Official Trailer:

First season of Paava Kadhaigal from Netflix is out and has four episodes. First season explores the subject of honor. Family honor. Common theme in all the four episodes is that women bear the pressure of upholding the honor of the family. Or is it their bodies? As the mother from Vaanmagal episode says to her daughter your body is like temple. You need to protect it. If the daughters tend to be different, then what we believe as the safest place, the family, becomes the most dangerous place in the world for them.

Thangam by Sudha Kongara explores the love, and fears of the transgender Sattar. Sattar’s character comes across as one with positive outlook, meaning, she moves ahead with her life when her love gets rejected by Thangam. Thangam is in love with Sattar’s sister and Sattar takes the risk to get them out of the village when both the families are against their marriage. Second half is not an easy watch even though the violence takes place off-screen. I felt a sudden tonal shift in the second half and it felt rushed. Another 10mts or removing the song would have helped? Even with its rushed narration, there are few things that make the episode interesting, Kalidas Jayaram’s performance, Sattar’s jokes, innovative use of Oru Thalai Ragam song scene in the background and narrative technique.

Love Panna Uttranum by Vignesh Sivan takes a completely different approach to the subject of honor. With its hilarious introduction of Narikutty, interesting conversation between Narikutty and Penelope, and the bizarre sequence to get B-cube out of a nasty situation, Vignesh keeps throwing invectives at us. It may not be liked by many, but the way I look at it, Vignesh takes an up yours attitude to the value of honor from a bygone era. He pulls it off and does it with full conviction and flourish. It may feel weird to laugh when there is a dead body in the bathroom…but isn’t the whole notion of honor trumping love and humanism weird to begin with?

Vaanmagal by GVM explores the emotions family members go through when the daughter gets assaulted. The violence happens off-screen. While the story’s symbolism, especially mother’s behavior, resembles Jayakanthan’s Agnipravesam, GVM does bring his touches with how the father feels post the traumatic event, and a mother torn between not able to let go off old regressive values and move forward. GVM tries to cover more in a short duration and falls short. Brother character not well developed, and the climax feels rushed – when Mathi opens the window, is that to show she has let go off regressive values and opened the window to a new world or am I reading too much in to it?

Oor Iravu by Vetrimaaran is the best of the lot. Story is old but how Vetrimaaran handles it goes to show a director master of his craft. He does a great job of making the best use of short 30mts format with limited characters, no songs, and even the background score is minimal. Unlike other episodes, here the violence happens on screen over a long stretch with minute details. To me violence is in the head, what makes an affectionate father to watch her pregnant daughter suffer and die locked up in a room all the while pleading with him to let her free. A great example of how to hit the message cinematically than a lecture. Not just this, Vetrimaaran has packed multiple gems. Loved the scene transitions and the contrast between village and city setup. Sumathi looking for her father in village and cut to Sumathi opening the door to her father in the city apartment, Janakiraman in momentary change of mind tries to get away from Sumathi in the yoga session and getting pulled back by her, Sumathi locked up in a room with a window while her mother is locked up in another with no windows (we can hear only her screams for help). Vetrimaaran excellently shows how everyone becomes a prisoner of honor – due to societal pressure – Sumathi marrying someone from different caste takes a toll on the family, its impact on her sisters and brother. Janakiraman does appreciate how her daughter had made her own life but back in village he becomes more worried about what society would think of him. Excellent performances by Prakash Raj and Sai Pallavi.

My recommender viewing order of the episodes, if you haven’t watched it yet, would be 1,3,4,2, this will leave you with somewhat positive feel 😁

OTT platform does give directors more freedom to explore the subjects better and deeper than what they would have done with theatrical release with its constraints like songs, meet broader audience base, and interval block. Of course, this observation not applicable for Bala or Vasanthabalan 😀 No, I take it back, even they have the pressure of songs, comedy track, and interval block. Even though the story lines of Paava Kadhaigal are not necessarily new, and some episodes fall short of expectation, it is a good start. it is good to see the directors pushing the boundaries. I only hope future episodes will be much more bolder and venture in to yet to be explored subjects. For one, I would prefer our directors move out of village setup (yes, villages are caste cesspool – BR has nailed the message long time back. We need to give a break 😄) to narrate gender, caste biases and get in to exploring discrimination and biases in cities, institutions, universities, corporates, medical establishment, judiciary and more. So many stories out there waiting to be told and heard. Guys, go for it, we are waiting.