Ever since I watched the rushes of “Gargi”, the Sai Pallavi starrer, on YouTube in 2022, the movie has been on my watchlist. The only reason I hadn’t watched it is because I didn’t have a subscription to SonyLiv until last week, and that is the only channel, to the best of my knowledge, streaming the film. After my tragic experience with “Jailer”, I had to do something to redeem my failing faith in mainstream Tamil movies. Fortunately, just a couple of months ago, I watched “Kadaisi Vivasaayi” ( The Last Farmer) on YouTube (I paid for it), a beautiful and sensitive movie set in rural Tamil Nadu. A low-budget film, with wonderful performances and a theme that is deeply relevant and touching. I am glad it won the National Award this year. In India, national awards don’t evoke a sense of pride or celebration as it does in other countries. It hardly makes news. Our goal is to have our films make it to the Academy Awards, even if be for a song, or a dance, or whatever. That makes us very happy and financially rich. A national award, on the other hand, doesn’t rake in financial success, or fame, or even attempt to incentivize the director to make more movies. “Kadaisi Vivasaayi”, for all practical purposes, was a mega box-office failure. If my Google sources are accurate, the film made less than a crore in Indian rupees during the entire duration of its run in the theatres. Not surprising at all! considering our cinematic tastes seem to lean towards the likes of “Jailer”, “Beast” etc., and a flurry of similar mega-budget, half-baked, and pablum-pushing fares featuring swelled-head mega and superstars with very little substance or theme, and gullible public ( like me, remember I paid 26 dollars to see Jailer. I will consider it the worst investment of my money in recent times) ever willing to pour hundreds of crores into the coffers of those who make such movies whose only aim is to pander to the lowest possible denominator of aesthetic sense in cinema.
Well, I digress from what I started to write about. Last week I decided to subscribe to Sonyliv to watch Gargi and one more film ” Por Thozhil” ( The Profession of war), a murder mystery recommended by my niece’s fiancee – a gentleman whose taste I deeply respect. Let me talk about Gargi first and then a few words on Por Thozhil. There are only a few movies, in recent times, that have moved me, both in terms of the subject and the performances of the lead actors. Gargi is one of them. What struck me even when I heard about Gargi last year was the rather unusual name for the female protagonist in the story. Gargi, for those of us who may not know, is a special name in the Indian spiritual tradition. Way before the dawn of modern history, during a time, when Western philosophical traditions were not even thought of, Indian sages and savants were asking questions about the deepest issues of life and living. Philosophers roamed about the vast subcontinent visiting kingdoms and meeting fellow adventurers in thought to argue and debate on philosophical questions. The greatest fruit of that incredibly fertile period was the Upanishads or the dialogues between masters and disciples. Generally, no names were assigned to the speakers in these dialogues, they preferred to remain anonymous and let the message speak for itself. There is no certainty about who spoke what and to whom. Names were loosely used not because they didn’t know, but because they didn’t want to put themselves first. Each Upanishad is a compendium of dialogues, some short others long, on the deepest questions man could ask about himself and the world he lives in, followed by cautious and reasoned responses on where and how to look for answers to these baffling questions. The Upanishads as a whole are most majestic in composition and at the same time the most humble and respectful. (For those who are interested, I recommend Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnans’s translation of all the principal Upanishads). The dozen or so Upanishads that have come down to us represent the greatest contribution of India to human thought. No religious text comes close to the degree of freedom, confidence, and boldness with which uncomfortable questions about the self are asked and fearlessly answered in the true spirit of inquiry. In this sense, the Upanishads are the heritage of everyone, it is not specific to a religious denomination or doctrinal allegiance; The questions and answers found in these breathtaking dialogues will and should resonate with thinking individuals who have reached a point in their lives when deeper questions about life, universe and its purpose emerge, and become important than just eking out a living. These dialogues are the natural flowering of the human mind that has reached a high state of maturity, equilibrium, and equanimity. Reading them at this distance of over two millennia can still give us goosebumps. So contemporary are the questions, so passionate is the inquiry, and so reasoned are the responses found in them.
