Spoilers ahead…
Text:
The story of Leena Manimekalai’s Maadathy is almost folkloric in its simplicity, but if the final scenes remind you of The Shining, it may be no accident. The film, billed “an unfairy tale”, is really a horror story — about a subsection of Dalits in southern Tamil Nadu, called Puthirai Vannaar. As the name suggests, they are washerpeople, but they wash “unclean” things — say, the shroud on a just-buried corpse, or the pieces of cloth used by menstruating women. Even worse than this occupation thrust on them is the condition that they should remain out of sight of the others in the village, because even seeing them could be polluting. The irony writes itself. They are cleaners, yet they are considered unclean. They are humans, yet they are like gods: they “purify” things while being practically invisible. Hence the tagline: Nobodies do not have gods; they are gods.
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Baradwaj Rangan 
Honest Raj
September 11, 2021
… the first Tamil film whose protagonist is a Dalit ‘woman’ …
Surely, not in this case, no? 😀
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Eswar
September 10, 2021
Thanks, Hari. I think so, at least at a higher level. If you go a level deep, I think we can notice that It works in our favour as well, but usually at someone else’s loss 🙂.
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krishikari
September 10, 2021
@H. Prasanna Thanks for sharing that.
Apart from the themes of sexuality, sexual violence and discrimination, the movie hardly offers anything else. There is very little in the movie to humanize these characters or their lives.
Strongly disagree. The way the film shows the lives of this tiny community as immersed in the natural beauty of the foothills of the western ghats is an offering. Maadathy’s desire and loneliness is very human and real. I don’t know what he is talking about.
@BR Isn’t this also a form of ‘bias’ — not just about this film but about indie cinema in general?
I think it’s male bias mostly. This is not “woke” twitter this is just “Indian” twitter doing it’s thing.
Leena M is also now prevented from going abroad for further education because the person she has a sexual harrasment case against has a case against her and her passport is impounded or something crazy like that. Lets talk about the male bias in our courts! A self admitted sexual harrasser has been acquitted. Tarun Tejpal joins MJ Akbar. It’s disgusting.
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hari
September 9, 2021
Eswar super comment. In essence, we are victims of our own confirmation bias?
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Eswar
September 9, 2021
“Isn’t this also a form of ‘bias’ — not just about this film but about indie cinema in general?”
I would think so.
Whether there exists any bias isn’t that interesting. It is more interesting to understand what makes individuals overlook bias in their perception.
One reason is we fool ourselves. We carefully choose narratives, examples, and parts of history to keep our biases at bay.
Point the exploitative nature of capitalism to someone biased towards it, they will pick examples where capitalism has worked well.
Tell a communist about the violence it has wielded, they will tell a convincing story of where communism is working.
Point to someone that their community is also responsible for casteism, they will point to members of their community who help oppressed caste groups. Talk to them about caste markers, they would say it is about culture and not caste.
If you belong to one of the middle castes and appreciate Dravidian politics, is it because they gave the best governance or is it because your community is a benefactor?
If you are a Brahmin who dislikes Dravidian politics, is it because Dravidian policies are bad or is it because the Brahmin community is affected by Dravidian politics.
If you belong to a middle caste and you are against upper castes, is it because the ancestors of upper castes were oppressive? Or is it because your caste lost its status to the upper castes?
In all of the above, there is some truth on both sides. This makes it convenient to choose the parts that help hide one’s bias.
A patriarchal Dalit activist can choose to believe that Madathy is not accessible rather than confronting his bias against women.
A female activist who is not comfortable with exploring sexuality can easily find another reason to not talk about the movie.
Dalit is not a caste. A Dalit activist, even if they themselves are Dalit and is part of the industry, could very well be biased only towards their particular caste. So a movie that is not representing their caste is just another movie about others.
In a way, it is pointless to talk about other people’s biases. If we start talking about each other’s biases, we would either cancel each other or talk past each other. There is only one bias that we could tackle, and that is our own biases. But for that, we need to remember Feynman’s first principle: that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.
