Official Trailer:

Viduthalai Part I is about the conflict between the government which wants to take away and provide the forest land for mining to a corporate and the villagers who are against it. This conflict pits the police force against the Makkal Padai (People’s army). Makkal Padai has the support of the local population. A simple story of development Vs rights/conservation, good Vs evil. Where Viduthalai differs and gets dense is in the point of view it chooses to narrate the story, the detailing of how authority dehumanizes the lower rung of the police force, the way power and politics play out in police hierarchy, and how the voiceless population don’t stand a chance under a powerful and an inhumane authority.

Kumaresan, played by Soori, joins police force as a lower rung constable. He joins the main outpost in the forest as a driver delivering food to rest of the outposts.  He is a righteous person. He is the kind of person who will not apologize if he hasn’t done anything wrong. He will go through punishment meted out to him rather than apologize. Same Kumaresan tenders an unconditional apology to Tamizharasi when he realizes his mistake. Kumaresan is not our run of the mill heroes who stand up against bad guys mouthing one-liners, long lectures, and fight. The masculinity he portrays is a far cry from toxic masculinity we have seen on screen. He realizes firsthand the difficulties the cops go through living in an outpost – not enough food, chow-chow on a daily basis, clogged toilets, corruption, caste discrimination. He has to piece together the truth from the stories he hears from his colleagues and from Tamizharasi. Kumaresan is our eyes and ears to the happenings. As a narrative device this works brilliantly. As he learns we also learn. About real and fake news. About encounters. About image projection to visitors. Next time when we see a headline we will think twice before believing it at face value.

Police department is not able to get much information about Perumal or Makkal Padai from the villagers. They don’t even have a photo of Perumal who leads the Makkal Padai. We do get to see Perumal, played by Vijay Sethupathi, in few scenes but he lives as a ghost through the whole movie. Police force resort to inhumane torture – beating, stripping, shocks – of the villagers to gather information. These are captured in graphic detail – is this too much and fall into torture porn category like Saw series or if it is not shown how else we will know the intensity of the torture that gets meted to helpless people in the society we live in? It does ask the pertinent question, what kind of conditioning our cops go through to behave like this? One need to be inhuman to treat a human like this. How do they end up in that zone? Command and obey structure, conformity, protection by the system, peer pressure, survival? Or camaraderie that leads to revenge when they see one of their colleagues gets murdered by the groups like Makkal Padai?

Similarly what drives groups like Makkal Padai to resort to bombing a train? Pick up arms? I don’t think their anger and frustration is against police department. Nexus between landlords/corporates/government and associated authority pits police against the people. In the ensuing violence and loss of lives, core issue gets buried. While we get the ring side view of police department through Kumaresan, we don’t get to see much about what the villagers think. Where do they stand on the mining? Why do they support Makkal Padai, out of fear or do they really support the cause? Similarly, Viduthalai Part I doesn’t give the backstory of Perumal and Makkal Padai. I presume they will be in Part 2.

While Gautam Vasudev Menon, Rajiv Menon, Bhavani Sre, Vijay Sethupathi have performed well in their roles, Soori and Chetan stand out and given their best making use of their meaty roles. Appreciation is incomplete without calling out the ace performer Velraj who has done the cinematography. He brings the story alive and elevates the mood. The opening train wreck sequence and the final hunt chase for Perumal immerses us in the surrounding, we feel the calamity of the accident and the pulse of Soori and cops. Background score by Ilayaraja is mostly non-intrusive, which is what is needed for this kind of story. Writing is by Vetrimaran and Jayamohan. Kumaresan’s character arc is one of the best I have seen recently. Power of the writing is realized in the final predicament when Kumaresan pointing the rifle at Perumal, Kumaresan wants to save the villagers from torture and the villagers protect Perumal who is the reason behind the torture.

We need to wait for Part 2. Part 1 on its own is incomplete. I hope Part 2 gets into backstory of Perumal, the point of view of the villagers, natural resources Vs the commons/corporates/government/future generation. It would be good if Vetrimaran weaves these questions as part of the screenplay in Part 2 and kick start the debate.