Readers Write In #643: Jigarthanda DoubleX movie review: Art chooses the Subburaj this 2023 (Not the Kanakaraj or the Selvaraj)

By Dr Neeraja

Be it cinematic excellence, crisp screenplay, a proper well written non-swaying story from start to end or cinematography, Jigarthanda DoubleX scores better than all the biggies that got released in 2023. Not hearing Anirudh’s jarring bgm n his adrenalinogenic voice was a relief for the year. SaNa’s bgm was commendable , got gelled with the movie, and I felt that is the real win for a good bgm, not recognising separate musical pieces or a goosebump producing high pitched shout out of the hero’s name when he mercilessly and pointlessly decapitates someone. Especially a good artist, a good ‘kalaignan’ chooses an artist based on how the story demands , not based on ‘cine politics’ or ‘cine business’ needs. Any good director falls for the ‘sk-vj-rajni’ trap after one or two initial good movies nowadays. 

I choose to hold my pen tight and words flow in praise of this masterpiece. I loved Iraivi and Mahaan and I believe them to be cult masterpieces of their own accord till date. Also I remember watching most of the movies this year, hoping for it to turn interesting, hoping for it to turn coherent and or make some sense altogether, but in vain. Just because you have a bankable actor on cards, stories cannot lose their power. And I very well wanted to voice this general feeling in this forum that people should stop making revenge sagas/child or sexual abuse/serial or psycho killer movies for at least half a decade from now, we have had saturatingly enough of those. Even though a gangster movie is not new at all, the treatment given to this movie was completely fresh, it doesnt even remind you of Jigarthanda (KS specified in an interview that this movie is only a spiritual sequel as it retains only the soul of the original,and has remained true to it)

Drawing a cinematic universe to the prequel and some characters that remind you of the previous Jigarthanda could have been easy and would have produced some screams and whistles for sure, and even here I feel only a director who takes a movie for eternity and sees it completely as an art in his hands to work on , would not do things that are on trend at that point of time alone, for box office collection sake(that KS has consistently never considered while making his movies).A very good movie should not remind you of any other movie. A very good actor should not remind you of any of his previous roles. And such a movie with such etched characters will form a real cinematic universe of its own and this movie is one of that sort. Some directors are taking the cinematic universe to be their signature mark too seriously and end up making a spoof of their own movies.

If ‘actor’ SJ Surya was born from Iraivi, the real ‘actor’ Lawrence is born from this movie. This director gives birth to actors in people who have been acting for years and his thirst for making good movies beyond anything else is why art chooses him time and again. The transformation of SJ Suryah’s motives from time to time(plotting for the police, to actually liking to direct, to personal motive to kill, to not wanting to kill him, to taking a movie for the larger good) has been captured very organically and Lawrence’s realisation towards the end (reminds slightly of Dhanush’s realisation in Jagamey Thandhiram) also has its impact because of very less dialogues in that regard.

After a long time, I could remain awed at the way a movie takes its shape “for a long time” , rather than just settling for few goosebump moments, mass interval blocks for the movie to hang in thin air afterward, a badly written movie being watched just because the director is supposed to be celebrated or because the actor we knew so long has actually ‘acted’ very well in a baseless scream generating machine (quoting Rangan Vathyar’s terminology for new gen movies-basically treating an audience like a college student at culturals wherein he shouts and whistles for his friend who sings in non-sync, just for the sake of it) where the supposed hero keeps slashing blood all over just because he feels motivated to, what are they even trying to perpetuate with such grey movies, gun culture? Just because good vs evil or the evil turns good has become cliche doesnt mean you have to make larger than life actors to commit day light murders just like that and also end movies without a positive note.

Positivity can never become cliche and such negativity, gore violence and raw unwatchable bloodshed and vulgarity in scenes and writing nightmarish characters that we definitely would not like to encounter in our daily lives is not encouraged at all. Is movie making becoming a subtle competition of how psychotic, weird and yucky , characters are being written and portrayed? And every big actor now wants to become the baddie, they have this subtle race of bringing out the “animal” in them now, and we ought to see who does it best?!

Psychology says every man is 51% normal and 49% psychotic and that 2% which allows us to remain sane should be concentrated upon and perpetuated and cinema should not be rekindling the dormant 49% in people. So many unemployed, bored and angry young people in our country and they rely on cinema and almost grow and live with cinema. And when what they see is their demigods breaking bad due to bad circumstances, killing family, choosing revenge over humanity, basically acting based on testosterone demands because the scenes produce adrenalinergic reactions in the audience for ‘time being’ is very very unresponsible way of making money out of cinema.

People should discover ways of ending movies with a positive note in different ways, such that ‘positivity prevails’ is conveyed anyway but is not cliche. And this movie does that and that is responsible cinema. About 15 people including me in the audience clapped after the movie got over. Such was the impact of Jigarthanda DoubleX on movie lovers and people like me who wish to consume the art form of movie to its maximum.