8 Thotakkal | The Philosophy Behind | Video Essay Script | Moving Images
“We must believe in free will, we have no choice.”
- Isaac Bashevis Singer
Hi, my name is Kishor and this is MOVING IMAGES. Here is a question, what makes you invest your interest in a film? For some, it might be the plot or how the film was made, and for others it might be the characters. Characters who are relatable, even in a fantastical setting. Well, what makes a character relatable? It might be what happens to the character and how they react to it. Action-Reaction.
8 Thotakkal embodies this action-reaction concept, or more specifically cause and effect. The film revolves around a police gun that falls into the wrong hands due to a series of events and causes more events that lead to people falling victim to each of the 8 bullets the gun held, hence the name 8 Thotakkal. In the end, we are made to sympathize with Moorthy, who fires each of the 8 bullets. He is a criminal in the eyes of the law but we see him as a victim of circumstances. In the real world, we hold criminals responsible for their actions. This “responsibility” has its foundation in the belief that we all have the free will to choose right from wrong. What if free will is just an illusion, how would that impact the criminal justice system? We learn that Moorthy never had a choice, neither did any of the characters. They did what they had to do because they had no free will. Free will creates the moral structure that provides the foundation for our criminal justice system. Without it, most punishments in place today must be eliminated completely. The film denies it’s characters any free will and throw them inside a deterministic world. That is the philosophy behind 8 Thotakkal; Determinism.
To understand how determinism eliminates free will, let’s look at Professor Patrick Grim’s explanation:
1. “Everything in the universe happens because of earlier events in accordance with causal law.
2. My choices and decisions are events in the universe.
3. They therefore happen as they do because of earlier events — events even before my birth — in accordance with causal law.
4. I therefore have no free choice. I cannot act freely and cannot be held ethically responsible for my actions.” — Patrick Grim, Philosophy of Mind (The Great Courses)
To understand how 8 Thotakkal depicts determinism and questions the role of a justice system inside that world, we should start from the beginning of the story. Our protagonist, Sathya is sent to juvenile jail as a child for a murder he didn’t commit. He is wrongly convicted and from the beginning we have a protagonist who has no faith in the justice system but ends up as a police officer since he had no choice. The past events however make him a reserved and honest cop, which doesn’t go well with his corrupt superior and hence he is made to carry a gun and tail a suspect. He loses the gun and all hell breaks loose. Did Sathya have any choice in this? The events until now and moving forward all stem from the event that happened to him as a child. Hence, the film ends with Sathya confronting the same man who committed the murder and wrongly convicted him as a child, at the end of the film. The entire film is one causal loop.
The events in Sathya’s life makes him cross paths with the rest of the characters in the film. Meera is pushed to a point where she must come up with a sensational story or quit her job as a reporter and hence she selfishly uses Sathya’s story, much to Sathya’s chagrin. Even the two underlings who commit the bank robbery with Moorthy, who has Sathya’s stolen gun, are shown to have no choice but to assist Moorthy with the robbery. And that brings us to Moorthy.
Moorthy is the one character who ties everything that happens in this film and the deliverer of the eponymous 8 bullets. His story is revealed slowly to us, as each of his layers are peeled back. We start by seeing him as the antagonist and later realize that he too is a victim of his circumstances. His life parallels Sathya’s; a honest cop who is wrongly accused for a mistake he didn’t commit and is suspended from his work. He loses his wife to ailments, is resented by his own children, and finally finds out that he has cancer. He laments his life, wishing that things happened differently. He is caught in a deterministic world like the rest of the characters. His well thought out plans backfire on him, his allies betray him, and he never accomplishes his goal.
The cause in the film is the gun getting stolen and the effect is the lives it claims. Interesting thing I noticed was that the lives lost on purpose, die for their sins. The seven deadly sins.
1. Lust : Jai for lust
2. Gluttony : Guna for gluttony
3. Envy : Kathir for envy
4. Greed : The guy who sells the gun to Moorthy for Greed
5. Sloth : The officer who doesn’t sign Moorthy’s check for Sloth
6. Wrath : Pandian for Wrath
And finally
7. Pride : Moorthy, who carried pride over his plan and that caused an innocent life to be lost.
I was skeptical whether this was intended and I discussed this with the Director Sri Ganesh. He said it was not intentional but the movie “Seven” was a major influence on writing Pandian’s character and the deadly sins might have crept in subconsciously.
Harking back to the role of a justice system in a deterministic world, it is evident to see that none of the characters who commit a sin, being brought to justice by the system. Instead, they all face their punishments at the hands of the bullets. Even Sathya, finally comes out of suspension at work by fabricating the events that transpired with Moorthy. The lives, sins, and punishments are all pre-determined. In a deterministic world, there can be a justice system only when we can find the one “responsible”. Even though it was a bullet that killed someone, we hold the one who shot it as responsible. Supposing it is not god and that humans are divided into two sects — one sect controlling the other, then the court should be instantiated among the first sect and justice be done according to the effects happening in the second. Two layers — the world of bullets and the world of shooters.
If determinism is true, there is no free will. If there is no free will, there is no morality, and this eliminates one of the great questions posed by the late (great) Christopher Hitchens; “One of the great questions of philosophy is, do we innately have morality, or do we get it from celestial dictation?” For the determinist, the answer is neither. There are no true morals, because there is no free will.
Until next time, this is Kishor signing off saying…
