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‘Spotify: Cinema with BR’ Episode 11: Kamal Haasan’s arc in ‘Thevar Magan’
Posted on March 17, 2023
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Baradwaj Rangan 
hari prasad
March 17, 2023
Baddy , did you think the ” Thevar ” in Thevar Magan meant something in the movie?
Like , did it add anything big to the movie?
For me , even if the movie was named ” Poi Pullakutteengalla Padika Veingada” or ” The Misadventures of Sakthivel” , it still would have been a compelling movie about a feud between two village bigshots that affect the people.
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MANK
March 17, 2023
Thevar Magan’s screenplay is perfect, one of the greatest screenplays in mainstream commercial cinema (though Hey Ram, Virumandi and Apoorva Sahodarangal are all fantastically written). Kamal fixed most of the problems in Nayagan with his writing here. He was never satisfied with Nayagan (he is always talks cryptically about that film) , which is why he took another swing at the Godfather adaptation.
Btw, the film was originally titled “Nammavar,” but after Sivaji Ganesan agreed to play periya thevar, Kamal changed the title to Thevar Magan as a mark of respect to the legend. The title design in the film’s posters (and I think in the film also) had sivaji and Kamal’s hand drawn faces next to Thevar and Magan respectively. And yes, Thevar Magan is the perfect title for the film. It’s obvious from his character arc, the adherence to the Thevar values, both in his valor and his sacrifice. Also, there are two instances which becomes major turning points in the film in which Kamal is explicitly addressed as Thevar Magan – one by Revathi’s father after her wedding is disrupted; that’s when he decides to marry her; and then by Nazar while challenging him for the climactic duel, in which he ends up killing him.
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MANK
March 17, 2023
Boss, I can’t believe u want a sequel to ruin this perfect film. I thought the film was beautifully bookended by those train scenes. The film begins with him coming to the village and ends with him leaving the village.
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Aman Basha
March 17, 2023
Just asking about some context, but is Thevar Magan the first of these South Indian films about feudal heads of the villages holding sickles and fighting that was endlessly replicated everywhere during the 90s?
Because I remember watching this movie and not being very impressed with it. Seemed fairly typical and commercial to me, except the climax where Kamal’s crying and all really moved me. Maybe I should re watch it again.
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hari prasad
March 18, 2023
It was rumoured during Vishwaroopam 2’s release that Kamal had plans to do a sequel for Thevar Magan with either Suriya or Karthi playing his son…
Appove , I went dude seriously?
Is Kamal too tryna cash on this sequel fiasco bandwagon?
Hope no one encourages Kamal to proceed with that..
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AnAnnoyedFan
March 18, 2023
Really enjoyed this episode BR! I hope you lean into movie analysis and discussions more. I think that is where your strength is. I always enjoy hearing your take on the screenplay and directorial aspects.
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praneshp
March 18, 2023
@hari prasad: You could call it village pride, but I’m pretty sure there was a a caste pride angle to Sivaji pushing back against Kamal about why the villagers are so violent (they were carrying swords for Veerapandiya kattaboman till a generation ago, how can you tell them to go to school suddenly)
I don’t particularly care though, it made for some amazing Sivaji Kamal scenes
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brangan
March 18, 2023
hari prasad: The way I look at it, the title is perfect. It sounds glorious and valorous. And then then film goes about — scene by scene — dismantling these feudal notions of valour through the “mistakes” that this “Thevar Magan” keeps making.
MANK: I am not ASKING for a sequel. I know there is a major filmmaker waiting with a script, but after VIKRAM proved such a blockbuster, I think Rajkamal must have decided to go with more overtly commercial outings for Kamal… I have hopes for the sequel 🙂
BTW, it’s interesting how THEVAR MAGAN, in its day, was considered a solid mainstream/commercial movie. Everyone had their bets on Rajini’s PANDIAN, but this became the megahit of that Deepavali season. Today, I think it will be called “too slow”.
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vijay
March 18, 2023
when Kamal tries his ‘experiments’ in a village/rural setting he reaps the rewards commercially. Thevar Magan and later Virumandi would show that. But when he tries out something like Aalavandhaan or Anbe Sivam or Hey Ram (or later Uththama villian etc.)somehow they dont click with the larger audiences out there. That connect with the B/C audiences seemed to be crucial.
