Kaala - A Milestone in Indian cinema.

The usual BGM got replaced with a supercool rendition of the Kabali intro music for the much awaited SUPER STAR title, santhosh makes his mark.

Kaala is a phenomenon, the director gets equal prominence to that of a star actor like rajini. Ranjith debuted in the cult film Attakathi which is more complete than his other works.

Ranjith is certainly unmatched among the current gen Indian film makers when it comes to “mise en scene”. Huma qureshi's entry asked for immediate attention and doesn't wait for us to get adapted to her character.

Kannamma is not a great song like “mayanadhi”from kabali but it works just fine especially when the triangular love drama develops between Rajini, huma and easwari. .

The Lenin character ( kaala's son) has a proper character arc, he transforms internally.

The love portions are very significant in bringing the Kaala character to life. 

A lot of slow motions with melodramatic music happens while the audience are impatient to know the story between them.

Ranjith's direction has a template, or is it what they mean by the term auteur ? i mean the pretentious locality boys in his films, they are trying to replicate a black American Ghetto. The Rap music feels force feeded because i think the good old gaana songs are still the predominant music of chennai.

  

Its annoying when suddenly a group of boys enter the frame to perform a loyola college culturals show now and then in the film with various wind mill, air flare and elevator hiphop dance moves.

The heroine Easwari reminded Radhika apte’s character from kabali.

Her lengthy introduction scene felt artificial but she comes to life soon. 

Ranjith has an unique perspective, he wants to make the slum life look interesting apart from the clichés like poverty and violence. Previously the audience used to have a fascination for the bourgeois culture but these days they don’t fall for the style over substance kind of screenplays. This is the most anticipated break in Tamil cinema which Ranjith has capitalised on.

He projected himself like another Mahendran (a renowned director), with strong substance and Rajinikanth also backs up that fact but in reality, some section of the audience are not so convinced with Ranjith's film making and it can’t be said that they all are fringe elements. There’s a lot of them.

(F.M Balaji, the proprietor of the famous Fringe elements theory )

It’s obvious that Ranjith has a lot of haters because he has a specific social perspective. The Movie starts with Ramesh thilak's risky journalism and ends with the same, thus making a statement that Ranjith owns the movie despite rajinikanth’s stardom.

In the Opening sequence, Rajinikanth gets a news about some red alert situation in the slum while he is playing cricket along with his friend and confidant samudhrakani (thank god it’s not "john vijay" again).. He goes to settle the dispute between two groups in the dhobi ghat. 

The director uses the intermediate jeep travel from the cricket ground to Dhobi ghat for the heroism build up visuals which makes the hero worshipping audience expect a fight scene. This unnecessary expectation blinds the audience from the interesting introduction of a father and son relationship, Kaala and Lenin. The scene also introduces a gutsy girl who could be Lenin's girlfriend (puyal). The rajini fans are frankly in the theater only for the larger than life vibe of the actor. Sometimes they don’t even seem to give a damn about the drama or performance.

The director battles against the audience's lack of patience to explain the premise of the film, ie the problem of the people in the suppressed class. Even a not so complicated concept such as caste based Reservation might be hard to understand for a certain section of the public because politics is not the same for all. We can’t blame the people, we can only blame the system. 

Ranjith wants us to know that there is a life in the slum. The suppressed class has a "life" just like others ,

Next comes the problems of the suppressed class.

When Huma Qureshi as Zareena tries to address the social the problems in her first interaction with the people of Dharavi, the audience starts to get bored. The documentary like treatment is a turn off for the mainstream Rajini fans, it reminds us the welfare trust scenes of the Kabali movie.

While the audience are waiting for the Rajini and nana patekar's face off scenes, Ranjith dares to enagage us in a triangular love set up that happens in kaala's home.

A small sorrow and innocent jealousy grows inside Easwari rao after knowing about kaala and zareena's ex affair. Rajinikanth and Huma qureshi's flashback is presented beautifully in an animation sequence. 

Ranjith has a taste for the late 70's and 80's evergreen Rajinikanth and it is reflected in the animated scenes.

The fans will definitely fall for it as they did in kabali’s “Veerathurandhara” song montages.

