IRAIVI - A flim by Karthik Subbaraj

[mappi]

Thanks to Balaajee for the wonderful presentation & updates on his favourite filmstar SJ Surya's Iraivi Movie.

Iraivi
A Film by Karthik Subbaraj

Part One of Three

Recurring Phrase : But how much Karthik Subbaraj has convincingly projected his theory of interlocking two different beleifs of the same cultural faith depends purely on the experience of the viewer and not the expression of the film maker.


(SJ Surya as Arul)

Introduction

There are three forms on approaching a film to figure out what a filmmaker is trying to say in his work : formalist, realist & contextualist.

[Formalist : Deadpool (English, 2016), Vedalam (Tamil, 2015)]
[Realist : Inside Man (Korean, 2015), Visaranai (Tamil, 2015)]

The movie Iraivi should be approached contextually - a symptomatic interpretation look at the film as part of the broad context of society, reflecting and illustrating themes prevalent in the culture, in the time and place it was made, and possibly in the creator’s personal life experience. A psychological approach often identifies plot elements - looking for sexual symbolism, treatment of the subconscious, representations of the ego and superego.

A feminist analysis should concentrate on the portrayals of women in the film, whether they are strong, weak, stereotypes, protagonists or antagonists on a more of a broader context.

The genre of the film Iraivi, is a rare one. The movie comes under the genre 'Hyperlink Cinema', a word coined by Alissa Quart (nonfiction writer) in one of her reviews in 2005. This genre marks the story structure and relates it to spatial analysis in Sociology - horizontal experience of human life, the spatial dimension of individual behavior and social relations, as opposed to the vertical experience of history, tradition, and biography.

Iraivi is a multi-narrative film, a story that follows several protagonists rather than focusing on one main character. It extends itself to potray the relationship between the individual perspectives of characters inside a larger macro story. The film becomes hypernarrative during the final ACT, espicially while trying to connect the relationships established during the previous acts. During this ACT, Karthik tries to bring in an intensity by projecting as though the film is based on single-plot and this aspect makes the script wicked.

The film Iraivi aims for multiperspectivity, an aspect of narration or a mode of storytelling in which multiple and often discrepant viewpoints are employed for the presentation and evaluation of a story and its storyworld. The perspectival arrangements in multiperspective narrative fulfils a variety of different functions, mostly highlighting the perceptually, epistemologically or ideologically, the restricted nature of individual perspectives and may draw attention to various kinds of differences and similarities between the points of view presented therein. In this way, multiperspectivity frequently serves to portray the relative character of personal viewpoints or perspectivity in general.

'Roman a Clef' is a French term meaning 'novel with a key' refering to a film in which actual persons/events are disguised or masked as fictional characters, but with a 'key' the true persons/events are revealed. The character make up for the artist Vijai Murugan who plays a Film Producer in the film Iraivi, resembles the Jigardhanda producer Kathiresan. Jigardhanda release dates were shifted mercilessly without proper explanations and when the film's lead actor Siddharth expressed his displeasure over the production house for the delays, he was warned by the Production Council reminding him that he was a salaried worker and should not indulge in the distribution and decisions of the Production house. Jigardhanda was the second film directed by Karthik, and the episode containing a Producer character maybe a key to unlock the issue, about what might have happened during Jigardhanda film release.

The characters are handled in implicit manner, such that they are risened under slightly deeper level of interpretation - how the characters change, grow, and develop throughout the course of the film. None of the character mouths its action, but expresses it through emotions and reactions surrendering to the momentary suituations - refer to the 'Recurring Phrase' illustrated above.


(Characters vs Suituation as found in the film)

Instances

1/ Kanaki, Madhavi, Kovalan & Mr. X

With Ponni, Malar, Michael and Jagan fictional characters, Karthik attempts to make his own Silappatikaram. Kanaki & Madhavi from the epic are invisible to viewers so that the writer's characters and situations are always in the primary focus.


(Anjali as Ponni)

Jagan questions whether the soceity would have accepted Kanaki acquainted with another man after the Kovalan's debacle. This expression is the base of Jagan's character structure, which gets blown-up during the final ACT. Jagan's philosophy (reminder : faith, politics & philosophy are personal) slightly gets scratched when the brothers rejoice with drinks.

The character Malar, played by Pooja, is displayed as a bold skinned, but the death of her husband had made her more pessimistic (fear of loosing someone) which corners herself as a disgrace to the soceity. Malar and Michael share an intimacy as Madhavi and Kovalan. Malar rejects Michael for the same reason, social fear, and then weeps. Ponni, on the lines of a similar fear elopes eventhough she is attracted to Jagan.


(Pooja as Malar)

Apparantly and according to Karthik, Kanaki (represented by Ponni played by Anjali) did not have any problem with that principle of Jagan, whereas retelling it through Madhavi's POV, makes Madhavi and Kanaki float on the same boat.

Recurring Phrase.

2/ Nalayani

"If at all, I have lived the life of a chaste woman, dedicating myself to serving my Lord and Master and if my husband must die at sunrise tomorrow, then the sun shall not rise forever."

Yazhini, enacted by Kamalinee Mukherjee, is an alternate image of Malar. What Malar obtains after the end of her marital life, Kamalini does not get it while still being married. Yazhini pocesses all the items of an ideal life, and she serves her husband as the epic character Nalayni who had served her sick, stinking and bed ridden husband. Arul, Yazhini's husband, visits her only in the mornings depriving her the basic needs of a marital relationship. Yazhini tolerates him even when he stinks of alcohol. Arul is not impotent, the couple have a daughter, he is just depressed.


(Kamalinee Mukherjee as Yazhini)


(Arul and Yazhini (Kamalinee Mukherjee). Note the scribbling on the wall, indicating a child living/lived in that house)

When Nalayani is cursed that she will loose her husband in the morning, she halts the sunrise. Karthik bends this epic clause wildly, making Yazhini to discarde her relationship with Arul, so that she does not see him in the morning.

Recurring Phrase.

3/ Nala and Damayanti


(Michael and Ponni)

Ponni dreams about her marriage and just like the epic character Damayanti who had to pick one of the Gods Indra, Agni, Varuna; Ponni thinks he has a varied options to pick her husband personally (Kamal/Vijay/Ajith references). She falls for Michael considering him to be the most handsome (just like the swan). Arul and family gaurd the couple just like how Kali served for Nala and Damayanti. A statue theft leads a small conflict with Arul's family and the gap widdens similar to the absense of Kali when Nala forgets to wash his feet.

The life of Ponni and Michael disrupts where Ponni takes refuge elsewhere (just like Damayanti had done) while Michael had to fight his own demons (just like Nala) to reach Ponni (Othai ille nikurein di song sequence). When they meet, Ponni forgives Michael, just like Damayanthi forgives Nala after he had abandoned her in the jungle. Events forces Michael and Ponni to abscond and lead a peaceful life, when Micheal meets Jagan and then Arul.

Recurring Phrase.