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therag
March 18, 2023
@vijay, the A-centre audience is fickle. The B/C centres are much more predictable. Also, Virumandi and Thevar Magan deal with caste issues, so widely relatable for a rural audience.
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MANK
March 18, 2023
Both TM and Virumaandi has strong mass\masala elements as well. So it’s not just the village aspect. Apoorva Sahodarangal was a city based film, but again a strong masala movie, and that was also a blockbuster. Uttama Villain was a very bland film that would never connect with an audience.
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MANK
March 18, 2023
And to answer Aman’s query, I think Vijayakant had by then done many village based-Sickle wielding films. Uzhavan Magan released in 1987 in opposition to Nayagan and Rajni’s Manithan was an even bigger hit than the other two (especially in the b & C centers). He even had a big hit in Chinna Gounder the same year as TM. And it was also controversial regarding the portrayal of caste. Here is director R.V. Udayakumar defending the film
https://www.cinemaexpress.com/stories/columns/2019/sep/10/sense-of-a-scene-vijayakanths-chinna-gounder-was-not-meant-to-romanticise-caste-14203.html
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Voldemort
March 18, 2023
Great episode! Got reminded of a similar FC flashback video that you made for the film which was just as amazing! Please continue making such videos about older/forgotten/underrated films.
On a related note, there was another great FC piece comparing Michael Corleone to Sakti Thevar.
https://www.filmcompanion.in/features/understanding-the-climax-of-thevar-magan-and-why-michael-corleone-and-sakthivel-thevar-are-very-different-people
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Caesium
March 18, 2023
How do you choose your topics for Spotify? You keep us guessing..
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sai16vicky
March 18, 2023
Is that Mahesh Narayanan who made the Nayagan-esque ‘Malik’?
One thing I love about ‘Thevar Magan’ is how effectively it deals with a certain kind of existential crisis. The father, the son and maybe even his progeny will all face a similar inevitable fate. ‘Mahanadhi’ does something similar but is a bit more kinder on the protagonist and his family. ‘Kurudhipunal’ does something similar in a broader societal sense. That Kamal phase was really something!
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Filistine
March 19, 2023
I think somewhere around Aboorva Sagotharargal, Kamal started taking greater control of the screenplays of his films. I think this was around the time he did a screenplay writing course in the US. And the results showed up in the films he made in the 1990s, culminating in probably his most complex screenplay – Hey Ram.
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hari prasad
March 19, 2023
Edhu Gandhi ah Godse pottu thalluna kadhai la oru what if scenario va add pannadhu complex screenplay va?
Jokes apart , I really liked the fact that the movie ( Hey Ram) didn’t explain how Kamal within one conversation with Atul Kulkarni became a Sanghi and how he married the Vasundhara Das character despite the fact that he still didn’t move on from the brutal death of Rani Mukherji in Calcutta.
If it was some other movie , this would have been called out as a major blunder but Kamal made it work miraculously.
Maybe Kamal was trying to show Saket Ram as a person who can get easily manipulated.
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Karthik
March 19, 2023
This was such a good episode. When you’re deep diving into movies in this format, it’s really great to listen to, and I wish it were longer.
I think the time’s ripe for a sequel to Thevar Magan. In fact I think Hollywood’s already beaten us to it, with a gender swapped version which earned close to a billion dollars. This one opens with the untimely death of the Sakthivel character. Then there’s a constant tension between his sister and mother— the matriarch chieftain. Like Sakthi, the sister also sides with technology more than tradition. Like Thevar magan, there’s a big flood at the halfway point. The matriarch dies. The daughter becomes the new chief. She ends up turning into a barbarian (wearing an animal suit no less). The transformation even has a neat “vedhai naan pottathu” twist where she plants an actual seed that ensures the future of her clan. The bigger twist is what happens to the equivalent of the Nassar character in the end which is almost identical to the Thevar Magan climax but just not quite.
If they release a Tamil dubbed version, I hope they call it T’chaka Magal, although the title may not have the chanting power of Wakanda Forever.