The effort was not massive like in kabali but it works. The storyline has now been revealed to the audience, Kaala and Zareena were in love and almost came close enough to becoming a married couple but got separated by fate. Kaala has her name tattooed in his hand and the drama cuts back to Easwari rao. Settling things with Easwari rao about the ex relationship provides a hell a lot of scope for Rajini's amazing acting.

Ranjith uses one whole song to convey that "even married men never get over with their ex affairs" but now in the next scene he wants us to believe that Kaala has control over his emotions, asking us to adapt to the quickly changing scenarios without enough emotional graph. Ranjth rushes the plots in bits and pieces that appear to be in flow only by santhosh narayan's expertise. Romance between Rajini and Huma was too far fetched despite the lame excuse they try to provide for the age difference between them.

It just dint feel right. Maybe she was casted for the bollywood recognition but Ranjith could have preferred Richa chadda or even Radhika apte again instead of huma quereshi.

Rajinikanth with his amazing personality somehow managed to save the Ranjith's over ambitious dinner scene from ridicule. Eventually the audience gets adapted to the odd pair and somehow gets comfortable with the combination.

Then comes the Manu builders scene where Huma and Rajini argue against each other, this scene should have been backed up by enough emotional plotting but the pace of the movie gets the priority. Huma supports the Manu project ignorantly but Rajini says the manu builders project is nothing but a trap (with indirect references to manusmriti) and vows to stop the project. Huma quereshi gets stoned (attacked by a stone) during the quarrel and Rajini walks out from the scene in style, The bold exposition of the premise and the supporting BGM are exemplary in this portion. 

Then things escalate quickly as Rajini goes to convey his sorry to Huma Qureshi but instead of trying to calm her down, Rajini gets carried away by his self  pride and talks about exhibiting his full rowdyism. She gets pissed off and asks him to get lost.

Rajinikanth gets cornered by the bad guys while travelling with a locality boy in bike.

Now comes the popular "vengamavan othaiyila nikka" dialogue from the trailer,

The audience prepares for the goose bumps moment anticipating a fight scene but Kaala's other son Selvam comes with his gang and helps Kaala out of the situation. Even Rajini looks stunned at why he is not allowed to fight the villains by himself in this scene.

It is a good scene if we exclude the misguiding build up, moreover this scene was repeated over and over in TV and online media for publicity and promotions. The audience would have had variety of imaginations going on about this scene and finally when we watch it in the movie it just doesn't satisfy us. 

The audience saves the excitement for later but the locality boy couldn't wait, he throws a stone on the villain party's flex print on the street, Cuts to -Rajinikanth watches the boy’s dead body in shock later that night, the other locality boys as usual sing a rap to question rajinikanth, what kaala is gonna do about this murder. This is the first surreal touch in the film. 

The seriousness creeps in but is let down by the cool action scene which follows, kaala takes revenge on the murderer on a bridge in the rain.

The scene focuses more on the charisma of superstar and very less on the seriousness of the situation. It kind of assures us that we are watching another sub standard commercial movie. The dummy fight doesn’t impress us even though the crew  manages to get the best out of Rajini's physical limits. The thrill of Rajini’s fight scenes are over since Batsha. He is still making rounds only for his soulful acting.

Now that Kaala has shown his full rowdyism, everyone in the slum goes back to their normal life. The director requests the audience to move on and not to sulk too much in that boy’s death. The dramatic tension doesn't sustain due to the very average emotional plotting despite having all the story elements. Maybe that’s the routine life of slum dwellers, suffering is permanent, people have to keep moving on for survival. 

The director never gives time for actual emotional payoffs in the film and so there’s an overall downfall in the script. 

Like in a horror movie, where there s definitely some paranormal entity in the house and we all wait for it to appear on screen, Hari dada's presence had been there throughout the film from the beginning.

Ranjith holds his stocks for a long time and finally sells them for a great profit. Hari dada makes his presence close to the interval.

Now the audience start looking for the larger than life scenes to come atleast in the second half and Ranjith doesn’t miss to deliver it. Ranjith impresses the audience by bringing back the flavours of a trademark superstar film.

