Jigarthanda Double X
Review and thoughts.
A spoiler filled review.
The standoff appears as a motif in this movie. Standoffs between people, between man and nature, between the movie and the audience, between the people and the government. This is fitting, as this is a movie about a ‘Pandyaa Western’. But if you look into it on a deeper level, this movie is in itself a Western.
Going by the film’s own definition, it portrays an external, unrelated man who rides into a place or milieu, solves the associated people’s problems and leaves when justice has prevailed. This is typically achieved with the use of standoffs in the climax.
While justice is served in western movies using guns and violence, here, there's an altogether different weapon involved, which is cinema. We’re also engaged in a standoff with the movie itself, as it asks us, the audience, to take something away from the movie: to question authority, and to ultimately make us see who’s the one pulling the strings — the main puppeteers.
Thinking about it now, this idea doesn’t just pop into the narrative in the last forty minutes: it is explored right from the beginning — how people in power control those under them, and how the chain of command trickles down to the common man. The corrupt inspector (DSP) wants to kill Caesar and his associates because of his brother, the actor/politician. The actor wants to achieve fame because of the lady in power, the CM.
In the end, in the massive twist, it turns out that she too, is a pawn in the grand scheme of things, executing the wishes of those above her, expecting more power in return.
It makes one wonder how long the power chain extends. The movie, then, follows two people who are in the tail ends of the power chain: Ray Dasan and Caesar. Their lives are interconnected, though they aren’t aware of it in the first half of the movie. They are mere puppets, dancing to the tunes of the ones above them. In a way, this movie is also the story of how they break free from the chain and wrest power back for themselves: how they become humans in their own right.
Kirubai/Ray Dasan — I prefer to call him Ray Dasan, because both are different, almost disconnected personalities — wrests power and becomes a man in his own right when he uses cinema to control Caesar and do as he bids. Caesar does the same, breaking free of his roles within Karmegam’s organization and becoming an actor, who wields his power over people to convince them to fight for a cause. This is the story of a revolution, the way the oppressed take up arms against their oppressors.
The tribal people too begin to wield their power — their stories and their truth. As Sethu tells in the first Jigarthanda movie, Unmai Sudum. It is a lethal fire, a spark of which is able to bring down an entire empire. What was a commercial, entertainer type of movie in the first half goes deeper in the second half, with such emotional force that it is impossible to leave the theater not in awe.
The only thing which is not a part of the power chain in the movie is nature. I’m using the term in a generalized way here, encompassing the rich-green forests, the tribal community, the stories and the elephants. They bow down to no one. Sure, people can nevertheless bend it to their will, as is illustrated in the movie, but nobody can really control it. Why, even the infamous Shettani cannot control the pure rage of Vazhuvan, an elephant, and meets his end in a standoff with him.
This movie takes the phrase elephants never forget and runs miles and miles with it. I think Karthik Subbaraj can effectively portray people’s mental state and their internal struggles very well on film. The change of heart Assault Sethu has when he walks into a theater and sees people cheering for him in Jigarthanda, the abrupt shift to spirituality of Sathyavan, the internal struggle of Gandhi Mahaan when confronted with the dilemma of choosing between family and friends in Mahaan, are just some examples that immediately come to mind.
Here, Caesar’s father is traumatized throughout his life because of an incident involving an elephant named Atthini. Caesar is also traumatized, and it becomes his defining characteristic for the first half of the movie. While this sets up their characters, the movie also gives redemption to both in the latter half when Atthini comes back to express her gratitude and forgive them. In one of the most emotional scenes in the movie, the father finds solace and peace at last, and, as if waiting for that very moment, his soul ascends from his body.
Caesar is impacted too; he realizes that he was wrong all this time. That his land, his people and their heritage is more valuable and important than anything material; and that he must try to save it while he can. Up to one point he is merely acting for the camera Ray Dasan is following him with. From that point onwards, his actions become more real with every passing second, until he completely imbibes his actions in his life and changes for the good. Here, cinema is used to condition him, to lead him down his redemptive path.
This movie has many parallels to the first movie. There too, the reconciliation of two characters — Assault Sethu and his mother — forms an important beat in the story and comes because of cinema. Here, Caesar reconciles with his father, which came indirectly because of cinema. In the first movie, there’s a big reversal of roles by the end: Sethu becomes a full on artist, more or less abandoning his violent past, while Karthik takes up violence, the place of Sethu and instead uses it for a good cause, which is, of course, cinema.