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Srinivas R
March 20, 2023
The reason for the success of rural Masala/ realistic movies is because it is seen as a celebration of their way of living. We might look at Thevarmagan & think that it’s a comment on a flawed feudal system. What the target audience sees is a celebration of caste pride (the potri paadadi penne song is till date used to taunt oppressed caste). Even if you take Kaadhal, We may see the chittappa character as a villain and the brutality at the end as a depiction of caste pride
. For a lot of audience, the brutality at the end is a vindication of their caste violence, they identify with the chittappa in Kaadhal rather than the battered young couple.
I also felt the announce of sequel for Thevarmagan very cynical, given that it coincided with Kamal’s entry into politics. Seemed he is trying to cash in on caste votes with that announcement.
Thevarmagan is right up there with Kamal’s best work but it also feeds the caste pride of a certain target audience.
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MANK
March 20, 2023
The reason for the success of rural Masala/ realistic movies is because it is seen as a celebration of their way of living.
It’s true. As someone said, a film’s success is mainly due to audiences misunderstanding its intentions. Scorsese, by making his protagonist a terrifying psycho, intended “Taxi Driver” to be a polemic on vigilantism and vigilante films, but the reason why audiences took to it is they considered it as a vigilante revengematic (in Tarantino’s words) in the vein of “Death Wish.” In both TM and Virumaandi, Kamal is using the rural film template to pretty much criticize most of the stuff about rural life and rural masala cinema that the Vijayakant\Saratkumar\Napolean films celebrate; the extreme violence portrayed in these films being used to show its futility , but the mass audience considers and appreciate these Kamal’s films in the same vein as those films. of course, The discerning viewer appreciates the films for what it is. That way Kamal gets a large audience for his ‘experimental’ films and they become hits- unlike a Hey Ram or Anbe Sivam.
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musical v
March 20, 2023
Thus a film can become a two message story. One can take either of the message. But they become hits for the wrong reasons. That is worrying.
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Bala
March 20, 2023
You used the word ‘privileged’, i think ‘entitled’ would be apt. I have seen a few characters in real life like the first half kamal, mostly from Telugu states. In fact, the surname ‘Raju’ is called out in the movie as well. The first half of the movie perfectly captures the arrogance, entitlement and pride of some sections of these communities. Arjun Reddy character in a way is an extension of this kamal character.
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Macaulay Perapulla
March 20, 2023
This thread reminded me of Mari Selavaraj and the open letter he had written to Kamal. From a caustic letter Mari Selvaraj wrote to Kamal Hassan on Devar Magan:
“பெரியாரின் கொள்கையை கடைபிடிப்பவர் என்றெல்லாம் சொல்லிகொள்ளும் நீங்கள் பல பிரிவு மக்கள் பல அடுக்கு சாதி கூறுகளுடன் வாழும் நம் நாட்டில் ஒரு சாதி மக்களின் வாழ்க்கை முறையை , அவங்க அரிவாள் பிடித்த முறையை ,அவர்கள் அரிசனனுக்கு சந்தோசமாய் கூழ் ஊத்திய முறையை , மீசை முறுக்கி வளர்த்த முறையை , சாராயம் குடித்த முறையை , சக மனிதனின் சங்கறுத்த முறையை காட்டுகிறேன் என்று “தேவர் மகன் “என்ற தலைபோடு ஒரு திரைப்படம் எடுத்தது ஏன்?
ஒரு பிரிவு மக்களின் வன்முறையை ஆதிக்கத்தை அவர்களின் அறியாமையை காட்டி அவர்களை உசுப்பேத்திவிடவா இல்லை அவர்களின் சாதிய வேல்கம்புகளுக்கு கூர் தீட்டிவிடவா?
• அல்லது எப்போதும்போல மீசை முறுக்க ஆசைபட்டு பணம் சம்பாதிக்கவா
அது எப்படி “போற்றிப் பாடடி பெண்ணே தேவர் காலடி மண்ணே” இதன் விளைவையும் வலியையும் இன்றுவரை நீங்கள் உணர்ந்ததுண்டா…சொல்கிறேன் கேளுங்கள் ஒருவேளை நீங்கள் அசட்டுபோதையில் இருந்தாலும் குறித்து வைத்துக்கொள்ளுங்கள் …
• ஆறாம் வகுப்பு மாணவர்கள் கூட பள்ளிகளில் அடித்துக்கொண்டார்கள்,
• திருமண சடங்கு விசேச வீடுகளில் ஏன் கோவில்களில் கூட உங்களின் முற்போக்கு பாடல் ஒலித்து கிராமங்களின் ஒற்றுமையை ஆடவைத்தது.
