With all the hoopla around the very title, Iraivi, and the
manidhi song (Iraivi is an attempt at feminizing a word traditional used to
refer to God; manidhi is again feminizing the ‘man’ word), I went into the theater
expecting an honest rendering of at least one woman’s story, if not all 3,
as claimed in the trailer and the teasers. But, I guess that was too much and I
was literally begging for trouble! Come on, you can't fault me for nursing such
expectations, especially after the amazing films like Jigarthanda and Pizza that Karthik Subburaj (the director) had dished out earlier.
For someone who could delve right into his characters and
make them look convincing like he did in his earlier attempts, Karthik’s characters
in Iraivi fall rather, short. The film worked only in parts for me, and before
I go into any more details on why the film as a whole didn’t work for me, I’ll first
dwell a little on the parts that did.
There were some extremely well shot, thoroughly researched, and crafted scenes and dialogues. In one of the scenes, the men sit around a
half-dead woman, the mother of the protagonist, and talk. And talk. And talk. The scene for me was
a brilliant piece of feminist reading of the everyday. The woman, after years
of struggling under an oppressive family structure, with the foil of a
neglectful and an arrogant husband, has almost called it a day and is in a half
dead state, where she neither cares or can even be bothered, for she has been
milked dry of all her humanity by the patriarchal structure. The son, whose
only way to meet failure is to down gallons of alcohol, with absolutely zero
responsibility towards his role of a father or a husband, becomes this little
scared baby who runs to its mama, asking, no demanding its share of attention,
completely blind to the pain of the almost dead mother! While the dialogue
begins with adequate foreword on the mother’s great sacrifices, the heart of it
continues to revolve around what matters to men; their aspirations, their
failed dreams, the arrogance of other men, what to be done next, the plotting,
and other macho things. As these conversations happen, the camera keeps panning
around the room, prising open a male world, where women are these emaciated
(figuratively), half dead, muted spectators. Just to nail the point, comes the
rude dismissal of the woman nurse, who keeps reminding them that this place is
something the mother has finally won for herself and they are usurping even
that!
Another high-impact scene for me is the one where Michael
(played by Vijay Sethupathi) confronts his wife about a probable straying. The
shock Ponni (Anjali) registers on her face is simply par excellence. It doesn’t
tell you anything, it could be outrage or even fear of being discovered, but
she never gives him an answer. As Michael looks at her expectantly, it begins
to rain, which Ponni notices fleetingly and runs out the next moment to pick
the drying clothes. This one scene adequately illustrates the two different
worlds that men and women straddle every day. Besides exposing the double
standards of men who hold on to the sexual ‘purity,’ of their wives like a holy grail, it deftly
shows how little a woman cares about sexual purity or the husband’s obsession
over it! She’d rather do something more productive
and useful like pick the clothes before they get wet!
Except such glimpses of brilliance, the film has left, at
least me, longing for more! Someone called it an unusual feminist film. I literally blanched at that! (He even titles it with "few good women." *Yawn* where were they, actually?) Now that was taking it too far; it was an
out and out boy’s day out film, complete with gore and swearing, amidst which
the men have an epiphanic moment of a sexist realization about their monstrosity
or the absolute helpless, vulnerability of 'their' women! The problem is right there,
in that binary, Karthik Subburaj! Neither are men such monsters within the
family, nor are women all that broken or under the mercy of a single man. The
structure oppresses women, and they, unlike the women in the film, regardless
of class, negotiate, and many of the women today are empowered enough and do
negotiate a far better deal. That of course doesn’t mean that today women are
all equal to men and they are all partying hard in a feminist paradise! I am just saying that you couldn't read into the complexity of the oppressor-oppressed relationship under the aegis of patriarchy.
A hint for you when you attempt mansplaining women
oppression next time is to remember that the prototype of an oppressive figure in
real life would be the “guilt-ridden” Radha Ravi and not any of your 3 little
boys, who have clear anger issues, alcoholism, and other such problems that
need psychological intervention! By presenting these little caricatures of men, who
are actually struggling and buckling under patriarchy, you aren’t really
helping the cause of the women or these poor men! Women’s struggle within the
patriarchal confines of a home, and I don’t just mean the struggle of just the wife,
is against not only the men, but against a structure that's founded in not just women oppression, but the oppression of the powerful against the powerless. It would have been refreshing
and truly feminist or even unusually feminist, as one of your uncritical fans mentioned, if the only women spoke or even if the
film had been about them at all in the first place!
The film revolves around three men, all spoilt, selfish brats
running around TASMAC, chasing their independent dreams, with no particle of
responsibility neither about themselves or the people around them. Now this was
a betrayal of sorts after showing the three women in the first few shots as if
we are going to be told of their stories. The women in this film continued to be the
fixtures that they have been all these years in the history of mainstream Tamil
movies. Even if one side steps the male-centeredness of the film, the absolute
vacuum one encountered in terms of even the experience of the female character,
or their presence, was too to much bear. The film runs for almost 160 minutes, and
I am sure the scope for women wasn’t anywhere more than 40-50 minutes, at a
generous estimate. If this is not mansplaining woman liberation, what is? Next
time around you want to make a movie on women liberation, tell the men to lower
their decibel; they seem to scream louder than the women about women liberation!
As already mentioned, keeping aside all political hang ups,
the film works to some extent. But it misses the mark by a huge margin,
especially the mark that Karthik Subburaj made with Jigarthanda and Pizza. The
storytelling was good in parts, all actors did a great job, and the photography
was great too.
SJ Surya definitely deserves a word of appreciation. I have
always steered clear of his directorial ventures and his epic acting attempts!
However this one stands apart, and it speaks of the director’s potential to get
the best out of an actor. I liked every frame that had SJ Surya in it. An
absolute powerhouse of an actor; a great find, but which works only under the
strict supervision of an able director! Radha Ravi and the character John gave
some great performances; was totally floored by them! Anjali was good, except
for her Telugu accent grating on your ears. So, I wouldn’t write off the movie
completely, it does have some interesting spots, but that’s all there is to
it…spotty and speckled with the faraway haunt of a feminist specter!
Images
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