Pari Elavazhagan’s ‘Jama’ is an ambitious, solidly narrated drama about a street-theatre troupe

The budget limitation is sometimes a spoilsport, but at every point, you can see the effort of trying something new. Despite the over-emphasis at times, the film works.

Pari Elavazhagan’s debut film is inspired by true events, and its title is Jama, which means theatre troupe. Knowing our Tamil cinema, there is the fear that this will turn out to be a lament about vanishing forms of traditional entertainment like the koothu, but instead, the writer-director has made a dignified presentation of the art form and its cultural impact without a message in sight. Whatever needs to be said is said through the story. For instance, when a woman says that she was attracted to her husband because of the way he used to play female roles, you see a world where traditional ideas of what’s masculine and what’s feminine do not apply. The point about how much research has (clearly) been done is not thrust in our face. It is shown casually, through the props and the traditional songs and the harsh lighting and the expressions of the viewers in the audience.

You can read the rest of the review here:

https://www.galattaplus.com/pari-elavazhagans-jama-is-an-ambitious-solidly-narrated-drama-about-a-street-theatre-troupe/

You can watch the trailer / video review here:

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