In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, considered one the principal upanishads of the pantheon, and one of the longest dialogues among the Upanishads, Gargi, is featured as one of the women who gets to ask the great sage Yagnavalkya questions before he could be pronounced as the man of highest learning in the court of Janaka. What is significant about this dialogue is that no formal introduction is made about Gargi or the fact that she is a woman. In the line of philosophers who stand up to question Yagnavalkya, Gargi’s turn comes without any gap or justification. There was no need to justify or specifically introduce Gargi at the court because it wasn’t unusual in that golden age for women to participate in philosophy and debate. We were an egalitarian society in the real sense of that term. Gargi, asks Yagnavalkya one of the most important questions: ” What is that which is above heaven and below the earth, which is between heaven and earth, which people do not know, which is without breath or mind or eyes or ears or speech or hands or feet, which is the eternal and all-pervading essence?” A brilliantly framed question, that prompts Yagnavalkya to answer with precision on the nature of reality. In fact, it is Yagnavalkya’s response to Gargi’s question that forms the essence of this Upanishad, even though there are more than a dozen other male philosophers who question the sage during the course of the conversations. Therefore Gargi is a woman emblematic of the intellectual traditions and freedom that women possessed before the priestly age set in, filled with deep convictions of the truth she carried in her heart and mind, and not afraid at all of speaking her mind freely or daunted by the stature of the man or the audience she was addressing. The fact that Sai Pallavi’s character in the movie is named Gargi – a young school teacher who decides to serve justice, and what is right, even at a terrible personal cost to herself is a significant choice by the story writers. It honors the First Lady of Philosophy. The character could have been named anything, but naming it Gargi is paying tribute to a woman who represents the best in Indian thought, culture, and tradition.
Gargi is out and out a Sai Pallavi film. She dominates the screen and gives her character that elan vital or life ( In Henri Bergson’s language) that makes a movie great. We talk so much about the Alia Bhatts and the Tammannas of the world, that we forget that Sai Pallavi in her short eight years in movies has essayed a wider variety of roles than most actors. It is hard not to see her as perhaps the finest actor of this generation. I stress the word “the”. From her first Malayalam movie “Premam” in 2015 to “Gargi” in 2022, she has evolved so quickly, without any formal training, or family backing ( as many if not all mainstream actors have) into an actor who can slip into any role with ease and confidence. It is a known story that Sai Pallavi never wanted to become an actor, and was studying to be a medical doctor in Georgia ( the state lies at the border of Europe and Russia) and accidentally got into films. She wasn’t even glamorous to begin with. Her acned face, slim body, luxuriant hair that tumbles across her spine, an unpretentious smile, and a superior intelligence rare in showbiz; she is everything a mainstream heroine normally isn’t. Could she dance? – a qualification commercial Indian heroines are expected to satisfy. Well, Boy! Sai Pallavi can indeed dance, and dance with consummate skill: flexible, graceful, and fast are some adjectives that immediately come to mind. Prabhudeva, who choreographed her in “Mari 2” was astounded that she could perform with such energy and vitality for the duration of a song that took four days to shoot. In the last few years, Sai Pallavi has performed in some great roles. In the Telugu film “Virataparvam”, a Naxalite-based story, she played the role of a young village girl who is besotted with a hardcore Naxalite with poetic shades to his personality and willing to go to any length to be with him. Sai Pallavi’s sensitive performance overshadowed everybody else, including my favorite Nandita Das, who had an important role in the story. However, with Gargi, I think Sai Pallavi has truly arrived. She carries the entire movie on her shoulders. Right from the very first scene, Sai Pallavi stamps her class. The movie begins with Sai Pallavi supervising a test in the classroom. She receives a phone call from her fiancee, and she effortlessly switches from the role of a teacher to a young lady engaging in small talk about breakfast and family. There is something so palpably realistic about this scene that it is bound to still linger in the thoughts of the audience.
