as a daily wage labourer working for the “Patchwork” of Satya’s building (you’ll know why I quote it) and Madonna is able to pretty much create a separate story with Kumar highlighting the NorthIndianistation of daily wage labourers, the way they get exploited like the slum people and the milks brilliant humour through it. Even in the scenes of emotion, Yogi Babu is absolutely effective here.

The whole voiceover aspect works on multiple layers. It can be seen as the voice of Sathya’s dead brave father or the Kulatheivam as Sathya’s mother says or as the comic strip lead that Sathya draws or even just a voice of reason and anger that lives in us. Madonne uses the voiceover in a suspenseful way i.e. he states what is going to happen with the voiceover and creates suspense within us. The voiceover also breaks the greatest trope associated with the mass film i.e. the way heroes, with no previous experience with fighting, fantastically coordinate and beat the rowdies in exquisitely choreographed fight sequences.

Maaveeran breaks that by making us understand the hero’s affect due to the voice which makes the fight choreography extremely digestible. Even with these fight sequences, Madonne is able to convey character progression like in the climax when the Voice tells that Sathya would wait for the goons to come but we see Sathya charge showing to us the anger inside him. There is terrific comedy also milked from the whole “Sathya hears a voice” and in one scene he even brilliantly and “bravely” fools the enemies with the Voice. Madonne also gives us some absolutely beautiful anamorphic wide angle shots when Sathya hears the voice wherein Sathya is placed in the centre and due to the nature of anamorphic lenses, the faces of the characters in the sides of the image are distorted showing us how only Sathya is able to hear the voice (he is sane) while the others are insane when on the contrary everyone tells the opposite. Some shots even show Sathya’s in an asymmetric style showing his “weirdness”.

Madonne also uses editing fascinatingly such as in the scene when Sathya attempts suicide, we parallely see Sathya’s mother burn the cartoons he had drawn indicating the death of the previous “coward” Sathya, but the word Veeran alone doesn’t get burnt and flies away and somehow lands on Sathya for a purpose. Or the scene where Sathya chooses to end the cartoon and writes The End which is parallel shown with one of the engineer men misbehave with Sathya’s sister, showing how it is the end of the cowardice.

The only negative that the film has its ultra-commercial ending which spoils the impact that could have been if the hero had actually died. This could have empowered the remaining slum people and made them actually self-reliant. Instead we get the typical “hero survives anything” climax which spoils the effect and also him still having the Voice makes him feel less courageous and luckier. He not having the voice in the end could have shown him being more courageous on his own. The heroine also doesn’t have as much to do though she has her own character and isn’t just a 1 dimensional “heroine”. Even her intro scene has this staging which is beautiful.

But apart from these minor issues, Madonne Ashwin crafts an absolutely emotional but also hilarious film on the exploitation of the slum dwellers and showcases their sadness and the extreme compromise that they are forced to do.