Vetri Maaran's film - Visaaranai Movie review

 

Vetri Maaran's Visaranai is an emotionally intense and engrossing drama which gets its point across without being overly preachy.

Characters on the fringes of society are again the focus of National Award-winning filmmaker Vetri Maaran's third feature. Based on the novel Lock-Up written by Coimbatore-based auto driver M Chandra Kumar, whose own experiences in jail resulted in the book, Visaranai (Interrogation) offers a gritty view of police atrocities in prisons. Simultaneously the riveting drama blurs the lines between good and bad, challenging our notions of justice as it subjects its marginalised protagonists to brutality that isn't easy on the eyes and ears and a destiny not of their making. During the course of the taut thriller, Vetri Maaran also crafts a compelling social drama.

Vetri Maaran immediately establishes a connection as he showcases the troubles of four Tamil labourers who work in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh. Unable to speak Telugu, homeless and disregarded by the locals, they are outsiders in their own country. When a robbery unfolds in a nearby neighbourhood, the police arrest the quartet and falsely charge them with the crime. Because they are migrants, their human and constitutional rights are of little concern. The cops hope that with relentless force and mind games, the four friends will ultimately succumb.

However, even as the scapegoats quiver and cry throughout the incessant beatings in custody, they refuse to stoop much to the dismay of the police officers. In a moving scene, a hunger strike is staged, in which one of the four is reluctant to join in and another wants to just accept the deal the police offers. Incidentally, it is a police officer, Muthuvel, (Samuthirakani), this one from Tamil Nadu, who comes to the rescue of the innocent in the nth hour in court. Travelling with a criminal (Kishore) with political ties and wealth, Muthuvel offers to drive the four back home. Having reached the destination, he then requests a last-minute favour: clean up his messy police headquarters. Things only get messier from here.

Just when you think the worse has ended, Visaranai begins again. The key characters here are hapless and helpless, stuck at wrong place at the wrong time, this time around having witnessed an interrogation and custodial assault which exposes corruption in police ranks. Conspiracies are hatched, crime scenes are staged and plans of escape made. An honest police officer has his principles put to test as he tries to get out of the rut. It is only fitting that the film's fantastic climatic encounter ends in a swamp.

It's a story of two halves, each of which keeps viewers on the edge of their seats. Exploitation and corruption are recurring themes and Vetri Maaran along with his cinematographer S Rama Lingam takes a documentary-like approach which only makes the film more real and stark. Late editor Kishore Te gives the narrative the urgency with his crisp editing.

It's a bad world out there, in which the system full of greedy and immoral men is too powerful for the few good men. Vetri Maaran's no-holds-barred and unsparing approach can make the film a rather difficult viewing but he also accomplishes to evoke empathy for the labourers and even for Muthuvel. To realise his world, he is ably assisted by actors such as Dinesh and Murugadoss, who are terrific as they convey the agony and fear of the Tamil labourers, and Samuthirakani as the ethically conflicted cop.  

Visaranai is an emotionally intense and engrossing drama which gets its point across without being overly preachy.