Is 'Kaththi' guilty of hypocrisy?
Kaththi is a film that you really want to like. It has its heart in the right place and the issues it raises are valid and relevant. But at the end of it, one is left with several niggling questions. Some of them have to do with logic – who, for instance, is Ankita (Samantha)? Other than the fact that she has a grandfather in an old-age home, we know virtually nothing about her. Does she go to college? Does she work? Does nobody care that the woman is sitting inside a pipe for three days? Considering that she is the female lead in the story, it's baffling that so little thought has gone into shaping her character.
But let's set aside these quibbles for a minute and focus on the main story. Kaththi is about the insatiable greed of the corporate sector, MNCs in particular. In their lust for money, they think nothing of destroying anything that stands in their path of accumulating wealth. Agricultural lands are grabbed, natural resources are robbed, government infrastructure is unfairly used. The rich become richer while the poor become poorer and nobody cares about what's happening because the media is not interested in anything that isn't sensational or glamorous. The urban population does not have the time or the inclination to care about injustices taking place by the dozen in the hinterlands. None of this is exaggerated. Journalists like P.Sainath have painstakingly covered the frightening crisis in the agricultural sector and the heartbreaking indifference shown towards it by the government, media and the urban public alike, for decades.
And so, when a group of farmers stand together and decide to take their lives to draw people's attention to what's happening in their village, a chill goes down your spine because you know that this is entirely plausible. In moments like these, Kaththi makes you sit up and take notice. But for the large part, the film sadly suffers from a lack of self-introspection. The press conference that Kathiresan calls towards the end is one of the more powerful scenes in the film – it's a long rant against the haves who have trodden on the backs of the have-nots in the country. It's a well-written speech that asks some truly uncomfortable questions. But it's ironic that nearly three-fourths of the film unwittingly celebrates and promotes the very culture and products that we're later asked to distance ourselves from.
Vijay as Kathiresan plays the role of a cocky charmer, a get-up that he seems to compulsively employ in every film of his. Though he has a back-story that gives some clue to the audience as to why he should risk his life for a godforsaken village, one is never really convinced of the loftiness of his goals. This is because the script is hampered by songs and romance sequences that not only disrupt the narrative but also dilute its impact considerably.
The super-hit number Let's take a selfie pulla, for example, is a celebration of urban life with all its self-centeredness and self-obsession, the very characteristics that Kathiresan later says is criminal. The simplistic division of urban = evil and village = good is fine for a while but after a point, it becomes predictable and boring. Especially when it is the culture of the rich that the hero and the heroine are selling all the time except when preaching to the audience. The director seems to have missed the irony in this entirely. In the press conference, Kathiresan also rants about fairness creams which use up the country's resources while the poor suffer without the basic necessities. But what really creates the demand for fairness creams? Does it have nothing at all to do with the constant casting of super-fair women as heroines always? Something for Murugadoss to mull over when he picks his cast the next time.
Kaththi is by no means a bad film. But it could have been a way better film if only its makers had spent some time pondering over this old proverb: When you point your finger at someone, remember that you have four fingers pointed at you. Kaththi reminds me of the moral stories I read as a child. They would each have a wonderful moral in the end, highlighted in bold. But the stories themselves would be full of cruel stepmothers, evil hunchbacks, ugly villains and too-white princesses.
