Official Trailer:
What is one vote worth in a democracy? Especially if that one is the deciding vote in an election outcome. That is the question the movie Mandela asks and uses that interesting premise to cleverly to give us a political-social satire. Village of Soorangudi is split in to two groups based on caste – from my observation these castes are at the same level in our caste hierarchy – Vadakoorans and Therkoorans. When the village head, who is the current Panchayat President, couldn’t contest due to ill-health, his two sons jump in to the fray, each belonging to a different caste. How did they end up in different caste? We are told that village head is a Periyarist and by some convoluted logic, to keep the quarreling sides together, he has a wife from each side. Hard to accept the logic but works in the movie premise and what the movie tries to convey. Pre-counting based on caste arithmetic shows each side has 340 votes, a tie. Their winning the election depends on one vote of a barber from oppressed caste. How far these two are willing to go to get that one vote, how it impacts the barber including threat to his life, and what kind of influence it has on the villagers form the rest of the movie.
While the premise itself pulls you in, there is good amount of detailing that gives us good moments. This is a socio-political movie but the director approaches it from a completely new angle without taking the usual route of hero fighting the corrupt politicians. Movie is unsentimental with no preaching or lectures – thanks to the director for trusting the intelligence of the audience. Full credit to the writer and director Madonne Ashwin coming up with creative ways to keep us engaged. The whole opening stretch with the toilet opening ceremony gives us a sense of the sad state we are in, while we laugh at the situation it leaves us with a sense of despair. Intro of Smile alias Ilichavayan (played by Yogi Babu), the barber, his profession, how the villagers see and treat him, to the time he gets his name Mandela and his voter ID card with the help of Thenmozhi (good performance by Sheela Rajkumar), new post office employee, is beautifully done – gives us an insight into how it feels to live with no identity. The vote auction scene as a satire worked great – one can debate whether the auction scene is impossible or improbable☺ Climax leaves you on an emotional high (how I wish it to be a reality) and I liked the way the traditional hero notion is subverted, village community steps in to protect our protagonist / hero Mandela.
Post the auction scene, narration does sag a little bit, but it does pick up quickly. Yogi Babu pitches Smile / Mandela character perfectly, a class performance from him. After few initial scenes, I saw only Mandela not Yogi Babu. Yogi Babu is well aided by earnest performances by Sangili Murugan, GM Sundar, Kanna Ravi, Sheela Rajkumar, and George Maryan among others (couldn’t find the name of the actor who played Kirudha Khan, he gets few good one-liners).
Movie does falter with taking the same common-sensical opinion that freebies are bad, and poor people take money and vote. It would have elevated the movie if the director has juxtaposed it with what kind of freebies middle-class and rich class get in India. While the freebies to the poor gets all the media attention and space, how about tax breaks, tax deductions middle / rich class and corporates get? All come out of the same public tax money. Poor people can never get to use any of those tax breaks. It is time as a society we stopped looking at things with tinted glasses. But considering what the movie is trying to go after and the greater common good, I will let this pass😀