Wednesday 3 October 2018

Pariyerum Perumal B.A B.L

After a disappointing first half in 2018, Tamil cinema is giving us some best movies with some entertaining and important movies like CoCo, Merku Thodarchi Malai and this. And, this, Pariyerum Perumal is the best movie of this year 2018. Not just because of what it talks, but also how it talks. The "how" was far more interesting than most of the commercial movies. It never gets into the brooding Bala movie mode and also doesn't compromise like Ranjith's commercial mode as well. It was a well balanced bloody good movie, even if you don't care about the message. I usually think we should see a movie as just a movie, but definitely not for this one. This one shows us the reality and it's ugly.



Mari Selvaraj starts the movie with a gory murder of Pari's pet Karuppi. It will literally shock you and make you feel his pain and also register Karuppi with an awesome song by SaNa. And, yes our hero knows who's behind, but doesn't want a revenge, he knows what's more important, he joins law college to study and become a doctor (yeah, watch the movie). He introduces himself as Pariyerum Perumal BA BL, mela oru kodu, whose only aim is to study. He doesn't want to get into any fight and just want to study. He was literally 0 in English and was ridiculed in his class and heroine Jo (Ananthi) helps him learn. He wasn't against English, he just needs someone to teach him. Also we get some good back stories about how he passed English in his 10th, 12th and also why he took Law. And, like Jo some of us may wonder "wow, he has a story behind everything", unlike us where we just did what we are told to do.

Jo is obviously from an upper class and she develops love feelings over Pari. She invites him to her sister's wedding. Where we know what's going to happen and it did happen. Jo's relatives beat him for accepting her invitation for coming to the function. He just saw her as a classmate, but her relatives don't. From, then on everything changes with Pari, he asks himself "Naan Yaar", with a soaring song from SaNa and then begins to ask himself, why he's not allowed to attend that wedding? why he can't sit in front of the class? He distances himself from Jo, without telling her the actual reason, even to his friend played by terrific Yogi Babu.

Wonderful performance from Kathir as Pariyerum Perumal. He was just terrific, we can easily feel his anger, pain both physical and emotional. Aanandhi as Jo too with a cute performance. Yogi Babu is having a terrific year and he's growing high in every movie and with a fantastic character which never ridicules his appearance to make fun.

Mari Selvaraj in his first movie has asked a lot of troubling questions, just like his song Naan Yaar. But, what made me more surprised was the hero's father character. Haven't seen anything like this in Tamil cinema before. And, an old man who does murders thinking he's doing a service. The principal who understands what he's going through and also his dialogues, "room la thooku maati savurahukku bathila sandai pottu sagattum", "avungala thirutha mudiathu la, ivana mattum ethukku adakka ninaikureenga". I would say this was even better than Pa. Ranjith's Madras or Kabali or Kaala. And, SaNa was terrific with the songs and BGMs. That one scene where Karuppi comes back to wake up Pari at the railway track with SaNa's Naan Yaar prelude, literally had goosebumps. SaNa's collaboration with Ranjith always produced better songs, here even though he was a producer, not a director. The visuals, editing, dialogues everything was just perfect.

And, obviously, Jo and Pari love doesn't succeed, but did Pari really love her? He never confessed that he loves her or not. The climax was so good that leaves you heartbroken without any tragedy. You cannot say this as a negative climax, like what Bala does, but still, it will leave you with a heavy heart, especially Pari's last dialogue to Jo's father.
"நீங்க நீங்களா இருக்குற வரைக்கும்.. நாங்க (நாயாக) தான் இருக்கணும்னு நீங்க நினைக்கிற வரைக்கும் இங்க எதுவும் மாறாது". What's most troubling in this line is that நீங்க, it not only represents Jo's father, even Jo's generation, her brother and cousins the current generation as well. That's more troubling, how many more generations it will take to change these?


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