Karnan is a powerful tale of defiance against oppression
Karnan Film Overview: Mari Selvaraj’s Karnan opens with the shot of a younger woman affected by suits mendacity helpless in the midst of the street. Automobiles proceed to ply on each side of the street, however not a single one stops. Theni Eswar’s digital camera rises above the bottom and goes up increased and better, giving us a God’s eye view of this tragic scene. There isn’t a divine intervention; the truth is, the woman dies, and turns into a Goddess — Kaattu Pechi!
The movie then cuts to Santhosh Narayanan’s now iconic Kanda Vara Sollunga tune. We see a whole village praying for the return of Karnan (Dhanush). And Mari Selvaraj establishes the legendary standing of his protagonist straight away. We don’t truly see his face; reasonably, we see his ft (splayed with blood, and trampled by the boots of cops), his fingers (handcuffed), and his head (lined by a black fabric). We see who Karnan is thru the tattoos that the individuals sport, and the portray {that a} painter does with fireplace.
The movie then goes again by a couple of years, to 1997, to relate how Karnan turned his individuals’s hero, how oppression will be insidious, and the way the paperwork stands by the aspect of the oppressor and even takes half within the oppression. The plot revolves round Podiyankulam, a poor village of individuals belonging to the oppressed communities which is refused a bus cease. Their highly effective males (clearly of the dominant caste) of their neighbouring village, Melur, use this as a method to maintain them dependant on them. Issues come to a head when Karnan, an offended, younger man from Podiyankulam, who’s ready to be chosen within the military, decides to take issues in his personal fingers. A bus is trashed, prompting the cops, led by the egoistic officer Kannapiran (Natty), to retaliate.
On the floor, Karnan may appear to be a well-recognized story of battle between the oppressed and oppressor, however Mari Selvaraj’s detailing makes the movie really feel each distinctive and common on the identical time. It’s fairly just like the battle inside his Karnan, who fights for the general public good and likewise for private causes.
Within the first half, the director takes his time to arrange the milieu and the characters, which embody Karnan’s side-kick of types Yeman Thatha (Lal, in one other empathetic efficiency after final week’s Sulthan), his single elder sister Padmini (Lakshmi Priyaa Chandramouli, efficient), who’s the household’s breadwinner, his love curiosity Draupathi (Rajisha Vijayan, stable in her Tamil debut), her good friend who’s about to enter faculty (Gouri Kishan), her brother (Yogi Babu, who will get to play a personality reasonably than a comic), his docile father (Poo Ram) and the village elder Dhuryodhanan (GM Kumar) amongst others. In Mari Selvaraj’s world, even the animals, birds and bugs, from the eagles the steal chicks to canines that scamper within the background, the cat that goes after thrown-away meals, that the elephant that’s introduced in for a celebration, the pigs within the sty, and even the bugs which might be mating in rain are integral to the milieu, and he repeatedly offers us these throwaway pictures to lend a real-world really feel to the world he’s constructing.
Within the first half, he step by step builds up a pressure-cooker state of affairs that units off a sequence response. Like in Maheshinte Prathikaram, the place one factor led to a different resulting in the central battle, right here an offhand comment throughout a recreation results in a tussle, which ends up in a falling out, which ends up in a home friction, which ends up in a public spat, which results in an act of violence. However Mari Selvaraj reveals that typically violence may also be catharsis. He makes us take care of the individuals and really feel for his or her struggles a lot that when your entire village faces off towards cops within the second half, the second feels as exhilarating as when the one within the Avengers, when the superheroes tackle the evil forces.
However earlier than we get to this second, the director depicts how caste-based oppression works. Kannapiran considers being made to face amidst these ‘lowly individuals’ an insult and chooses to make them pay. The director makes us see that this is not a heat-of-the-moment determination however a calculated transfer by actually making him fish! Natty is deliciously depraved on this function. Even Karnan is a thinker regardless of flying off the deal with at instances. He realises why Kannapiran needs to maintain them servile. Greater than the act of damaging a bus, Kannapiran is delay by the villagers standing as much as him; even their names piss him off (in Mari Selvaraj’s Mahabharata, Karnan and Dhuryodhanan are the great guys whereas Kannapiran is the evil one)! We consistently get pictures of him pondering via his actions, and Dhanush is superb in portraying these moments the place he makes us sense the wheels handing over his head. It is a much less showy efficiency than the one in Asuran, by which he may get actorly as he was enjoying a 50-plus man, and right here, he simply needs to be, and the actor aces it.
The one draw back is that magic realism that the director goes for — with the sister-turned-Kaattu Pechi — has blended outcomes. Whereas it helps us give Karnan’s private stake within the challenge, there are occasions when it feels overdone and breaks the narrative move. The pacing, too, may come throughout as gradual, however this can be a slow-burn drama. In actual fact, the narrative (and Karnan’s character) mirrors the donkey which hobbles round within the village as a result of its legs are tied. Identical to the animal, which sprints after Karnan manages to let it free, the movie, too, picks up tempo at this second, and by no means lets go of it till the climax.
Some may need points with the film’s name to arms, which is sort of a stark distinction to the pacifist tone of Mari Selvaraj’s earlier movie Pariyerum Perumal, however with hard-hitting traces like “Enga thirumbinaalum evanavadhu oruthan marachutu irukaan” and “Epaadiyavadhu pozhachu kedandha podhumnu irukku paaru namma nenappu, andha nenappu dhaan poora payaluvalum namma thala mela parangalla vekkuranuvo”, the director reveals us Karnan’s helplessness. Generally, agitation is the one manner out for the oppressed.
