A Pa Ranjith Film

Why Pa is a great film maker?

As a literature and social science student, films make me watch a film from various angles. My husband was impatient with the length of the film but having watched Pa Ranjith’s previous films, I had to slow down. We watch a film by subtitles. Husband reads faster but I am a slow reader.

I feel Pa Ranjith is a superb visualizer, editor, playwright, and ofcourse a perfectionist. He knows how much one character should speak and he cuts before you lose interest. Good editing is that where you have a proper sense of measurement.

The dialogues are real in his films. Though I belong to a different region, I can relate with the dialogues in his films. A very realistic and bold representation of social issues. South and north both have backwards castes responsible for honour killing.

Backward castes are happy with the Brahmin Iyer Bahu but they are up in their violent feudal colour when it comes to SCs and he did not mince words when it came to fights within scheduled castes.

The drum and the folk song are integral part of our skilled communities (plouging, tanning, masonry, midwifery, weaving, sowing, cleaning and name it all, we do it.)

And it is a fact that dalit women have marched ahead. Their openness, their kindness, their questions, anger, arguments flood the net. They have carved out their space. On one side, landholding castes are still trying to have a dialogue within their households and their men are trying to find out ways of communication for change. On the other side Dalits, transgenders are vocal about their views be it love or politics. Spelling out Ambedkarite as a woman, loving organically, hitting back for being violated reconciling with the wrong doer and making space for change.

Most interesting dialogue was if you involve yourself in those debates of purity of art etc. you are stuck. Yes guys, learn to embrace the new, the different, and make small changes and enjoy the beauty of shooting stars

Finally I loved another dialogue, “how backward you are ra.” That’s how we talk and I do apply it on superstitious folks.

Which film treated a cat out of the box?

Cat in the bag and that’s caste! But who will bring it out? Yes, Pa Ranjith does it. Watch Natchathiram Nagargirathu. Caste in upper class and middle-class circles is like “Caste does not exist”. Now Pa Ranjit brings it out and we saw the treatment. Show it to you children, relatives and dunderheads who keep talking crap in academic circles. Who can handle it better than Pa? “Beef fry. Transgender. Gay. Hatred in the belly. Dalit women”.

The significance of Rene

In Pa Ranjith’s recent film Natchatiram Nagargirathu, the girl calls herself Rene. Note, she reads a lot. Now who is Rene. I used to know Rene Descartes. Now why did Pa choose Rene:

Probably because of this: The Aristotelian philosophy of Descartes’ days held that the universe was inherently purposeful or teleological. Everything that happened, be it the motion of the stars or the growth of a tree, was supposedly explainable by a certain purpose, goal or end that worked its way out within nature. Aristotle called this the “final cause,” and these final causes were indispensable for explaining the ways nature operated. Descartes’ theory of dualism supports the distinction between traditional Aristotelian science and the new science of Kepler and Galileo, which denied the role of a divine power and “final causes” in its attempts to explain nature. Descartes’ dualism provided the philosophical rationale for the latter by expelling the final cause from the physical universe (or res extensa) in favor of the mind (or res cogitans). Therefore, while Cartesian dualism paved the way for modern physics, it also held the door open for religious beliefs about the immortality of the soul.

SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA

Then who is Rene Magritte?

René François Ghislain Magritte was a Belgian surrealist artist, who became well known for creating a number of witty and thought-provoking images. Often depicting ordinary objects in an unusual context, his work is known for challenging observers’ preconditioned perceptions of reality. Knowledge for Progress.