Here, in a brilliant stroke of writing genius, Caesar takes on the role of the artist, an actor, who becomes a leader to his people just like his inspiration, Clint Eastwood. By the end of the film, Ray Dasan has effectively taken up Caesar’s place and uses it to propagate cinema. In Jigarthanda, we see how Karthik uses violence in the climax to get Vijay Sethupathi to act in his film — use of violence to propagate cinema — as Karmegam, Caesar’s men and Ray Dasan do here — using violence to get people to see the movie and propagate cinema’s truth.
As we infer, oru nalladhu seiyyardhukku kooda power-la iruntha thaan mudiyum. (One has to be in power even to do good).
The makers opted for the bold move of having the ‘hero’ of the movie die in the climax, along with the tribal people. The film doesn’t attempt to glorify the hero, making him save the entire tribal community in the face of a hundred or more police officers. The hero is nevertheless glorified here, not as a hero in the conventional sense, as he himself accepts it, but as a common man who has tried everything and has reached his limits. The usage and mixture of the logic and emotions of the characters to underline their response was a masterpiece.
The tribal people’s decision to face their death in celebration and abundant display of their lifestyle makes sense as they want to immortalize the same for the public and the future generations through cinema. For if they can leave a piece of themselves in the people’s minds in the face of their unfair and meaningless fate, why shouldn’t they?
One of my favorite tropes in literature is the redemption arc. I began to love it after I completed Ponniyin Selvan, and immediately, Periya Pazhuvettarayar became my favorite literary character of all time. In short, in the novel, Pazhuvettarayar was an unknowing accomplice in the plan to demolish his own kingdom, the Chola Empire. Blinded by desires and lust for Nandhini, he doesn’t realize his grave mistakes until much later. But as soon as he realizes, he becomes a key part in thwarting the grand ploy that threatens his kingdom.
Coming to this movie, Caesar certainly attains redemption, both in his eyes and Dasan’s. By helping the tribal people and making their fate public, he has in all ways atoned for his sins, and has really lived up to the status of his hero, Clint Eastwood. In Dasan’s eyes, he produced such sympathy, appreciation and respect that the latter couldn’t bring himself to abandon Caesar to his death. The minute he decided to bring Caesar back to his village and save him, Caesar was redeemed in his eyes.
The ending also depicts Caesar’s complete redemption: when once he would have taught himself as a hero and at least tried to take on the people single handedly, with all the guns and ammunition present, he now chooses to use his power as an artist.
However, I disagree with the film on Ray Dasan’s fate — I would’ve liked it if he hadn’t survived, and the corrupt police officer was instead killed by the audience who witnessed Caesar’s film, — I can still see the choice which went into taking this decision. In the standoff between him and Caesar, he emerged the victor, but still learned a lot from his ‘thalaivan’. In the standoff between us and the cinema, we take home, we learn something from it: to question the authority. To ask, simply, ‘O Rulers, Why?’ (I’m sorry I don’t recall the Tamil word used in the film.)
Also, I get that Dasan’s survival works for another reason: as he himself states, ‘I’ve become an artist now. I don’t have a death anymore’. This feeling resonates with another of my favorite films, Uttama Villain. Its thesis is that art and artists are immortal: nothing can alter or erase them. In the language of Uttama Villain, Caesar and Dasan have obtained true immortality, mrityunjayam. They have attained saaga varam.
Speaking of the corrupt official, I disliked him from the very beginning, and he had a moonji-a pathale kuthhu-ra face. I however strongly disagreed with the film’s use of gratuitous violence to demonstrate his character. Somehow, for some reason, the violence of police brutality depicted in Karnan, Viduthalai, and such movies ring more true, and induce fear much more than this film, where I could only think of it as violence for violence’s sake.
There is no single tangible weapon which exists that can bring them to justice in this situation; that is the reality. But justice can be brought using another weapon, a conceptual, abstract, but nevertheless much, much powerful one: cinema. Throughout the movie, in the aforementioned standoff scenes, the 8mm camera is used almost as an analogue to the gun, and in the end, causes a lot of damage than a gun ever could. This is the thesis of the movie.
