Vivesini: The 'She' Enquirer

As a film, Vivesini is remarkable for having no villain or dark embodiment of evil to lure unsuspecting victims. No diabolical hypnotist puts the characters through a psychotic, mind-numbing, illusory and chaotic trance.

By Ajith Pillai in Chennai

Is seeing believing, or can our eyes deceive us? Can superstition and faith shape how we interpret what we see and even what we imagine? Does an alternative reality exist?

Are there events that defy explanation, which can only be attributed to supernatural forces, ghosts, spirits, or invisible creatures that inhabit a mysterious dimension?

The core of director Bhavan Rajagopalan’s Tamil film Vivesini (Thinker or Enquirer) explores whether an irrational belief has a hidden rational explanation. If myths can be demystified when viewed through the lens of logical inquiry. And if the supernatural, when subjected to the test of reason, could turn out to be rooted in earthly realities.     

Most filmmakers would have been tempted to adopt a documentary approach in shaping a film exploring rationality. However, Bhavan chooses a different path. He presents a gripping, haunting narrative that keeps the audience, as well as the film's characters, on their toes, eager to uncover the “why and how” of the mysterious occurrences in the Naravangantham forest in the Western Ghats. And when the explanations are revealed at the end of the film, they provide a sense of relief— a calm after a storm of bizarre events.

As a film, Vivesini is remarkable for having no villain or dark embodiment of evil to lure unsuspecting victims. No diabolical hypnotist puts the characters through a psychotic, mind-numbing, illusory and chaotic trance. No extraterrestrial force acts on the minds of those who dare wander in the forest. However, what each character goes through is a haunting, terrifying experience they believe is real.

In other films that explore similar themes, a villainous character fools and exploits people. In Satyajit Ray’s Mahapurush, for example, there is the archetypal godman who fools the gullible with his glib talk and sleight of hand. From the very outset, the audience knows he is a trickster. His victims, unfortunately, don’t. It is left for more rational people to expose the godman.   

Bhavan Rajagopalan.

 At the core of Vivesini is Jayaraman Kathirvelu (played by Nassar), a Chennai-based rationalist known for demystifying and debunking myths and superstitions associated with forests.  His latest mission is to accompany a team of unsuspecting trekkers through the Naravangantham jungle to prove there is no truth in the belief that women of reproductive age would come to harm if they dared to venture into the forest. Jayaraman includes a young woman among the trekkers to prove his point.

However, he cannot go on the trek due to a foot infection, so he sends his daughter, Shakti (brilliantly portrayed by newcomer Kavya), in his place. The trekkers set out through the thickly wooded forest, discussing the myths and eerie stories about it, till they come across a bird’s nest with chicks fallen to the ground. In an act of mercy, one of the trekkers drives a tent hook into the tree trunk, while another uses it as a step to replace the nest in a hollow ten feet above.

A little later, all five of them experience a strange sense of disorientation. They feel as though they have been suddenly sucked into a surreal dimension where distorted, twisted images from their past flash before them, often inducing paranoia. Mysterious apparitions seem to chase them, and they see colours and shapes that fade in and fade out.

When they wake up in the morning, they are completely distraught and shaken, as if they have just come out of a bad ‘LSD trip’. None of the trekkers, including Shakti the sceptic, can find a rational explanation for what happened the night before.

Not surprisingly, their immediate priority is to get out of the forest. But they end up going around in circles and lose their way, even as dusk sets in. The night is equally traumatic after they light a fire in a clearing and try to catch some sleep. The hallucinations start all over again. Shakti even encounters the vision of her deceased mother, who died twenty years ago in a police firing.

When the trekkers are finally rescued by guides and scramble back to civilization, they can’t come to terms with their experience. Shakti tells her father she has seen her mother, who she believes is alive and hiding in the forest.

Jayaraman is hard-pressed to explain to his daughter that his wife was killed in police firing, and her body, along with that of seven others, was burnt in the forest. But he adds that if Shakti did see her mother, then she must go back and probe further. This remains his plea, even as he lies on his deathbed in hospital following a nasty fall at home.

Heeding her father’s words, Shakti returns to the forest with an old friend from the earlier trek, and Alice Walker, a rationalist from London. The trio stops at a clearing when suddenly all three are seized by hallucinations. Alice sees phantoms from her childhood, which takes her back to a time when she came close to a coven of witches.

The other two see images from their childhood haunting them yet again. It is a nerve-wracking experience.

When the three get back, they carefully review the strange things they witnessed and find some common threads. All of them had revisited some trauma from their childhood. What was there in the forest that induced the hallucinations? The mystery is finally solved with the help of a botanist from New York.  

It was all tied up with what happened in the forest 20 years ago. An ashram, which had come up in its vicinity, had encroached upon tribal forest land with the help of the government. The tribals protested, with environmental and rights activists supporting them. When the police opened fire on the slogan-shouting crowd gathered outside the ashram gates, some protestors were killed, including Shakti’s mother, Clara.

The ashram later cleared the forest land by felling 12,000 trees. Therein lay a deep-rooted mystery, revealed to the audience at the very end of the film.

Director Bhavan deserves credit for creating a film that instructs as well as it entertains. The special effects are effectively used to portray the sequences in which the characters experience psychosis in the jungle. The visions seen by a mind in an altered state of consciousness are depicted with vivid colour, distortion, and intensity, earning Vivesini the tag of a horror film.

However, it is not the horror that lingers in the viewer’s mind. Instead, it is the realisation that every superstition and myth, no matter how convincing they may appear based on personal testimonies, should be closely examined rather than accepted in blind faith.

As a film, Vivesini challenges its audience to think critically—something that cannot be said for many films these days.

Vivesini, with English subtitles, is currently available on Aha, the OTT platform showcasing Tamil and Telugu films. However, Bhavan wants his film to reach a wider audience and has been screening it at educational institutions in Chennai.         

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A seasoned journalist working in the profession for 40 years, Ajith Pillai has reported out of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Andhra Pradesh and Kashmir on a broad spectrum of events related to politics, crime, conflict and social change. He has worked with leading publications, including The Sunday Observer, Indian Post, Pioneer, The Week and India Today, where he headed the Chennai bureau. He was part of the team under Editor Vinod Mehta that launched Outlook magazine and headed its current affairs section till 2012. Under his watch, Outlook broke several stories that attracted national attention and questioned the government of the day. He has written two books—’Off the Record: Untold Stories from a Reporter’s Diary,’ and a novel, ’Junkland Journeys’. He is currently working on ’Obedient Editor’, a satirical novel on the life and times of a ‘compromised’ journalist.