Yes films do get a Censor certificate. How about a brace warning? The first time I saw this film, I went “But someone should have warned me!”. Once in a while you come across a movie that starts off innocent and innocuous and then without warning, grips you in a python-like vice-grip. I saw the film again last week and felt exactly the same way!
ASHOK’s FIVE reviews Director #Vetrimaaran’s 2015 gritty film #Visaranai. In Tamil that stands for investigation… and what an investigation this one turns out to be! Streaming on #Netflix India, this is one heck of a hard-hitting, spine-chilling tale of police brutality that leaves you spell-bound. This one is not for those with a weak stomach; it is one of those films that force you to cover your eyes with your palm but continue to watch through the slits between your fingers.
Migrant labour and their woes are very much in focus now. But then the exploitation of these hapless segments of our society has always been a harsh reality. #Visaranai is the tale of Pandi and his friends, who are Tamil migrant laborers working across the Andhra border in Guntur. They sleep in a park in the night and toil from dawn to dusk doing menial work, constantly abused and ill-treated by their employers. Four of them are picked up by the police for a crime that they did not commit and this unleashes a story of terror, happenstance and horror. The second half has a twist that then goes to expose the rot in the system and how a lot of the going-ons behind the red walls are a world in itself that we are oblivious about!
#Visaranai is based on the true story of #MChandrakumar and his book #Lockup. #Vetrimaaran narrates the story in a manner where you feel that you are physically there in the midst of the brutality and this amps up the horror quotient. The film ends with a caption that says that 30% of the cases in India are settled like this - severe inhuman beating that gets these innocent men to confess in the hope that they will then be let off lightly. The scenes where the labourers are strpped and beaten within an inch of their lives are grotesque; the scenes where the tooth comes off or the waterboarding torture leaves them gasping are guaranted to make you leave that coke and popcorn aside in a jiffy.
The characters in the film make it even more impactful. #AjayGhosh plays the bald and caricaturish Inspector in the Guntur police station. He is devout and is glad to distribute the laddoos from his Tirupati darshan as much as he is gleeful to hang the men upside down and beat them hollow. When Pandi and his friends refuse to eat in a bid to get the policemen to act in their favour, the ensuing mind-games make for even more gripping drama.
I found the courtroom scenes painful. Illiteracy, lack of the knowledge of the local language and the total ignorance of court procedures make the labourers easy prey. Thankfully, the entry of Muthuvel (#Samuthirakani) a Tamil policeman from Chennai in pursuit of a white collar criminal helps them plead their case and they are finally let off.
As they reach the outskirts of Chennai, they are roped in to help their saviours to clean the police station. The police has arrested KK (#Kishore) an educated lawyer who hob-nobs with the powers-that-be. The events at the station turn out to be even more grotesque. You have a low ranking policeman (#ERamadas) pontificating on the manner in which the system works. Meanwhile there is a custodial death and the hapless men are once again on the run. In the final scene, the system turns itself on one of their own and as the final screen goes dark, the voice-over says that both the jobs have been done - a sad commentary to how our corrupt system works.
#Visaranai is a must watch. Not just for the violence, brutality and terror that unfolds. And not for the fact that this was India’s official entry to the Oscars in 2017. Watch it to see an ace director at work. I found it fascinating to watch how each of the police characters is sketched out. There is the Guntur police officer who is almost unreal. Then there is Muthuvel who is professional and duty-bound but is thrown under the bus. And there is the #ERamadas character who is a slave to the system. #Visaranai spends no time in pronouncing judgment on the system or commiserating the violence. It is dark, cold and classy but be warned - it can leave your stomach turning with no safe word to scream!
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