Interrogation

Another sensational movie from Dhanush K. Raja, the producer of 'The Crow's Egg' that I recently reviewed in this site. This time he joined the hands with the writer, director who bought him a best actor award at the Indian Academy Award for the movie 'Playground'. The film was based on the novel 'Lock Up' that loosely inspired by the experiences of the author who is an autorickshaw driver now.

I already mentioned that Indian cinema is waking up, knocking the doors of the international film critics, films festivals and film buffs. Thanks to the young generation in the film industry, looking for the international market expansion. It's time for you to check it out some of the Indian parallel cinemas, not the masala films. If you think you're totally in an unfamiliar territory, then it will be good to you start with this one.

India is like the European Union, where each nation speaks a different language and its own culture, likewise each Indian state has a different language and culture. That's why it might be called the Indian subcontinent. This story begins when three Tamil labourers who are illegally living in a city park to save rent money from the work in the neighbor state Andhra, will be taken to the police custody without letting know them the reason. The rest of the film exposes the law enforcement agency's brutality on these young innocent men to force to accept a crime that is not committed by them which is a violation of human rights.

"The influence is more important than skill when it comes to promotions."

The film has two phases and they were not focused on any particular characters. It is a couple of different events based flick that connected to each other by the characters. But everything is about corruption in the police force and common people who affected by that. Kind of unpredictable scenes with the decent twists. The first half takes place in Andhra Pradesh with the backdrop of some robbery case and then in the next half it moves to Tamil Nadu with once again a cop tale, but different scenario.

Welcome to the Indian police's torture chamber. The dark side of the Indian police force. Not all about the bad cops, but also involves those honest ones caught between dishonest ones from the higher power. There was a small romance plot in the opening, later it vanished when entire story focus shifted to police interrogation. The pace had many up and down, that helped to turn things around like transforming from one state of condition to another.

This theme was exactly opposite to the old saying 'lightning never strikes the same place twice'. You can call it a bad luck, but for some people like the youngsters from this movie who came from the poor families from the rural without proper education, it is a matter of life and death and injustice. I won't be surprised if international remake are made. It won this year's Indian Academy Awards in the three categories including the supporting actor which was one of the important cop roles. So I won't be surprised either if it was picked to represent India for the 2017 Oscars.

This is a Kollywood film, but watching it feels like a some dark tone Korean crime-drama- thriller. I have seen some of Indian cop films, but so far this one was the best when it comes to the realism yet not depicted them in a good way. I highly recommend it, but don't expect a genuine screenplay with a grand twist. It makes you feel how the innocence was taken away from the poor by the people with power, really heartbreaking.

9/10

The first few montages of the yet-to-dawn nocturnal life is enough to invite the film festival community to engage in the story. Visaranai is the big screen transformation of Chandra Kumar's documented novel Lock Up; a true story about how police brutality and inhuman interrogation techniques go into tormenting innocents to admit false crimes. A group of migrants from Tamil Nadu working in Andhra Pradesh are taken into illegal custody by local police . What follows is a gruesome police drill involving batons, boots and banana stems. All they want is a confession; a fake confession. 'Attakathi Dinesh' as Pandi is the stand-up guy unwilling to surrender fearing a larger force at play and more importantly, he wants to do a great many things in life. 'Aadukalam' Murugadoss as Murugan can be easily tricked, Afsal is innocent to the core and Kumar is severally battered at an early stage.

The characters we meet on screen are controlled and manacled by the System in ways unprejudiced. Ajay Ghosh as the vicious Guntur chief Vishweshwar Rao is one such police officer with a disappointing career profile, a face like death and a body trained to beat the life out of others. But still, Attakathi Dinesh does a great many things as he aspires to do so when he is set free. There is a point of saturation in the film where even Vishweshwar Rao runs out of breath. If apathy, personal gain and atrocity ever had a threesome, mishaps like Ajay Ghosh tend to happen. The harsh acoustics of yelling can get on your nerves at some point. This was a necessity made by the film's structure to facilitate such relentless thrashing and torture. With so many battered souls locked up, it puts you in their place and raises questions. But Vetrimaran is not here to preach, his screenplay and dialogs stay direct, relaxed and procedural. Neither the water- boarding nor the vicious slow paced thrashing had any effect on Pandi, it was hope, his tenaciousness, his trickiness and a chance TN police intervention that puts an end to their misery.

Played by the ever obstinate Samuthirakani, Murugavel is a TN police officer on a special mission to trap an elite white collar auditor. Pandi and his friends return a favor and help Murugavel. The second half travels to familiar grounds of Tamil Nadu. The rich and fraudulent auditor KK (Kishore) who spurts money philosophy is the victim of the another brutal interrogation. It is his adage on 'System' that links the background events. All this talk about the System being the Kingmaker and that 'your actions have set things in motion' establishes a thick premonition. Thankfully, this talk is kept to a minimum. Had it not, then a part of audience's imagination would have reached heights of hype expecting a Brobdingnagian revelation of some sort.

There is calmness meandering in all scenes. The casual statement of the lawyer and the video logging of reconstruction scene shows the normalcy of situation and sheds light on how police practices defy law and makes you wonder on the number of cases solved by false/forced convictions. Taking a few incentives, Visaranai achieves a gritty cinematic leap. There is also a half baked romantic connection that is left to rot much like the irrelevant voiceless lives in jail. There is coherence of how the middle class working community from lower backgrounds are taken for granted. The abuse of Shanthi in the hands of her owner, the case of 4 street vagrants picked up from a Nellore park, the provision store owner who is blackmailed - a constant living in fear and hardship. 'Attakathi Dinesh' channels Pandi vehemently. He has the 'Andy Dufresse kinda' reluctance to give in. Pandi sure does suffer a hell lot in comparison. Both wrongly captured. One convicted and the other unwilling to get convicted. Maybe there can be more to say about these characters in contrast. That will be for another day. For a brief period in the last sequence of the first half, it felt like it was going to be a complete escape and survivalist episode.