The scene before the interval where Rajini forces Nana Patekar to ask permission to leave the slum serves the essential leverage needed for the typical Tamil cinema interval.

The movie gets more organic after the interval especially the scene that follows the anniversary song brings the best out of Rajinikanths’s acting. One of the sons of Kaala wants to leave the slum with his wife and kids as they feel developed enough and “democratic” enough to start living in a decent and better neighborhood. But kaala makes them stay back as he feels his sons should be responsible enough and “socialistic” enough to stay where they belong and not leave their neighborhood behind. It’s interesting that Kaala is super drunk while he is doing all the preaching. None other than Rajinikanth can perfectly work out this scene.

Even before the scene completes comes a bigger problem. The police arrives to take Kaala to the station regarding the murder on the bridge. How many challenging scenarios can a drunken man face in a single sequence? unexpectedly the police station scene is a major treat to the fans. It reminds us the magic and the terrific mass appeal of superstar. Nana Patekar's ghostly presence and super star’s born for the silver screen attitude makes time stop for a moment. They are experienced actors. 

This is like the scene in thalapathy where the self righteous, law abiding Govt officer Aravind Samy watches Rajini do all the talk, Here we have Nana Patekar watching Rajini from a distance, he is extremely self righteous. While aravind samy represented the system, nana patekar thinks he is on the side of the God. The bigger system.

Then comes the godfather moment of the film, Kaala’s wife and his son Selvam dies in the accident planned by Hari dada. 

Ranjith's fascination for the Godfather film was already visible in the finishing touch of  his previous film Kabali. Maybe he thinks that a film becomes epic only when the lead character dies. 

The Lenin character scores more than Kaala in this scene, the director wants it that way because this is where Lenin realizes, transforms and changes his ways in the fight for the dharavi people’s rights. 

Now the screenplay is focused on taking us to the next major set up and this time Ranjith cares to create enough emotional plotting by the scene Where kaala talks to his grand kids about his past with a fractured hand.

Kaala regrets for being drunk that night sating that’s the reason for his wife's death while the audience knows that the accident happened because hari dada stabs on the back with his self righteous cunning methods.

Hari dada's method is unethical for a soldier in war. It was an unexpected ugly move by the villain and Kaala’s carelessness has nothing to do with it. Lord Rama shot Vaali (the monkey king of kishkintha) with an arrow while Vaali was unaware. Does it mean Vaali was careless ?

Kaala's sons dint have the maturity to understand their father so far but now they totally realise as they understood the enemy (Hari dada - the system) and the enemy's motives better.

Rajini goes to the villain’s house, drinks water and makes egoistic statements rather than directly questioning why his family members were killed.

We expect Kaala to be in a vengeance mode but he sits and listens to the villain's heartless apology. Obviously kaala doesn’t accept it but why is he even there if not for vengeance ?

Kaala is in fact a man born in a low caste (according to the system). Even though he woke up and started fighting against it, he can’t fight the already programmed inferiority complex inside him whenever he faces a person belonging to a higher caste. It’s not easy and it takes generations of awareness to actually come out of this psychological issue. Nana Patekar might be afraid of kaala’s rowdyism and his organised strength within the slum but they will never consider him as an equal person.

 It’s obvious that Hari dada won’t drink water in kaala’s house but kaala drinks water in Hari dada’s house because he doesn’t want to reflect the sick mentality of the caste system. Discrimination is same even if a member of the lower caste does it (ambedkarism).
Previously Hari dada expected Huma qureshi to touch his feet in respect but Kaala avoids Hari dada’s grand daughter from touching his feet. He prefers a hand shake. He prefers self respect (periyarism). Ranjith is a firm believer of these two "isms". 

The inferiority complex due to casteism has been seeded in the minds of the Indian society for a long time, one will still feel inferior despite the ideologies he believes in. That’s why reservation becomes necessary for several generations. Even though a few generations of the suppressed class might seem to have progressed into a better life as a middle class society, reservation should still be provided till they are free from their inferiority complexes. The real freedom is the freedom of the mind.

