Scent of wild jasmine, mingled, with the dust of oppression

Vidhuthalai becomes a meditation on systemic oppression, manufactured dissent, and the insidious machinery of State violence. Viduthalai Part 1 is not just a film—it’s a political document, a visual symphony, and a philosophical challenge.

By R Kalpana

Viduthalai Part 1 – Freedom: I didn’t watch the Tamil film, Viduthalai, when the initial wave of exceptional reviews hit the media, but having seen it now, I can only say: when a film of this cinematic magnitude is made, it’s disheartening that other, often less courageous films, get all the acclaim, national and international. From the opening frame—the visceral train-bombing— director Vetrimaaran grips us with a master-class in immersive storytelling, using a screenplay so taut and economical, it’s impossible to look away.

What spell did the filmmaker cast on Soori? As Kumaresan, the naive and earnest police recruit, Soori delivers a performance of disarming authenticity—so grounded, so emotionally transparent, that you forget he is performing at all. His embodiment of a man caught between obedience and conscience is the emotional core of the film. His internal conflict and dilemmas, captured poignantly in the letters to his mother, becomes the viewer’s own moral mirror.

The entire ensemble—Chetan, Gautham Vasudev Menon, and, of course, Vijay Sethupathi in a powerful cameo—are pitch-perfect. Each character is sculpted not just through performance, but by the craft of the director, that allows every moment to resonate. Vetrimaaran seems have heard, felt, and seen the entire script in his inner world. It’s auteur filmmaking at its most potent.

Kumaresan’s arc is a study in disillusionment. He joins the police force believing in the institution's nobility, only to be devastated by its brutal machinery. His is the classic tragic hero’s journey, not because he falls, but because he wakes up—to the system’s rot, to the people's suffering, and to the terrible ambiguity of justice in a conflict where both the State, and the rebels, blur the line between the protector and the perpetrator.

The film’s mise-en-scène is raw, unvarnished, and unrelenting. The violence is not stylized—it’s confrontational, almost documentary-like. Yet, in the midst of this savagery, Vetrimaaran introduces a lyrical undercurrent through the tender romance between Kumaresan and Thamizharasi (Bhavani Sre).

Their shared moments—framed in the backdrop of lush, almost Wordsworthian visual poetry—are bathed in sunlight and shadow, in longing and silence. The scene where Kumaresan eats from the traditional thooku vessel by the stream, while Kaatthu Malli plays, is a brilliant example of how form and feeling can converge—cinematic technique becomes inseparable from emotional texture.

Cinematographer R Velraj's lens finds emotional topography in the landscape—dusty trails, rustling leaves, fading light—and stitches them seamlessly with the characters’ emotional worlds. These visuals reminded me of the quiet intensity in the film, All We Imagine As Light, where the environment is not a backdrop, but a character in its own right.

Great musician Ilaiyaraaja’s music doesn’t merely accompany scenes—it breathes through them. His romantic interludes, especially the forest melodies, evoke the scent of wild jasmine mingled with the dust of oppression. Even the most unromantic viewers might find themselves yearning to walk that terrain, hand-in-hand, with a beloved.

Vetrimaaran doesn’t offer easy answers, especially not in Part 1. The director forces us to watch, with the discomfort. The film asks: what happens when the oppressed, crushed by State power, finds that even the rebellion echoes violence back?

Who do they turn to when both sides hold guns? How can a State address its people’s acute economic and social scarcities, its intense sense of injustice, while preserving their dignity and cultural identity?

Drawing from real-life socio-political events—most notably the Sterlite struggle, and the cold-blooded killings of protesters in Thootukudi (May, 2023) in Tamil Nadu —the film becomes a meditation on systemic oppression, manufactured dissent, and the insidious machinery of State violence. The local becomes political, and the political becomes painfully personal.

Viduthalai Part 1 is not just a film—it’s a political document, a visual symphony, and a philosophical challenge. It deserves to be screened widely, not just in India but across international platforms, as we attempt to unpack the tangled roots of State-sponsored violence and the haunted silence of the oppressed.

TEST: The Netflix Tamil release does not put you to rest because when it started there was no zest and it really was a test. However, astonishingly, it picks up pace and it seems it would gradually compete with ‘the best’. You need to wait for everything, but towards the end it is worth the wait.

The newly arrived filmmaker, Sashikanth, after scripting a fine plot and finding a fine cast, still found it difficult to set the ground rules. What captured my attention were the dilemmas of the common man and woman, and successful people in general.

I loved the repeated flash about the popularity of a cricketer, and the struggle of a researcher in this world, and, especially, in countries like India, where cricketers are revered even more than Thirupathi Balaji.

For instance, the struggle of a tech wizard vis-a-vis the popularity of the cricket heroes. The rivalry of two countries in cricket becomes the central point around which the plot is well-woven, and full credit to the director who does not hurry but waits for the warmth to become hot -- with the narrative of the wolf and the angel souls residing in all of us; how under crisis we feel more like a wolf, rather than an angel.

It sometimes works and it sometimes fails. There are no formulas.

For Madhavan, after one thriller with Ajay Devgan, this is a sequel, and he has mastered the skill of justifying the wolf inside us rising with rage when we are pushed to extremes. Nayantara, once again, is a revelation with her sublime and subtle portrayal of a simple teacher and wife whose only ambition is to become a mother; and that this is indeed worth it! Some scenes are telling, especially when she asks him the type-casted question, “Are you a man”?

The director is intelligent to pick up this clichéd dialogue and extends it to the mindset of even an intellectual who gets offended by that. “Life is fucking unreasonable,” is yet another one, and the characters resound this with all its elements.

My disappointment was with Siddharth because being a passionate cricketer, there was no intense passion or emotion in any scene, even when it had to be about his son, his wife, and his cricket. He is emotionless and I would attribute the dullness of the film to his dull depiction.

Indeed, a strong take on human paradoxes and ethical dilemmas, this film is a tough one for a debut filmmaker to handle, especially with a complicated plot of this sort.

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R Kalpana is a film buff and educator based in Bangalore.