Think about it: a man with a gun — Allius Caesar — can make people do as he pleases because he wields a gun, the fear of the people associated with it. In the same vein, post interval, a man with a camera — Ray Dasan — makes Caesar do as he pleases because he wields a camera, and the respect of the people associated with it. It is wonderful. What the film ultimately tries to say is that the latter is much, much more powerful than the former.
This film also slightly hints at the dark side of cinema, when in the wrong hands. The climax is a standoff (again) between two films: the politician/actor’s movie, Ezhaiyin Nanban (or something like that, I forget), and Caesar/Dasan’s movie, Kaattu Bharani.
The former portrays the actor in a shade which is entirely disconnected with his reality. As a result, the audience, the people, and the voters, by extension begin to see him as such in real life too. This is dangerous cinema, where lies are painted on the canvas of real life, whitewashing things to fool people, while the other is a brutal, real depiction of the truth and reality of the world, trying to demolish people’s blind belief.
In this showdown, truth triumphs, and Kaattu Bharani wins. It nevertheless makes us aware of the ways cinema is used to further people’s own agendas and motives, planting their ideas and ideals in people's minds, priming them for blind beliefs.
The ending was brilliant. It produced the same reaction Vikram produced last year with its Suriya cameo and the LCU connection. No, scratch that. It produced a much bigger reaction, because when I heard that the small baby boy’s name was Sethu, I felt goosebumps all over my body. And Jigarthanda’s theme! It was a total fanboy moment.
For me, this was a more meaningful connection than Vikram’s measly call in Leo, why, even Rolex’s cameo in Vikram. The connection in Leo felt like a hasty attempt to shove it into the LCU.
This was essential, and this was something that I cared about. Good thing I rewatched Jigarthanda that very day. Even after coming out of the theater, and on the way back, I kept connecting both movies: the rise of Sethu, his relationship with his mother, the movie reconciliation, all made sense. It was perfectly executed.
While I had a few nitpicks with the movie, they were overshadowed by its sheer brilliance. Some of my nitpicks were the slow pace of the movie in the first half, the meaningless dance sequences, and the gratuitous violence.
I don’t know if the Triple X lead was warranted in the film, but that didn’t stop me from going nuts internally when the big red XXX’s popped up on the screen. It seemed like Jigarthanda was self-contained, and this film expanded on that perfectly. Maybe Karthik Subbaraj can pull off another spectacle. Maybe that will be a much bigger one than this. We can only hope.
Coming to one part of the film I haven’t talked about: Santhosh Narayanan’s score. While I believe that he is extremely underrated and extremely talented — it’s the truth, — he failed to produce a reaction in me in this movie. I loved 10000 Pax, and grooved to it for three days before I went into the movie, but I couldn’t help to appreciate his work here. I certainly enjoyed 10000 pax and Caesar's theme, but the same didn’t apply to the overall soundtrack. There were a few bright moments, sure, but not throughout. The songs were very mediocre. Nevertheless, I’m still going to be grooving to 10000 pax.
Very few directors can make you extremely anticipate their next film and look back on their filmography with sufficient respect. This can be both a curse and boon: Lokesh Kanagaraj earned that privilege last year when he made Vikram. However, this year’s Leo was a huge letdown for me. Though it is certainly a good film, it didn’t fit as neatly into the much bigger picture of Lokesh’s filmography. Same with Nelson: with Doctor, he earned my respect. But I hated his subsequent venture with Vijay, Beast. Jailer was another film with many flaws; I didn’t appreciate it at all.
A few months before, I decided to rewatch Subbaraj’s Mahaan. While my father didn’t appreciate the film, I stood by it. The rewatch also solidified my appreciation for the director’s craft, and SaNa’s score was another banger. This made me excited for Jigarthanda Double X, and it delivered fully. My respect for Subbaraj has only increased.
I suspect that Triple X will be out only after a few years at least, as Subbaraj doesn’t like to make multiple films in the same flavor at once. However, I’m very excited to see literally any project he comes up with in the future. As Baradwaj Rangan said, the scope of Subbaraj’s films are steadily increasing. This is a grand culmination, without diluting his style, essence or flavor, and that is a very big task.
Big kudos.
I absolutely loved the film.
Oh God, I think I’m going to watch it again in theaters.