Official Trailer: Sethum Aayiram Pon

I hit upon this movie in Netflix two days back, I was little bit wary of watching this considering the title, a reference to death, and COVID-19 crisis we are going through. Synopsys sounded interesting so dived in. I expected a tear jerker. But I was in for a pleasant surprise. Director Anand Ravichandran ventures in to a subject Kollywood avoids. Most of the characters’ profession revolves around death, Oppari singers, people who apply make-up to cadaver, and folk artists. Multiple deaths happen in the movie, I counted around six including the shoot that involves a death scene, but the focus is on events that happen around it, sort of life around tragedy. There is grace and dignity in how it is told. Oppari songs comes out as authentic, funny, loving, with good amount of sarcasm sprinkled in about the departed.

In the long opening stretch, we get introduced to Meera, the city-bred make-up artiste, on her journey to a hamlet to meet her grandmother that leads her to a death ceremony where  villagers have congregated. Meera hates her grandmother. Their relationship is broken or keeping with the movie’s theme, we should say their relationship is dead. The rest of the story revolves around how they slowly work through their old hurts, and get their relationship back to life.

What makes the movie works is that we can connect with these relationships, their struggles. Conversations sounds natural. Director conjures up lovely moments, and there are two beautiful stretches. I loved the one involving Muthupandi, his wife, and his mistress, it will leave with you a sense of wonder and appreciation for the director for writing the splendid sequence. An interesting movie to watch that celebrates life and death.