The movie “Gargi” is about an incident of child abuse in a high-rise apartment, where Gargi’s father works as a security guard. She learns that her aged father is under custody for the horrific crime, along with four others whom the young victim identifies as the culprits during a police identification parade. Gargi is shocked and unwilling to believe that her kind and loving father who taught her as a child to be strong against predators could be even remotely connected to the incident. She protects her family, keeps them safe in their dilapidated home, and goes out alone to fight for justice with nothing much in hand to prove her father’s innocence. The director, Gautham Ramachandran, does a brilliant job of keeping her father out of the focus. When we eventually see him in full profile emerging from his cell to meet his daughter, a wave of compassion is all we feel for him. – He couldn’t have done it! The innocence of the man is written all over his profile. Based on her Father’s version of how he found himself embroiled in this matter, Gargi resolves to fight the injustice, but, no lawyer would touch the case. Child abuse is a serious matter, and a lawyer’s career could be on the line for defending an alleged rapist. However, she finds a rookie lawyer, with a stutter, who is willing to take her case. Kaali Venkat, usually known for his comic roles, essays a remarkable performance as Indrans, the righteous lawyer pleading his first case with the entire legal system against him. Indrans is an idealist and believes that everyone should have equal representation in law and that is his only reason for taking the case. There are the usual red herrings in the story that points to a different reality than the one Gargi and Indrans believe, but the screenplay and Gautham Ramachandran’s direction is so tight and crisp that we wouldn’t till the final few frames know who the real perpetrators of the crime are. And when the climax is revealed, there is a fulfilling emotional and ethical resolution to the story. We feel uplifted and touched – which is the hallmark of good art.
Gargi is an example of the kind of movies we should be making: well-structured, artistically challenging, cathartic. and with a clear narrative. The movie did reasonably well at the box office, around 5 to 10 crores, enough to recoup the money invested, I suppose. There are no rain dances or item numbers with viral moves, and Govind Vasantha’s background score sustains the mood of the movie well and snippets of songs are used only as fillers to portray unarticulated emotions. It blends beautifully with the overall narrative. Thankfully, I don’t remember the movie Jailer anymore, Gargi has wiped away that sour experience.
Just a quick word about “Por Thozhil”, a story about serial killing and the hunting down of a criminal by a squad of two detectives quite different in their outlook and approach. One a bookish cop, and the other a man of experience and instinct for crime. We had had quite a few themes revolving around serial killers in the recent past, especially in Tamil. And of course, Bollywood has remade a few of them without acknowledging the source, It looks like this killing formula sells well. Whenever I see a movie with two detectives of differing temperaments collaborating to solve a crime, I cannot stop myself from remembering David Finch’s 1995 classic “Seven”: Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt. Almost all the movies made since then with the subject as serial murders have their roots in “Seven”. Well, nothing wrong with it. When something as iconic and as brilliantly conceived as “Seven” is out there, there is no harm in borrowing a few tricks from its art. The point is to do it right. And in that respect, Por Thozhil has done it right. Sarath Kumar fits the profile of a grim, gloomy, irritable, uncompromising, and tough police officer well, and Ashok selvan, a good talented actor, plays second fiddle as a naive, freshly minted police graduate who brings in critical insights at crucial times. The movie is well-paced. There are a lot of dead bodies shown in heart-stopping positions, but, it doesn’t seem contrived or fitted in. Colin Wilson, an English writer, who studied the rise of serial killers, and their motives for doing so, wrote: “The worst crimes are not committed by evil degenerates but by decent and intelligent people taking ‘pragmatic’ decisions.” Vignesh Raja’s Por Thozhil manages to raise some uncomfortable questions about the motives for apparently meaningless murders committed, but remains cautious about drawing concrete conclusions and sticks to the stereotype of its genre – which is blame the killer for his acts. Like Myskkin’s 2020 Tamil film “Pyscho, in which Myskkin attempts to justify the killer’s crimes by blaming the repressed upbringing of the killer for his maladjusted psyche, in Por Thozhil, the climax also points to childhood as the origin of this malady. One hundred and twenty-three years after Freud’s hypothesis that we are what we are because of our childhood, we continue to tenaciously hold on to the view that everything we do now is due to our good or bad experiences in childhood. The debate of Nature vs. Nurture also finds a place in this argument. It was heartening to see Sharat Babu in a very different role, perhaps, his last one, before his demise earlier this year. All in all, I liked the film, and thanks to Gowtham for pointing me to this film.
Pls, do watch Gargi if you can. It is worth watching.