The director touches all these issues but has no time to detail them and the main problem is the placement of these concepts. This is supposed to be the scene where Kaala meets the villain after the villain had killed Kaala’s wife and son. When people are expecting  to explore a human condition on screen, Ranjith prefers to talk the social political Scenario. The political debate between the hero and villain was too direct and it seemed to be affecting the dialogues in a bad way thus making it difficult for the actors to perform but Nana and Rajini have managed it somehow. 

As the dialogues become too straight forward, Ranjith delivers a bold political statement through this film which has never been done on screen before. 

This is the moment in the film where the audience gets divided into fans and haters of the film because it confronts with the political beliefs of the audience. Yes, the individual political ideologies of the members of the audience plays a bigger part in whether to Like or dislike the film.

In the film Vishwaroopam, Kamal Says it’s ok to be a Muslim but one should not be an anti-indian.

I think Dir. Ranjith’s straight forward political approach is far better than Kamal’s pretentious centrism .

The dramatic /political tension escalates quickly when Hari dada asks kaala to touch his feet but kaala asks Hari dada to touch his feet instead. The same as the scene in kabali where he tells the villain “ Yes I will wear a suit, I will sit legs crossed, you better die if you can’t digest it”.

All that is fine but unfortunately it appears like kaala is not bothered about the villain killing his wife and son. He walks off stylishly saying “stab me on my back if you want” but it looks like kaala is just using the punch line as an escapism while he is leaving the place powerlessly unable to do anything about the man who killed his family.

Hari dada decides to bring everything to an end, he wants to destroy the slums which had been his goal from the beginning. Whenever he said he wants to make the city clean, he meant destroying the slum and the people in it. It’s a fact that the political parties are highly capitalist no matter they behave like liberals or conservatives. Capitalism always is neither the left or the right.

The strength of the film is that Hari dada is basically a capitalist and he wants the people of Dharavi to move out so that he can do his business in the land they reside on. The problem gets to the next level when Kaala's house and neighborhood are burned down by the villain's men. The people of Dharavi lose everything in the fire.

The premise of the film gets totally exposed as Dharavi’s people comes out to stage a great protest, one that has all characteristics of the great Marina protest for Jallikattu and Tamil rights. There is even a policeman character in the protest sequence who speaks for the people just like it happened in the Marina protest. Rajini leads an unexpected protest which is well supported by the " Nilame engal urimai " song.

The climax is the most emotional part of the film but the "pro government conformists" section of the audience wouldn't be able to connect with it.

The Marina protest was an ethnicity based voice against the totalitarian authority for the federal right but the Protest in Kaala is the usual "capitalism vs working class" fight even though it has the Raman vs Raavanan or Hindutva vs Dravidam trademarks. Kaala is received by the public as a multi dimensional film about dalitism, dravidam, Marxism and possibly Tamil nationalism. 

Kaala preaches communism from a Dalit perspective.

The police man opening his heart in the marina protest.

The recent protests in Tamilnadu and in most parts of the world are about fighting Capitalism to defend the ethnic sovereignty, demonstrating the conservative ideology in democratic terms. 

Nana Patekar gets pissed off and sends one of his trusted devotee to solve the issue and a guy resembling Hanuman with a gadayutham in hand walks in the streets of Dharavi. He breaks the jaws of a few protesters including SamuthraKani. The police department in the film commits a lot of anti social activities to dilute the crowd and to break the protest just like it happened in the marina protest. 

In marina, the police ruthlessly attacked the protesters saying there were Fringe elements in the protest. Everyone clearly knows that the fringe elements theory was not real, rather the police themselves set fire to some vehicles to create panic inside the protest. It is believed they did the same in the Thoothukudi sterlite protest too but the actor/politician Rajinikanth at that time was making statements in the press which supported the system rather than supporting the people who were victimised.

Rajini's speech in the press meets during the Thoothukudi protests was the main reason why people decided to boycott the film. They couldn't tolerate his hypocrisy. 

                                        Rajini as a fringe element in the film "kaala",  pun intended.

The audience are then taken to a Surreal climax where the army lead by hanuman kills kaala while Hari dada and his family are in a ritual, happily listening to the Ramayana tale.