The movie is a genius thriller in the making. Although not as tension seeking as Michael Mann-esque film, we feel the trap Pandi, Murugan & Afsal walk into as they accept the shameless duty of domestic help. Secondary characters make a lasting impact especially the promotion ignored officer in TN station. Muthuvel is an upright police pushed by higher officials and disoriented by the System into pursuing Pandi. Personally, my fondness for cinematography has grown rather exceptionally over the past few years. A film devoid of creative and meaningful visual strategy doesn't excite me. There were a few; very few parts in the film that meant visually nothing but then, this emptiness perfectly defines realism - through the dingy corners of highways and the wandering nightlife patrols, the blurry hope of escapism emanates. The final moments are as tense and seems like a cliffhanger until the camera zooms out to the fullest. The sudden pull and push of camera; this shift in movement noticed at a pivotal stage grounds the approach in realism as the hand-held camera becomes a secret surveillance tool, an all seeing eye - the eye of the system. As it looks down upon Pandi and Murugavel standing through knee-deep murky water, it signifies the troubled position of two candidates with no evil tendencies irrelevantly chosen by the powerful.

Visarani in its vagueness to expose a larger atmosphere for the Organism of System perfectly sums up the horrible dilemma of innocent fishes pushed into predatory waters that is timely polluted by forces unknown.

I m shivering as i am typing this......... Gut wrenching.....Ufff!! I m exhausted!!!! Truly sucked out every last bit of my soul!!!

This is too realistic to be labeled as a film.....An extremely violent intense political conspiracy is the apt genre.... Really tests the audience mental strength!!! My heart was pounding during the entire 110 minutes of running time...... Gonna have hard time sleeping at least for a few days!!!

This film will undergo some serious cuts before releasing in theater's, as the characters depicted and their language are too raw... Hope censor board takes it easy and release it with minor cuts.....

Dinesh, U beauty.....Wat have u done!!!.....National Award is awaiting!!!

Out of all the 100 films which i ve seen this year, this tops the list like a Boss.... Too good even for a WORLD cinema standards!!!! Take a bow, Vetrimaaran!!! A Masterpiece in filmmaking!!!!

There comes a movie like Whiplash once in a while where there is lot of action primarily due to intensity of performances and absorbing screenplay. Then there are movies like Haider where the movie atmosphere is dense and disturbing that you are left cold and horrified at the very end. Visaranai is a movie that has successfully blended both these aspects in order to present a practical, rational view of the system that is part of our livelihood. I cannot remember the last time I watched such an intense, nerve chilling, baffling movie in Thamizh.

As I have now noticed, Vetrimaran's films have two different halves but which are part of the same story. In Polladhavan, we see the happy, everyday youth Dhanush living a jolly good life in the first half while in the second, things take a sudden turn and he gets exposed to a world of ruthless criminals. In Aadukalam, we see Dhanush's involvement in the rivalry between 2 rival gangs in the first half, while in the latter we turn audience to how one man's greed changes his surrounding people's lives. Similarly in Visaranai, as the title suggests we are presented with 2 separate interrogations with different scenarios in both halves of the movie.

The movie attempts at one thing as beautifully explained by Kishore in one scene - The system is the boss and we are just pawns playing a game in it. The powerful always prey on the powerless and there is no way that one who has been nabbed in the web escape out from it. This is explained through layers of tightly scripted scenes with lots of crude violence, not to a forced extent of skipping the movie but watching it as if the horror where happening in front of your eyes. Few minutes into the movie the story starts unraveling and you start feeling a slight chilling fear which later keeps intensifying exponentially until the very end where you are left distraught. The range of emotions portrayed by the variety of villains torturing the innocents affect you up to a level that you start trembling as if watching a horror movie. Off late we have been seeing great improvements in movies like Thani Oruvan where a lone hero fights corrupt, antisocial elements in the society and this one breaks all those clichés to state a point that the system cannot be won over. I was particularly reminded of the Brazilian film duology 'Tropa De Elite' where the story ends with an unstated "moral" that criminals, politicians and police are of the same circle and you end up on the losing side if you mess with them.

Performance wise, Dinesh continues with an impressive tough role which might prove as a highlight in his career. I somehow feel convinced that Samuthirakani must be considered the real protagonist as his role portrays how a honest person becomes prey to the system and is left torn without options at the crux. The music, camera and editing cuts add more intense chill to the atmosphere. Special mention to Dhanush for continuing to surprise us by producing such top class movies. It is highly unlikely that any other Thamizh movie can beat the class of this in 2016!

Vetrimaran sir, you are not a director now but a visionary. This is not a movie but a well learned and constructed, flawless piece of art about the society. Feeling proud of you and the growth in your class of movies. Take some more national and international awards! I would have been glad if I could rate 12/10 for this movie!

I was eagerly waiting for this movie for ages and it has finally arrived after getting several laurels around the world. I won't reveal the story much but it is all about the scapegoat technique handled by the cops. Right from the start, the screenplay was very gripping and there was no clue about what is about to come next.

The performance of the whole cast is very surprising as everyone acted to their core and brought the very best in them. Although the movie is very intense, there are some humor elements through some body languages and silly comments. It may take some sweat off our head but another scene will be right behind to take you to the edge of the seat.

I haven't watched such an intense movie with so much quality content in it, delivered in a very grippy manner.

Easily, this is the most impactful movie of this decade!

I sincerely thank Vetrimaran for making such a masterpiece!!

Cast-performance-BGM-screenplay-content = Visaranai.