Perhaps one might think of other films with more gore, more "action", but one would be hard-pressed to think of a Hindi or Tamil film where violence leaves a greater impact, not just in the by-now (in)famous conclusion (which I find forced, and an unsatisfactory resolution) but over the entire course of the film, most memorably when Paruthiveeran's lover (and the daughter of a feuding relative) Muthalagu (Priyamani) is viciously punched and slapped by her father for her romantic interest in his kinsman and enemy. The opening of Paruthiveeran is symptomatic of the rest of the film, and of Ameer's ability to take the cinematic familiar and imbue it with enough of the strange, both by way of Raja Mohammad's editing and the unsettling violence that is the very ground of this script, the very air its characters breathe.
The former lunges, but we don't see the actual stabbing, courtesy of a marvelous cut that reveals a coconut split open. Sevvazhai re-appears, and the prey is in our sights, sandwiched between the white of Paruthiveeran and the black of Sevvazhai. We feel Paruthiveeran's anger and humiliation, and a split second later realize we've been had: while Paruthiveeran was carrying no weapon, the same cannot be said for his boy companion, who pulls out a long knife and hands it to the older figure. One would be wrong: director/writer Ameer Sultan begins Paruthiveeran with a festival scene that does not focus on a teeming whole, or glimpses thereof, so much as upon solitary fragments: the bustling fair seems paradoxically desolate as cinematographer Ramji's camera restlessly moves past the crowd, apparently uninterested in the revelers as it focuses, sporadically on black-clad Sevvazhai (Saravanan) hovering at the margins and apparently on the lookout for someone repeatedly on a stageshow in progress, the singer's mournful voice suffusing the screen with a curious melange of high spirits and lament and finally on white-clad Paruthiveeran (Karthi), who appears to be an innocent man harrassed by the cops and all but strip-searched for weapons.
Even when done well (such as in Saravana, the only redeeming feature of that wretched film), the audience's enjoyment is in part a function of the fact that one knows almost exactly what is going to happen, a cinematic old shoe that - to a masala fan at least - gets more and more comfortable with use. You know the drill: teeming masses of people, heavy percussion, and a brawl just waiting to erupt. One would think there could be no new way to capture the Tamil village festival/fair on celluloid. Screened at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. Best Indian Film, 2007 Cinefan Film Festival, New Delhi.
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