How Vetrimaran writes Suspense | Vadachennai | Video Essay Script
Hi, my name is Kishor and this is MOVING IMAGES. In five minutes, I’m going to reveal something big, so just keep that in mind.
Okay, Vadachennai, Vetrimaran, you read the title, let’s go. One of the remarkable things about Vetrimaran is he has always seemed to be in total control of his craft starting from his first film. Vadachennai is his fourth directorial venture and his decision to make it a multipart epic feel fitting. And the film is epic indeed, with its numerous characters whose names I still don’t remember because there are so many, its prophecies about the main lead, and of course, revenge, and eventually war. But what interests me the most, and hence the topic of today’s video, is how Vetrimaran builds suspense, and we are going to examine the jail carrom tournament scene to understand his craft.
Senthil, an ex-gangster with political aspirations is being targeted by Guna, Velu and their gang. Senthil never steps out of his block fearing his life. Anbu requests Senthil to organize a carrom tournament for the prisoners, which will also help Senthil to make peace with the strict Jail Chief and also promote his political aspirations. The tournament is conducted throughout the Jail. Senthil and Anbu proceed to the knock-out quarter-finals. The final 3 rounds of the tournament are held in the common prison courtyard, which implies that Senthil must come out. As Velu plans to finish Senthil off during the tournament, Senthil too is alerted about the plan for his assassination, in spite of which he gets ready to play in the finals. Senthil is about to step out of his block to play when this happens… and he is unable to play. Now, I’ve to stop here and talk about suspense. Actually, why not I let the Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, explain the difference between shock and suspense in his “Bomb Theory”.
“You and I sit and talk, we’ll say, ‘bout baseball…We’re talking for five minutes. Suddenly, a bomb goes off. The audience have a ten-second, terrible shock. Now, let’s take the same situation, tell the audience at the beginning, that under the table and show it to them, there’s a bomb, and it’s gonna go off in five minutes. And we talk baseball. What are the audience doing? As in: don’t talk about baseball, there’s a bomb under there! Get rid of it! But they’re helpless, they can’t jump out of their seats, up onto the screen.”
That was over five minutes of suspense in another scene from Vadachennai. It is not hard to see how Vetrimaran has learned from Hitchcock on how to build suspense. The difference between the scene from Mudhalvan and Vadachennai is that the audience is given information from the beginning and this involves them in the story. They are invested throughout and the director can take them on a roller-coaster ride by building anticipation. Vetrimaran understands this completely and takes it a step beyond with the carrom tournament scene.
The whole scene starts by letting the audience know that there is a bomb or rather a plot to kill Senthil. But Vetrimaran layers it further by showing us that Senthil too is aware of it. Now the audience and the characters all know the same information and are on the same plane. It is anyone’s guess as to what will happen next and this puts the audience in the scene with the other characters. Total investment. Our eyes are glued to the screen and our ears are focused on what is happening. And what do we hear when we see Senthil finally leave his block to enter the tournament?…
Once the bomb starts ticking, there are two things at play here. One is the shift from the carrom match to how Guna and his men surround Senthil. All we see are closeups of Senthil that gets tighter and tighter showing his perspective only to break away now and then to show the perspective of the gangsters surrounding him. The second is the sparse dialogues, keeping the focus entirely on Senthil and the kill. The background score too keeps escalating and everything reaches a crescendo when the bomb finally goes off. That’s how you do the Bomb Theory!! Until next time, this is Kishor signing off revealing…
