கொட்டுக்காளி (2024)

Kottukkaali made me realise that it is the film that I would like to make.... For long, I have thought about how the reviews for the von Trier and Godard films on the Roger Ebert website are critiqued (not reviewed) about what they do, and not about whether they are good or bad.... I realised that that was the kind of film I wanted to make...

Now that I have seen Kottukkaali, Kottukkaali becomes part of the list of films that are critiqued not reviewed (like a Car or smartphone).... The images shown are not about binaries... It's not about whether Pandi will get to marry Meena... It's not about the pei-otification of  Meena... What it is is the in between....  It's about the blacks in Women Frying Eggs....

Yesterday, as I had posted in the blog, I had to submit a short film for an audition for a film club in my college... At the same time, I had told a friend of mine that I'd help him finish a short film ( for the same audition)... During the shoot (of the climax, which was left for his film), there was a point where we had to clear some people from a bench where we were to shoot. All 3 of us were a bit apprehensive of asking the students to vacate the mentioned bench....

As we went, I thought that it would be very interesting to make a film about this moment... The moment before the take and after a take... Basically, Le Mepris or Day for night... And today I saw Kottukkaali, which is precisely that film....

Kottukkaali, to me felt like Maanadu... Each time there is a peet-stop, we learn a bit more about the characters... That a sister-in-law who keeps bad-naming the bride is also the one who shields her from the blows of her husband (the sister in law's brother)... A man who scolds his sister for badmouthing his fiancé, is the one to violently hit his own fiancé (in front of everybody, including hitting everybody)... As the journey begins each time, there is a tension... A bomb...  Like RanVijay says...

Pandi, in fact, reminded me a lot about RanVijay... Mainly being the scene where Pandi hits his own sisters for talking against Meena, but then, later, proceeds to hit Meena himself.... The inherently very fucked, outlook that they have was fascinating... Like RanVijay, no one should scold Meena but he himself would hit her... Yet, the grounded nature of Pandi and also the layered (literally) pealing of his character, continues to surprise us...

Like Maharaja (for me), it was a revelation... Is this possible? Are humans seriously like this? Of course, reading a good bit of literature had opened me to the possibilities of such people, but to actually see the very definition of what RanVijay calls “ticking time bomb nahi,detonate” was scary… The immediate follow up scene to this show of violence involves Pandi’s sisters asking their dad to tell Pandi to come in the bike, even though it was they themselves who had asked him to come in the auto (because of an insect biting his eye)...

The soft natured Pandi with his brutality in the interior gave me chills. It is exactly opposite to the character we have seen Soori play as a lead, till now... The scene in which this brutality is revealed is also excellent...

The group (consisting of Pandi's dad and sisters and Meena, her mom and dad) come across a group celebrating the coming-of-age function of their girl... Pandi's dad points out that it was Pandi who even repaid the loan, Meena's dad had taken for conducting Meena's puberty function... They cross the group... A song played by the group resonates with Meena who sings it (throughout the film, she is silent, like a doll, very Buster Keaton esque- which is what reveals a lot about her), properly without missing lyrics.... This is shot in a closeup, representing Meena's inner world....

It is suddenly invaded by Pandi, who slaps her and all the inner, ugly, patriarchal "thanmai" of Pandi comes out, who even beats his own dad, sisters, friends, Meena's mom, dad everyone.... This shocking (and unwatchably violent) violence is suddenly cut (from a handheld closeup) to a wide shot, from the stream of a river.... It suddenly seems very funny... The gang of people, like animals...

Throughout the film, Vinoth (I believe) attempts to show a certain agam and puram.... Whose agam and puram? I'm not entirely sure, though i suspect it definitely is Meena's considering the fact that she doesn't talk (in the entire film she only has 1 dialogue)... A particular section involves the men lifting the auto(that the women travel in, the men travel by bike, which is again a masculine connotation) in order to turn it around...

Everyone comes out except Meena (being the Kottukkaali that she is)... As the men lift the auto, there is a closeup of their faces as they shot... The shot itself reminded me of A Fistful of Dynamite/Duck, you sucker/Once upon a time... A revolution's opening sequence where Rod Steiger is travelling in a carriage filled with upper class white people... As the men (hilariously) shout and turn the auto, we see an "InShot" of Meena being turned due to the men.... A sequence in the opening of the film(before the road trip i.e.), shows the men catching a sacrificial cock...