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N Madhusudhan
September 8, 2021
“Yes, there was some talk but nothing compared to the noise that accompanies big hero / big director films.” – I think the answer to your question lies in your comment itself, BR – “Agreed, it was not a big release. People had to seek it out on an OTT platform.”. I don’t know a lot of people who are not so active on social media would even know that a film like Maadathy has released. Unless they’re following your blog or FC or Twitter, how would they know? It’s not available in a mainstream OTT platform yet. But that’s not the case with Ranjith / Mari Selvaraj’s films, no? They are in the mainstream and people get to know that they are available.
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Macaulay Perapulla
September 8, 2021
Yes, sir, Perhaps, that is more to do with the structure of market dynamics: Every market’s power law distribution curve has a head and a tail. Head involves big stars, big directors and creates maximum noise, Tail involves indie creators that reach out the 1%.
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H. Prasanna
September 8, 2021
@BR I remember reading about this film from the people you refer to. Last year in comparison with another indie, “Gamak Ghar”, Rajesh Rajamani wrote:
“In Leena Manimekalai’s ‘Maadathy, an Unfairy Tale’ that tells the tale of a unseeable, untouchable family of Puthirai Vannars, no romanticization or even humanization seems possible. Leena’s film is brilliantly shot, like the wilderness in a National Geographic episode. And the music and sound blend so well too. However, the movie is quite merciless and seems too obsessed with the sexuality, sexual lives and the sexual violence that this Puthirai Vannar family deals with. If that wasn’t enough, it makes every character repeatedly reiterate their lowest of the low position in the caste structure. Apart from the themes of sexuality, sexual violence and discrimination, the movie hardly offers anything else. There is very little in the movie to humanize these characters or their lives.
The abundance in ‘Gamak Ghar’ becomes scarcity in ‘Maadathy’ – whether it is the rice the village allots for the family or the meat the man eats or the fruits that Yosanna picks at the temple location. While you can hear the loud moaning of the couple secretly having sex in ‘Maadathy’, in ‘Gamak Ghar’, you hear no such thing. Instead, reproduction becomes about the family getting together when a new baby is born or a pregnant woman being extra cautious because she has had a miscarriage in the past. The nostalgic recording of the Brahmin lives through camera shots clicked regularly and stored in family albums in ‘Gamak Ghar’ morph into the violent documentation of Maadathy and her death in the form of a local deity.
One might argue that both these movies are merely documenting the extremes of caste reality and that might be a good thing in itself. Well, I don’t think we can look at these movies as just innocent documentations of reality. Rather, both these films are themselves a product of the caste structure which reinforce and further the role of romanticizing the privileged through gentle images while victimizing the oppressed through violent images.”
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Madan
September 8, 2021
“I am shocked at how little visibility this film got from the both the so-called ‘woke’ twitter community and the Dalit activists within and without the film industry.” – Woke twitter performs a role akin to what George Packer described in Four Americas. It’s a neo-gatekeeping whereby the young wield the weapon of bias and privilege to push out the boomers occupying powerful positions in media, entertainment so that THEY get the power (and get to pass it off as a revolution – not that revolutions aren’t also about a power shift anyway). Sure, in some or many of these cases, it was about time but the true motivation behind this tactic is kinda masked behind the stated ideology. Whereas in the case of Dalit activists, it is possible/probable that their voices aren’t being heard, especially not by those who claim to speak for them.
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brangan
September 8, 2021
I just wanted to add this one thought to the thread about “Baradwaj Rangan, let’s talk about bias)’ thread…
I am shocked at how little visibility this film got from the both the so-called ‘woke’ twitter community and the Dalit activists within and without the film industry.
Here’s a truly revolutionary film — the first Tamil film to talk about Dalit teen sexuality, the first Tamil film to show how even among Dalits there are hierarchies which makes some of them ‘untouchables to the untouchables’, the first Tamil film whose protagonist is a Dalit ‘woman’, the first Tamil film about weaves folklore into its story of vengeance…
Agreed, it was not a big release. People had to seek it out on an OTT platform. But I thought at least those who write reams about Pa Ranjith and Mari Selvaraj films would talk about this. Yes, there was some talk but nothing compared to the noise that accompanies big hero / big director films.
