Vaazhai Review | A Well-Crafted Tale That Depicts the Depth of a Tragedy From a Different Point of View

Vaazhai from Mari Selvaraj is a story that is based on something that really happened in the director’s life, and at the end of the film, we get to see photos of newspaper articles of the main event that took the lives of 20 people. What is cinematically compelling about  Vaazhai is how Mari Selvaraj uses the visual craft to make the experience extremely heartfelt for the viewer. It was a story that could have been told in a very linear documenting format. But by making us look at the whole thing from the innocent eyes of a young boy, Mari Selvaraj succeeds in depicting the socio-political layers of that in the most impactful way.

Sivanaindhan and Sekar are two friends who belong to poor families. Sivanaindhan was excellent in his studies, but still, the financial situation of the family made him do the banana harvesting during the weekends. He hated that job since it impacted his health, and he always tried to find excuses not to go. What we see in Vaazhai is his life and his people’s struggle.

SPOILERS AHEAD! If you look at the way Mari Selvaraj has structured the screenplay, the ending of the first half and the end of the film have a similar arch. In the first half, Sivanaindhan decides to bunk the harvesting and goes with his teacher to the rice mill, eventually resulting in the missing of his cow and the humiliation of his family. In the second half, the same thing repeats in the form of a dance practice he attends after skipping the work. In both cases, we see how a boy who shouldn’t have been forced to do labor ends up feeling guilty for following what made him happy. Even though the movie is about a tragic incident that took the lives of a lot of people, this gaze of the whole thing through the perspective of this young boy gives us an idea of the trauma social injustice can inflict on someone.

The most heart-wrenching and cinematically excellent bit in the film was the drama in the climax, where the boy just can’t feel the pain of losing his beloved people because he is far too hungry. Mari Selvaraj is not trying to make any statement through the dialogues in that entire sequence. Theni Eeswar’s camera just follows the boy, and the POV shots give us an idea of how starved he is. And when his mother finds him eating amid an unthinkable tragedy, it just puts you in a numb space. The whole world-building we saw till that point, which includes Sivanaindhan’s crush on his teacher, makes us empathize with him strongly. Santhosh Narayanan’s music is terrific, and it enhances the rooted nature of the story.

Ponvel M has played the part of Sivanaindhan, and the boy is simply brilliant in the climax portions. The way he pulls off that whole sequence where Sivanaindhan is shuttling between hunger and sadness was just brilliant. Rahul R. as Sekar is also pretty effective, and the duo’s chemistry paves the way for many hilarious moments in the film. Nikhila Vimal plays the role of Sivanaindhan’s favorite teacher, and she has that friendly charm in that zero makeup look and dialogue delivery also had a nice flow. Kalaiyarasan, as Kani, is that quintessential character who dares to question injustice.  Karnan Janaki and Dhivya Duraisamy are also quite memorable in their characters.

The biggest takeaway as a cinephile is witnessing how Mari Selvaraj plays with cinematic tools to intensify the impact of the final emotion. In a way, one can interpret that the price Sivanaindhan had to pay to have the most basic level of happiness was extremely high. With metaphorical visual storytelling keeping us completely engrossed,  Vaazhai is a film that is cinematically and politically solid.