• வெள்ளரிக்காய் விற்கும் வயதான மூதாட்டிக்கூட வலுகட்டாயமாக பாட வைக்கபட்டாள்.
• எங்களுக்கெதிரான உற்சாகத்துடன் மீசைகள் முறுக்கபட்டன
• வேட்டிகள் மடித்து அதிகார ஆணவத்தோடு கட்டபட்டன மூன்று மணி நேரம் நீங்கள் மீசை முறுக்கி அரிவாள் தூக்கி கொலைகளையும் செய்து கடைசி மூன்று நிமிடத்தில் “ டேய் அரிவாள்களை கீழ போடுங்கடா” என்று சொன்னது நீங்கள் விரும்பியதை போலவே யாருடைய காதிலும் விழவில்லை போலும் இத்தனைக்கும் பிறகும் எதிர்வினை புரியாமல் இருக்க நாங்கள் என்ன எருமை மாடுகளா….”
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Jay S
March 28, 2023
I loved this episode. It is amazing that you had a fresh approach to it even after dissecting it in other mediums and at other times. I was only 12 when I saw the movie. The impact it made on me was huge.
Like you mentioned, the fact that the villain dies in the climax and yet it was not a ‘subham’ ending was mind-blowing. What better statement against violence and the value of life(even of the villain’s) can there be!
Also I enjoyed your calling out Kamal ‘s tone in the temple utsavam discussion. ‘Naa vittu kuduthudraen’ is from a place of a conciliatory ego, not from a place of love and peace. I recently noticed this very clearly. Similarly there was no need for Shivaji to start his Panchayat talk with what his brother had done in the past (how the brother had tried killing him etc). It is only natural that Nasser is riled up.
And yet…. There is a point of view. You can happily watch the movie with the ‘Shivaji and Kamal are heroes and hence better’ perspective. That’s the mass magic of it. When you grow up in terms is movie watching, there is more waiting for you.
I was not particularly aware of the caste stuff in the movie probably because I was not looking for it/ I was a Chennai-ite/ both the protagonist and antagonist were rooted in 1 caste – so it just went with the setting of the world ( where violence is a way of life), not as a statement on the caste.
However my favorite portion of the movie is act-2. From the time in the mandapam just before his wedding with Revathi to the time he bids his final farewell to Gautami. First, it is the only portion that is not male dominated and macho. It is also tuned inwards which is always very interesting and rarer in the medium. Kamal carries the tension of his situation in his posture, his gait, his speech – in every cell of his body consistently in every shot. Most importantly, he ‘is a man, my son’. (The man Kipling talks about in If poem). The decisions he takes are hard for him. To be right is hard especially after you have been wrong. Rightaa… Rightu.
Brilliant work – both him and you for critiquing it 359 degrees. There will be always be a degree more to be unearthed.
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Jay S
March 28, 2023
Your discussion of privilege in the context of the movie is brilliant and fresh!
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y
March 29, 2023
Why did kamal do so many films with sad endings…thervarmagan, mahanadhi, hey ram, sadma, virumandi, anbe sivam, nayakan, guna ..while the rest in tamil industry were all doing happy colorful films. Malayalam films did that in the earlier decades.. Depressing movies with such sad endings that makes one wants to give up on life.
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Madan
March 29, 2023
But it wasn’t just Kamal unless you’re only talking 90s. 80s Tamil cinema was replete with tear jerkers starring either Mike Mohan or Prabhu. Payanangal Mudivathilai, Idhaya Kovil, Kanni Rasi, Manasukkul Mathappu, Anand come to mind. Mani’s own Idhayathai Thirudathe (IIRC) and Anjali were tragedies too. Idhayam was another, which added premature heart attack genre to the cancer movie genre.
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