I assume the cock functions as a double meaning for the penis as well as the name hen.... Meena is shown to diligently observe the cock as it runs (after being freed from the stone it was tied to) from the men of the house, who frantically try to catch it… Such is (very obviously) the condition of Meena, who is controlled by the men of the house. Just like when she was sitting in the auto.

Most of the times, she is present inside a structure… Either the house or the auto… Thus, when for example, the above mentioned auto -lifting scene happens, it feels not only the auto, but even Meena herself literally being held by the men… As a result, when we get the very-dream like shot of an Anna Ben, walking freely somewhere, its not just a flashback (its literally a flash to the back of Anna), she, from the inside of the auto, views in outside, her lost interior….

I thought that this film, being so unconventional, would not have a flashback, but when the above “flashback” came, I just hit myself in the head, because it felt the most natural for such a film…  

In one of the few scenes where Meena goes out, it is before the aforementioned “auto-lifting” scene, when the group go to their kula-deivam. We get a shot of Pandi viewing Meena as she walks in front of him, but in the next cut to a wide, she is present far behind him...

As the group performs the poojai, Pandi looks at Meena, waiting for her to look back. But when she does look back, I was surprised that he looked away, almost as if he was scared maybe? I had expected him to hit her, due to his earlier hitting of his sisters, but what he does is cowering… And later, when she does pray (alone, after everyone leaves), he does not react and urges everyone to leave her alone… I half expected him to silently look from the background (it’s a mid-shot of Meena, where some background is visible), but he does not...

No one does... It certainly does seem that like Meena, everyone is in a bit of a “trance”… Who knows, it maybe because of the fact that they are in a “holy” place?

When they do finally reach the “holy” place, a seer, who drives away the “spirits” inside women, the film peaks… As we see the entry of the Pandi-Meena family, we see another family with a girl, come out… As the family goes inside, we see for the first time(and the last time), Meena talking… As Meena’s mother urges her to drink some water so that she can at least “endure their physical abuse”, Meena replies definitively, “They didn’t just beat me”...

Does this mean they have committed other horrors too, such as sexual abuse? I remember one of the men (who is a non-family member) saying that the whole trip is a rouse, because a trip to the doctor would bring their mistakes out... I wouldn’t be surprised if it included verbal abuse too...

As the family waits, another family is in the process of “exorcifying” their girl… There are 2 important shots here… First a wide shot, which shows Pandi in the foreground, observing this exorcification, which happens in the background… Then, the exorcism is shown in a mid-shot, as a single take… It is almost as if Pandi has been “affected” by this experience, such that his reaction to this is… nothing.

Soori walks from the position (of the exorcism) to a back of a house in a single take, with an expression which seems so revealing but also doesn’t necessarily reveal anything at the same time…  The following shot involves a POV shot, which leads Pandi from the back to the initial position of exorcism. But what happens next is the most interesting thing... Pandi doesn’t react i.e. he has become like Meena herself…

First his relation calls him; he doesn’t go. His sister calls him; he doesn’t respond. His father finally comes and calls him. As he keeps pestering Pandi to come, the film cuts to black and the title credits come up…

Surely, it was one of the most brain freeze/mindfuck moments of the year for me… I had expected the film to end when Pandi got to the back of the house, but because it ends in this particular moment, that it creates a multitude of possibilities… I want to believe that Pandi has had some change of heart, due to whatever reason, which is why he has become the Kottukkaali ( or Kottukaala, depending on the slang, which idk) at the end…

But what to me is most fascinating is that, PS Vinothraj, has depicted (to me) what it means to “document”… I have heard many filmmakers (Muthaiyaah for ex.) talk about documenting the lives of people, but I was always confused, because most of these “documents” had a story arc, character arc etc...

But what PS VinothRaj does here is that, he drops you into the life of these characters… There is no explanation... There is exposition (as an expression of anger), through which we learn about Meena and her lover (who is a low caste boy)…

Now what matters is not what happened to the boy or their love, but the reaction to this incident and through that, Vinoth reveals an ugly side of our normalised “kalaacharam” … Now this, I would call as a document...