2020, Tamil, Anthology, Netflix, 8.3/10 IMBD Directed by Sudha Konkara, Vignesh Sivan, Gautham Vasudev Menon, Vetrrimaran
An Anthology on ‘honor killing’, that houses extreme emotions ranging from humor (yes) to sending some chills down the spine.
A northern girl in her 20s, asked me, “How can honor killing happen in the south with such high literacy rates in the states?”. Also the 2015 documentary, ‘A girl in the river-price of forgiveness’, ( https://youtu.be/U7a-nOOXdtAv ) indicates illiteracy and lack of stringent laws, as primary reasons for such killings.
These 4 stories in the anthology, in its versatility, partly answered my young friend’s query.
Sudha Konkora’s ‘Thangam’ (Gold), is set in the 80’s southern Tamilnadu. The ‘class and caste’ discrimination seem firmly embedded in the village as the strong dialect and characters are suggestive of that. This makes it an ideal premise for the theme. But, the novelty is when the maker chooses to introduce the ‘transgender’ version of the honor-killing theme. Just when the story was finding it’s parallels to the Marathi film ‘Sairat’, things take a turn.
The episode explores the negligence and lack of empathy for transgender in our society. Given the time frame of the episode, it does seem run of the mill kind. But, fascinatingly the director dwells in to the naïve love, that the transgender has on his childhood male friend Thangam. The director attempts to address a larger issue here. His parents throw him to the dogs, all in the name of shame, on top of his lost identity and lost love. The cruelties that follow, casts a new perspective to the theme.
Vignesh Sivan’s ‘Love Panna Uttranum’ (meaning- leave them when in love), is a morbid humor. A ‘protection racketeering arbitrary group’ that claims themselves as ‘Pro’ inter-caste marriages, wipe the lower caste grooms off underground. Father is addressed as ‘Nana’ for a reason in this episode that is set in a fantasized red walled palatial backdrop. Comedy is used a tool to break the taboos of sexuality and to confront the horrors of killing.
A dwarf henchman choreographs the killings for his hefty boss. Metaphorically it signifies to me, the shepherding of masses by the tiny group of notorious manipulators.
Gautham Vasudev Menon’s ‘Vaanmagal’ (meaning – ‘Daughter of the sky’), represents the aspiration of a girl, whose role model is Kalpana Chawla. The episode picturize the middle-class agony of the family, whilst trying to keep the abuse of their teen girl child, under wrap.
The troubling guilt of parents, for failing to protect their daughter from the claws of the societal demon, is moving. The mom pours gallons of water, to wash away the taints off her daughter. The dad says he feels naked for not protecting his daughter. The brother confides his pain to his friend and revenges the rapist. The incidents, impeccably mirrors the helplessness of the family.
The irrational thought of the mom, to erase off the daughter’s existence in succumbing to the societal pressures, is haunting. It would have stumbled the viewers, had it been real. The episode embraces the ‘maternal spirituality’, when the mom is seen vouching to help her daughter fly high.
The final episode of Vetrimaran’s ‘Oor Iravu’ (meaning ‘one night’), is an epitome of ‘Honor Killing’. It is unleashed in its typical and cruelest form.
The previous episode has a news article reading, ‘a father poisons his daughter’ with images of this episode’s artists. This foreshadowing sets the ball rolling from the initial shot. Right when the estranged father shows up at the door of his daughter’s urban household, the story takes off. The non linear story telling shuttles from the urban to rural present day setup. The screenplay sets the right milieu, enveloping a series of subtexts on relationships between the siblings and their respective families.
The director voices the repercussions the family faces. The aftermath that had staggered the sibling’s future, leaves the viewers hollow, questioning the vicious circle. When it’s his ‘favorite daughter’ who had eloped, the father feels even more betrayed. The subtly on the psychology of betrayal, dawns on the viewers. Creepily, we infer that when it is the ‘most-trusted’ betrays, the hatred diabolically intensifies.
The director unveils the demon in the confused father. He patiently waits in the lobby, as his ‘favorite-daughter’ is dying with a child in her womb. The maker sends a chill down the viewer’s spine by making us a witness to this cool blood murder. While the mom is tired of knocking her locked door, the poisoned daughter is tired of knocking hers. She wears off, comforting her unborn child and confronting her sadistic father.
‘Dishonor’ is common in all the episodes. The directors take the liberty to bend the theme to represent its evilness at varied levels. Majority of the dishonor, ends in killing their ‘so called loved ones’.
Can Honor killing’s be seen as a diluted spectrum of the ancient practice called Eugenics, which literally means “good creation”? It is an advocacy of improving the human species by selectively mating people with specific desirable hereditary traits.
Plato insisted on creating a superior society by procreating high-class people together and discouraging coupling between the lower classes.
Eugenics, earned its negative association mainly from Adolf Hitler’s obsessive attempts to create a superior Aryan race. In America took a dark turn in the early 20th century, as Sterilization was forced in mental institutions under the guise of protecting society from the offspring of people with mental illness. Until an overrule in the Supreme court in 1942, forced sterilization was not against the constitution in America.
The ‘caste system’ can be very well classified as the Eugenic Movement in India. The sole object of marriages was the improvement of the progeny. The choice of the mate did not rest with the contracting parties but with their elders and guardians.
Retrospectively, I pondered on my young friend’s question- ‘Is literacy inversely proportional to these killings’? We do often read that education and social awakening, battles in bringing these incidents significantly down, albeit, a high number of cases never surface, due to tight lipped communal setups.
It’s only fair to conclude, literacy has nothing to do with these killings. It’s more to do with brutality, hatered and cultural differences. Unless we evolve as a collective entity, irrespective of literacy and walk hand in hand with the new generation, that attempts to keep all sort of discriminations at bay, subjugation of this demon might never be possible.