Readers Write In #730: Kottukkaali movie review: A mirage of hope

By Srivatsan S

What PS Vinothraj achieves in the final quarter of Kottukkaali is truly remarkable. By making the camera’s gaze as audiences’, Vinothraj forces us to be both the violator and the violated. That, to me, is the signature of an auteur.

PS Vinothraj’s excellent second filmbegins with a mid-shot of a figure in silhouette. The silhouette is revealed to be a woman — with her wet, untied freely flowing hair — whose intermittent wails cut through the otherwise tranquil air, which is filled with a melody of insects, birds, and the occasional lowing of cows, crowing of roosters and bleating of goats, as if nature itself is welcoming the arrival of dawn.

I do not recall the last time I saw a movie that captured the break of dawn and reproduced the sounds of nature in harmony (Kottukkaali was shot in live sync sound) with such genuine authenticity. So much so that I felt like I could almost smell the grass and earthy odour of faecal matter. Therefore, it seems appropriate that Vinothraj thanks “nature for everything” in the title card.

The camera remains focused on the woman as she says a prayer before leaving. We follow her in an unbroken shot from behind as if she’s sleepwalking through narrow lanes lined with identical houses before entering one. Clearly, this isn’t her first time! Yet the silhouette of the woman lingers in your mind; the image of her — with wet hair and folded hands —  makes you develop a strange feeling as though she is a spirit, perhaps praying for a new life.

Thanks to our social conditioning and the auteurs of horror cinema, when a woman lets her hair loose, it must mean one thing, doesn’t it? A sign of a bad omen. What else could be the explanation apart from the fact that a spirit has entered her body? It turns out that it isn’t the silhouetted woman who is possessed but her daughter, Meena (Anna Ben whose powerful eyes in those close-ups carry the weight of kottukkaali), who also appears with her hair down in the opening portion. We see Meena in the dark and fragments initially, as her mother readies her for the proceedings. First, her hair is oiled and then plaited before Vinothraj reveals Meena in an explosive wide shot, her eyes staring lifelessly into the camera. Anna Ben, her powerful eyes and helpless state, reminded me of Renée Jeanne Falconetti from The Passion of Joan of Arc. In a way, Meena is Kottukkaali’s Joan of Arc.

If the trailer or synopsis hadn’t highlighted that Kottukkaali is about the reality of inter-caste love, I bet we would have convinced ourselves that Meena was indeed possessed. Because our conditioning and biases run so deep, Vinothraj smartly exploits our ideas and perceptions of what constitutes a woman in Tamil society as bait to catch us by the throat. And he does it in an exceptional form by doing so little, which is what is often said about Iranian auteur Abbas Kiarostami, whose signature motif of long winding roads is paid tribute to in Kottukkaali.

Kottukkaali, as Vinothraj rightly put it, is about two adamant people — Meena and Pandi — who remain firmly committed to what they believe is their (birth)right. As with the traditions in South India, Meena was “promised” to her maternal uncle Pandi (a terrific Soori), like a sacrificial animal, when she came of age. “My son is still paying the interest for the gifts we gave during her [Meena’s] puberty ceremony,” reminds Pandi’s father at one point, to his brother-in-law and Meena’s father.

Meena, on the other hand, is said to be in love with a man from an oppressed caste, although we don’t see him nor is his name mentioned. Pandi’s family believes that Meena is possessed and needs to be exorcised to ward off what they perceive as evil, which in this context symbolises her desire.

Kottukkaali, like Vinothraj’s terrific debut Koozhangal, pretty much unfolds on the road as the families hop into an auto taking Meena to a local seer known for warding off such ‘evils’. All through the journey, Meena remains a mute spectator to the horrors perpetrated by her family and on her. In the garb of a ‘road movie’, Kottukkaali is fascinatingly both about the external and internal journey that each of the characters goes through from dawn until afternoon.

There is a recurring symbolism in Kottukkaali that involves motifs of tying, being tied, and letting loose. Whether it is an auto driver who is seen hastily tying and then loosening a rope attached to the engine to start the auto which has Meena and her family; a man who unties the milk can from a scooter to accompany Pandi’s family; the little girl who comes to tie the bull that has blocked the road, refusing Meena-Pandi families to proceed further, or the man who lets the rooster loose for it to get some air, all of these are in a big or small way interconnected.

Perhaps that’s why it is fitting that Kottukkaali features knots (mudichchu) and the untying of knots (muddichovuki) as its central theme to accentuate the larger point. The people we come across in the movie often engage in these symbolic acts — whether with threads, ropes or even customs and beliefs. They are all bound by sentiments and emotions upon which the foundations of patriarchy are built and passed down through generations (the way the song switches from Maanoothu Mandhaiyile (Kizhakku Cheemayile) to Othayadi Pathai (Kanaa) is but masterful).

Sometimes the knots are literal while at other times, they are an ironic reflection of Tamil society. The latter, for instance, when Meena’s mother is seen braiding her hair in the opening sequence, the act itself becomes a statement on the imaginary rope being tied on her (kaalkattu as some would call it). And the camera swiftly cuts to Meena looking at a rooster that has its leg tied to a rock, a condition no different than hers.

This duality makes Kottukkaali as much about the literal as it is about the figurative. B Sakthivel’s camera work is brilliant, often capturing the actors in tight shots that leave no headroom, as if to suggest that an unseen force is closing in on them. Perhaps something is. At times, it is hard to make heads or tails of shots that look like mirror images. These scenes could be astonishingly nothing yet carry profound meaning at the same time. Like, when someone fills a bottle half-full with water, we see someone emptying a bottle of petrol that is half-filled; an auto arrives and a car leaves in another scene. The tight close-ups of Meena’s face often mirror with the close-ups of a rooster and a bull.

When Pandi’s sister Rani (the actor is a hoot), who is menstruating, is asked to avert her gaze from the temple, she stands in front of an auto that has the eyes of the local deity, Munnusamy, looking at her. Take the one where Meena (who has her tied down) ironically gazes at Munnusamy’s free-flowing hair tied on the auto’s rear-view mirror, intended to ward off evil eyes. Or the one in which a rooster’s neck is slashed, and we see a mark on Pandi’s neck (sunnambu is applied to heal cuts or wounds too) throughout. Or when a dust particle gets in Pandi’s eye, and his sister instinctively sticks her tongue out — which, yet again reminds you of the deity Munnusamy — to remove the ‘dirt’ as if symbolically cleansing his vision.

What PS Vinothraj achieves in the final quarter of Kottukkaali is truly remarkable. Pandi, who has been the hothead throughout the film, is forced to partake in the physical violence inflicted on another woman under the guise of a ritual. The way this practice is shown in such unsettling detail reminded me of Perumal Murugan’s Mathorubagan. I suspect at one point we even see a terrific reaction from Soori who conveys both shock and disgust at the same time. If I remember correctly, there is not a single POV shot in Koottukaali except for the one we get from Pandi. By making the camera’s gaze as audiences’, Vinothraj forces us to be both the violator and the violated. That, to me, is the signature of an auteur.