After the critical success of Thanneer
Thanneer (1981), Balachander pushes his
jaundiced view of (Tamil but also general
Indian) politics further with this grotesque
drama symbolising the conditions of life in
independent India. The central character is
Thenmozhi (Saritha), a textile worker, who
loves and marries Ulaganathan (Rajesh), a
pragmatic politician whose daily compromises
eventually lead to provoking communal riots
and callous corruption. A strong and lively
woman, Thenmozhi ends up killing her corrupt
husband. The film repeatedly evokes, in its
political references, the old tradition of political
propaganda in Tamil film, with numerous
symbols and clear distinctions between good
and evil: most notably in the climactic
sequence when the wife, stepping on to a dais
to garland her husband, has a knife hidden in
the garland with which she publicly stabs him.
Sridhar Rajan described the film’s opening as ‘a
stunning surrealist streetside strewn with
corpses [a]nd, later, we see the evocative
visuals of men with loudspeakers growing out
of their throats, each vying democratically to
down the other vocally in the battle of the
ballot’. The grotesque side of the story is
evident in e.g. Thenmozhi’s deformed brother
born on Independence Day and named
Swatantram (i.e. Independence) and in her
blind father, a former freedom fighter who is
corrupted by Ulaganathan’s promise to pay for
an operation to restore his sight.
Did you know? This film was critically acclaimed, winning three awards at the 32nd Filmfare Awards South, as well as the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Tamil. Read More
This film was critically acclaimed, winning three awards at the 32nd Filmfare Awards South, as well as the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Tamil.
Sign up and get access to some cool features. Create watchlists, check in at movies, rate them or even write whole reviews! You can also share literally everything on Moviebuff with your friends, enemies, frenemies, family, babysitter or pets. Is that enough incentive for you?