Isn’t this also a form of ‘bias’ — not just about this film but about indie cinema in general?
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krishikari
July 5, 2021
I would be very curious to see how Pa Ranjith and Maari Selvaraaj feel about Maadathy.
In the interview with Leena Manimekalai, she makes it clear what she feels about Karnan and Kaala.
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Arun Prabhu
June 28, 2021
I usually don’t post a lot; but this movie was so moving and powerful, that I cannot help but share my experiences. I watched it 24 hours ago and I am still thinking about the movie, which doesn’t happen far too often.
I felt Maadathy had a lot in common with Mandela and Karnan, but also tackled these concepts from the point of view of women. I would be very curious to see how Pa Ranjith and Maari Selvaraaj feel about Maadathy.
But overall, I am really happy to see Tamil cinema churn out high-quality movies consistently. Yes, you still have the Vijays and the Ajiths corrupting the masses and turning out one meaningless movie after another; but movies like Maadathy prove that Tamil cinema is alive and kicking!
Both Mandela and Maadathy characters are “pothu” and have nobody to stand up for them. They form a minority (in the case of Mandela, it was just Yogi Babu and his teenage assistant; while it is just Maadathy’s family of 5) and therefore, injustices perpetrated against them do not have any consequences.
Both Mandela and Maadathy tackle caste with a scalpel rather than a sledge hammer (i.e. not Dalit vs Brahmin, but the more finer caste hierarchy). In Mandela, there is a long-running caste conflict between the two villages and Mandela happens to get caught in the middle. In Maadathy, the Puthirai Vannars are to the Dalits, what the Dalits are to the Brahmins. There is one powerful scene where the Dalit villagers talk about washing the clothes of a Brahmin family, while still ask the Puthirai Vannars to wash their clothes
Both Maadathy and Karnan portray the people who are enslaved and wronged as Gods. In the case of the Karnan, Dhanush’s sister dies young and becomes a family god who guides the entire village, while in Maadathy, the girl eventually becomes the Amman who punishes the villagers
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Eswar
June 26, 2021
Thanks BR for the review. Leena Manimekalai sounded very idealistic (in a positive way) in the Tamil Indie-directors round table (It was a great round table by the way). May be such an idealistic position is required to make movies like ‘Maadathy’.
After reading your review, I was searching about ‘Puthirai Vannaars’ and came across these articles. The caste problem is probably never about the caste itself.
https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/living-as-the-lowest-among-the-lowest/article19826702.ece
https://shapecharity.org/2020/05/29/thurumbar-the-dalits-of-the-dalits/
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vijay
June 25, 2021
Just reading this review made me a bit angry. But such is the state even in a so-called “developed” state like Tamilnadu, forget about Bihar or UP. The recent elections and the caste-bank politics that was displayed are just grim reminders.
As an anti-dote I found this to be a riveting watch on netflix
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krishikari
June 25, 2021
@ Anu same here. I feel bad that I couldn’t watch When they see us on Netflix. I feel I should make myself watch, as these films depend on views to keep being produced.
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Anu Warrier
June 25, 2021
Would love to watch; don’t have the emotional bandwidth at present for it. It’s tough to watch bad things happen to little children. Have added it to my list of ‘Will watch some time during the present century, give or take a few decades”.
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Rad
June 24, 2021
“Vengeance is more satisfying than benevolence” – you must have felt the movie in your nerves to come up with a line like that. Hit me like a bullet. Bravo, BR!! Need to subscribe to Neestream for a month to watch this movie – did the same for TGIK.
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ravenus1
June 24, 2021
Sounds intense. Where is this showing?
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Sudha
June 24, 2021
I really enjoyed reading this. I’ll add it to my watchlist, although it sounds like it will be a tough watch. Thank you for bringing all of these independent films to our attention. I wouldn’t have known that this film exists, if not for you!
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