‘Kadaisi Vivasayi’ movie review: M Manikandan’s poignant ode to the old-fashioned farmer

(Spoilers beneath)

There’s something completely different about director M Manikandan that units him other than his friends, if his physique of labor — Kaaka Muttai, Kuttrame Thandanai and Aandavan Kattalai — had been to be thought of. His debut movie Kaaka Muttai was a masterpiece: a children-centred movie that makes use of a Satyajit Ray-like humanist realism to make a searing level on consumerism and sophistication variations. Aandavan Kattalai was a light-hearted tackle aspirations, but in addition depicted its story and characters as near actuality with out giving up on humour and cinematic sense. This author hasn’t seen Kuttrame Thandanai however simply the 2 different films had been sufficient to whet the urge for food of viewers who needed to wait months for the discharge of Kadaisi Vivasayi (The Final Farmer), Manikandan’s fourth movie and maybe probably the most poignant of the lot.

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Because the title signifies, Kadaisi… is a tackle the state of affairs in Indian farming right this moment. The trope is acquainted; only a few in right this moment’s rural India see advantage in farming as a viable vocation and uncommon is the villager right this moment who aspires to maintain engaged within the tough and tumble that comes with agriculture. However what units Kadaisi… aside is the therapy given to the topic, and that’s the place Manikandan’s craft comes into play.

Just like his Kaaka Muttai and Lenin Bharathi’s Merku Thodarchi Malai, the important thing roles on this movie will not be performed by actors, or not less than by those that are acquainted to audiences. That is clearly finished for the aim of authenticity. Aside from Vijay Sethupathi and Yogi Babu, each of whom seem in cameos, there are not any different distinguished faces. The central character, Maayandi (Nallandi), is performed by an individual who can’t be anybody else however an inveterate farmer himself. Different supporting roles are additionally essayed by locals of a village close to Usilampatti, the place the movie is about in. What differentiates these characters and actors from typical Tamil movies with a rural backdrop, is that these will not be merely bystanders or spectators who occupy display screen house, however look and behave like actual individuals.

The dose of realism imbued to the characters and the settings is what units the stage for the message being delivered by the director: that farming as an exercise requires the protagonist to place forth the exhausting yards to maintain it going towards heavy odds. It’s no shock that each different landowner-farmer within the village has bought their holdings for a fast buck; one in all them even buys an elephant and makes use of it for remunerative functions.

Maayandi isn’t just the “final farmer” within the village; he’s a simpleton untouched by the comforts of modernity, as evident from the absence of electrical energy in his family or mechanised tools for farming. A loner, he sticks to his occupation not simply as a way of livelihood, however as his method of oneness with nature. It’s no surprise that when some village elders resolve to appease the village deity by performing rites with the presence of all communities, they put the onus on Maayandi to offer the contemporary providing of grains harvested in his small farm.

Maayandi goes about his job along with his typical fervour, whilst land grabbers search to purchase his fecund land holdings just for their provide to be resolutely turned down. They attempt to repair Maayandi for this. A case is pinned on him by the police for killing peacocks. The Justice of the Peace who hears his case is well satisfied of his innocence, caught by Maayandi’s desperation to go to the sector and have a tendency to his life-bearing crops. However the lengthy arm of the legislation doesn’t spare him. He’s stored in remand for days earlier than the police take their candy time to repair their bureaucratic errors. It falls on his fellow villagers and a police constable (as a consequence of a reprimand by the Justice of the Peace) to handle his crop and with out Maayandi’s knowhow and nurture, this activity is clearly not simple for them. Lastly, when Maayandi is launched from remand, your entire village transcends its bitter casteist divide, and even the Justice of the Peace is moved by his dedication. They participate in serving to reap the produce with a contented ending.

It’s the technique of how this transformation happens throughout the village that drives the second half of the movie, and the director tugs on the coronary heart of the viewer as a lot as that of the man villagers and the companies of the state to understand the significance of the kadaisi vivasayi. It isn’t simply realism or emotional intrigue which can be utilized by Manikandan to make his level. He depends on surrealism in Vijay Sethupathi’s character as Ramaiah. Ramaiah has points with psychological well being and has misplaced his moorings due to a private tragedy. Not like different villagers who regard Ramaiah with amusement or mirth, Maayandi sees it to be completely tremendous in breaking bread or sharing his feelings with him. That is in sharp distinction to his interactions with others that are laced with biting wit, a little bit of derision or indifference. It’s as if Maayandi is as out of tune with actuality in his insistence on dedication to his craft as Ramaiah is, however their innate humanity and bond with nature binds them as kindred spirits.

To this author, Maayandi, Ramaiah and different characters within the movie will not be too completely different from the farmers from Tamil Nadu who went to New Delhi a couple of years in the past to register their ache towards the Authorities in weird methods. For the Indian peasant, an oneness with nature, expressed in monsoon cycles, soil, reliance on home animals and even the presence of untamed birds similar to peacocks is a given and religion in divinity, is tied to their dependence on nature.

Manikandan expresses this not via the standard cinematic methodology of dialogues and messaging, however via a mixture of realism and surrealism. This might sound incongruous to city viewers, however I think it’s going to ring a bell with the villager in rural Tamil Nadu — who’s the important thing viewers that Manikandan appears to focus on in his ode to the old style farmer.

Kadaisi Vivasayi will launch in theatres on February 11