Kaala gets shot by bullets while he’s stuck inside a deadly fire. Raavanan’s death is narrated in the voice over. This is not symbolism, this is an open criticism on Hindutva. This is political clarity, the vision and vengeance of a highly politicized film maker. 

Kaala may have its flaws but it sticks to the film language enough to qualify as a film.
At the end of the day, Kaala is a propaganda film and so it is not right to criticise the craft and techniques of this film. Ranjith also says he is a politician first and a film maker next. The director’s social responsibility and his strong voice guides the audience beautifully. The French auteur film maker Godard would have definitely felt proud. 

As Godard said, the shots and angles are far less significant in comparison to the director’s perspective on the subject. The art form can be violated in order to bring a social perspective about something. There are no rules in film making. Making a movie against the ruling party courageously and handling the censor board intelligently is incredible showmanship. This is a milestone in Indian cinema, a mile stone in freedom of speech.

Hari dada who thinks he has won finally comes to Dharavi to inaugurate the manu builders project. He tries to take a handful of soil from Dharavi in his hands and gets shocked to see kaala roaming everywhere among the people. People start to throw black coloured powder on Hari dada and all over the place. Entire Dharavi celebrates in black, resembling the Raavana kingdom. Then the celebration includes red powder and blue too denoting the three ideologies. Red - Marxism, black - dravidam and blue - dalitism. 

The Climax clearly says that Raman might have killed Ravanan but the land will always remain as Ravana land. The disappointment in Nana patekar’s face was priceless, he has done his part beautifully as an actor. 

But the director should learn that its not practical to bring everyone under one ideology, the people have to decide for themselves. Its a shock for many that rajinikanth chose to work with this director who follows dalitism ideology but maybe it is really not a problem for Rajinikanth. 

I will tell you why,
Dalitism is against Hindutva but it is not against nationalism. Ambedkar is a strong proponent of Indian nationalism and he even supported Sanskirit to be the national language of india. Ambedkar was against ethnic nationalism and so Dalitism is one of the major ideologies that gives power to indian nationalism.

Dalitism is not considered a threat to the system because it is like a lifeline that connects the entire nation where SC/ST people are called Dalits. Maybe that’s why the RSS and Hindutva India acknowledges Ambedkar as a great leader. 

Dalitism is trying to persuade all the suppressed people into one ideology but why shouldn't the suppressed people have different ideologies to face their battles ?  it is pointless and stupid to try to bring all the suppressed castes of India under one name called Dalits. Especially in Tamilnadu, most SC/ST people don't identify them as Dalits. The suppressed castes should be encouraged to protest and fight for their rights under their very own caste identity because no caste identity is inferior to another, no one needs to hide under the Dalit label. 

Marina protest worked out because People were easily able to identify and organise themselves as Tamils. The massive crowd came together so effortlessly because of the ethnic identity, there was no caste consciousness or class consciousness involved in their feelings. That's how LTTE and Eezham was formed, that's how Tamil nadu got its name and fought against hindi imposition. 

Ranjith simply keeps repeating "Caste is bad" and gets the applause. Periyarism and Ambedkarism don't have to be the only hope, its a shallow perspective. Let’s give space for new ideologies too. Our enemies are taking new shapes and they are coming strong at us everyday.

Whatever maybe the case of Ranjith’s ideology, he is a man of action and so is Rajini, that’s one reason why the Rajini fans are supporting him in his political career even before knowing his ideology. But Ideology is all that matters when the action starts. Wrong ideologies will lead to wrong actions and wrong consequences and finally deliver wrong results. We should also stop branding Ranjith as a Dalit film maker and as a Dalit leader. 

We need to provide him proper space to be open for new knowledge and to have acceptance to other “isms” and Rajini of course could have avoided his political press meets close to the movie's release.
The film deserved a good run.

Nana speaks half of his dialogues in Hindi, Rajini speaks in the Dharavi slang and Huma qureshi talks English too much but it’s a totally enjoyable film. If someone doesn’t like the film, either the movie was against their political ideology or they have no taste in movies. 

Both Kabali and Kaala qualifies as good Rajini films, far better than Shivaji, Linga, enthiran etc.

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