Papanasam

 

Watched this tamil movie yesterday, Papanasam. It's a name of a town, if you are wondering. Was it good? Yes. Was it perfect? No. Did I enjoy it? Definitely. Set in a rural area, with thick local dialects, is a story about a family trying to live their lives to the very best they can. The story starts of with all smiles and laughter, but it all goes down slope since the eldest daughter went for a school camp. There was another guy in the camp - notorious, son of an Inspector General - who captured nude clips of Kamal's eldest daughter while she was showering. Of course she didn't know she was being filmed while showering. Well, nudes in Tamil movies aren't really nudes, but I'll let that go for now. 

He then looks for her in this small town (Papanasam), and tries to blackmail her. What he demanded was her consent for sex, otherwise he will broadcast the video clip he recorded. Apparently some places in the world, when a video like that gets broadcasted, its the person in the video that gets blamed, not the horny dude. Anyways, he repeatedly told her not to let anyone know about their rendezvous. However, when he arrived, he was shocked to find the girl's mother there trying to protect her  daughter. He was pissed off, and wanted to leave, to go broadcast the video perhaps. After the mom begging him several times to not do so, he offers to delete the video if the girl's mom is willing to have sex with him instead. Amazing huh? hahaha! Anyway, possessed by ihavenoideawhat spirit, the daughter picks up a metal bar, swings it to hit the head of the guy (his name suddenly popped in my head, Varun). Varun apparently dies. I am definitely not going to correlate any of this to my medical knowledge. Otherwise, I can't enjoy this movie anymore.

Almost instinctively, they take his body and bury it in the land outside. When Kamal comes home the next day, he is brought up to speed with what happened. Now comes the decision making. To confess or not to confess? However, loaded with knowledge from movies - crime thrillers, murder mysteries, suicides - Kamal thoroughly plans their alibi. First off, he disposes the car Varun came with. At this very point, he is seen driving a yellow Maruti (a car brand) by a policeman that doesn't particularly like him very much. He drowns the car, and along the way to the quaryy he buys lunch, bus tickets, movie tickets (all for four people) - so that when the police comes to interogate later, he will have an alibi saying that he and his family (total of 4) were out of town during the disappearance of Varun. 

Eventually, Varun's family finds out about his car drowned in a quarry and his disappearance. Everything was working according to Kamal's plans, until the police force realized that everything is too perfect, and they have an inclination that it is all somehow planned. Kamal actually goes to all those places that he went on that day of car disposal, with his family, but only a couple of days later. He then creates a lasting impression on as many people as possible - the person in the Briyani shop, cinema, bus driver and so forth. He implanted in their minds that he and his family was there just a couple of days ago. Therefore, everybody was testifying for him that they entire family was there on August 2nd - the day Varun went missing. However, the truth is - none of them actually saw the family on that very day. They are just repeating the fact that Kamal told them they were there on the Aug 2nd. 

Itching to find out the truth, Kamal's family is brutally tortured. Varun's mother being the Inspector General does not help the situation. At the nick of time, Varun's friend Alex, confesses about the video recording incident. Also, Kamal's youngest daughter blabbered out the location of the burial of the body. The police force then rushed to Kamal's house, digging deep into the location the girl had told them, only to find a dead corpse of an animal - a four legged animal. Immediately, Kamal runs to the press, pouring out his frustration that he and his family have been tortured and that no real body (of Varun) was found at their house. The illegal torturous investigation, coupled by the media trumpeting the fact that the police is abusing the general public although no true evidence was found, worked towards the benefit of Kamal and his family. Eventually, some officers were sacked, and the Inspector General left the town. 

Then came the most disappointing scene of the movie. The part where Varun's parents had a talk with Kamal alone. The fact that Kamal indicated that Varun did in fact, come into their lives and try to ruin in - just dropped the standard of the movie right down by 50% for me. If he stuck with it till the end, it would have been worth it. Anyway, the parents now understood that their son was irredeemable and was most probably dead, they just walked away, not using his half-confession against him. Although he was never caught, the some sort of a half-confession come apology, just made it a typical Tamil movie, just crowd pleasing and I felt it was almost Kamal just showing off his acting skills that he was able to pull off a really good crying face. He was tough throughout, the last confession was pointless. It's so typical of Tamil movies trying to justify the hero's actions, making him look good. However, thank god he wasn't caught by the police until the end. At least they could give me that. The location of Varun's body, I shall leave it out this post - for you to go watch the movie and find out. 

I guess what they were trying to say in this movie is, sometimes, it only takes a small stone to create big ripples. Some people are preys, some people predators. Although preys never have asked to be preyed on. Its just how the animal kingdom works. Some people manipulate others to their maximum benefit, and these people won't stop, until they actually stop breathing. I'm not saying that you should swing a metal bar on every head that tries to make your life miserable. This movie also portrays the difficulty of building a family. Repeatedly in the script, Kamal was saying that it took sweat and blood building this family, almost like building a kingdom of your own. Telling the truth doesn't always benefit you in the case of the policeman who did, but eventually got sacked. Telling lies, provided you are highly intelligent can set you free. Judging by recent happenings of cam recorded thieves being set free, I'd say that tactical lying can in fact get you off the hook. Anyway, I really enjoyed this movie. The plot was interesting and fast moving although it was a long movie. I didn't feel the time passing at all. Would I recommend this movie? Yes, definitely. Till next time! :)