Somma | A Virumaandi Analysis | Video Essay Script

There is a reason Virumaandi starts with these color bars. The first frame of the film is showing the flip side of a TV and is preparing its audience for an experience. An experience one is all too familiar with.

Hi, I’m Kishor and welcome to MOVING IMAGES TV. Many films have tried to involve its audience in its story. Some by keeping the audience guessing about the plot and some even by making the characters relatable. But very few have succeeded in making the audience part of the story the way Virumaandi did. In today’s program, we are going to see how Virumaandi was not a film per say but rather the experience of watching TV, how one consumes media through TV, and finally, how the film makes the audience both the witness and the judge for what is happening on the screen. The film begins with Angela, a civil rights activist, interviewing prisoners awaiting the death sentence. She sets her eyes on interviewing two people involved in 24 murders, Kothala Thevar and Virumaandi. What we see next is a Rashomon effect where we have Kothalan’s and Virumaandi’s versions of what led to the murders.

You might wonder what apart from the beginning and the end scenes make this film the experience of watching TV. The film has two characters offering two versions of the same chain of events, like the flip sides of the color bar at the beginning. But we, the audience would have experienced seeing different versions to the same story in our everyday life as we surfed through the channels. Namely, the various political backed channels that offer different perspectives of the same event, with each political party blaming the opposition or putting themselves in a good light. We see this so frequently that we experience the Rashomon effect everyday. Virumaandi uses this effect but to make us the audience something more than mere viewers.

The Audience

The Rashomon effect gets its name from the 1950 Japanese film, Rashomon. I’ve talked more about this in a previous episode about Andha Naal. The plot of Rashomon deals with the murder of a noble Samurai and the court proceeding to find the murderer, with four people giving four different versions of the same event, all plausible and yet all lack evidence to conclusively determine who the killer is. Now, Robert Anderson, a professor at Simon Fraser University in his paper “The Rashomon Effect and Communication”, explains that

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“The Rashomon effect is not only about differences of perspective. It occurs particularly where such differences arise in combination with the absence of evidence to elevate or disqualify any version of the truth, plus the social pressure for closure on the question.”

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Now, Rashomon places the pressure of reaching a judgement on the murder on the judge, but what Virumaandi does differently is place the pressure of judging who committed the 24 murders on us, the audience. The film does this from the beginning where Angela questions the capacity of our judicial system to judge fairly and later we see Kothalan buying off a judge on a different case. The film plants the seed of doubt on the judicial system and instead asks us to be the judge here. But, it gets more interesting.

The film after making us the judge also manipulates the evidence. Like with the media, if we watched Kothalan’s channel we would be siding with him and the same with Virumaandi’s channel. They each want us to believe that their version is the truth. This is obvious in Kothalan’s version, but most of us are led to believe that Virumaandi’s version is true. It just might not be!

We have two characters manipulating us with their stories, but the film “Virumaandi” is another layer of manipulation on its audience. We not just hear Kothalan’s and Virumaandi’s versions but rather see the events unfold on-screen and hence are a witness too in this proceeding. This way we see certain aspects of a character that they don’t narrate but is still presented to us. You can’t imagine Kothalan recounting details of his *ahem* hair cut to Angela, but we see it. The same goes for Virumaandi and his *ahem* romance. These scenes are presented to us only. The Rashomon effect in Virumaandi has three versions now, Kothalan’s, Virumaandi’s, and ours. The film “Virumaandi” is our version. But what is shown to us is also manipulated.

The messenger overpowers the message

We know that Virumaandi played by Kamal Hassan is the protagonist here and therefore must be the good guy. Now imagine Kothalan played by Kamal and Virumaandi played by Pasupathy. Which side would you take? All the evidence we see pointing towards Virumaandi being innocent is coming from Virumaandi. We here accept to believe his version as truth without doubting him. The film manipulates us into thinking this by showing us scenes such as Kothalan and Peykaaman scheming and other scenes that elevates Viruman to the innocent and good-hearted man. This is especially seen in this one scene where the priest testifies against Virumaandi. In Virumaandi’s version, the priest is lying in the court because we saw him officiate the marriage between Virumaandi and Annalakshmi but stating otherwise in the court. This is further established by having the priest remove the ring in the court that Annalakshmi gave him. This action was put there for our benefit, to make us see Virumaandi’s innocence. But in reality, this would be highly unlikely and felt staged. But it was staged for us. The only objective evidence we get is Peykaaman confessing that he framed evidence against Virumaandi, but that doesn’t make Kothalan guilty. Peykaaman played both of them against each other. Maybe Kothalan too was a victim to Peykaaman’s game and maybe he was as innocent or as guilty as Virumaandi.

Meta

Let’s get a little meta here and even see the events surrounding the release of the film. With controversy stirred up against the original name of the film being “Sandiyar” due to some religious outfits protesting against it and even Kamal making a video addressing this issue in a bitter yet sarcastic way before changing the film’s name to “Virumaandi”. We, the audience, consumed this controversy too, hearing different versions of the event, ultimately leading to a curiosity to watch the film that culminated in us rushing to the theatres. This was an unintended yet powerful manipulation too. I’m not saying the film became a success because of the controversy, the film is a masterpiece in storytelling. But the controversy sure helped. The film is a case study on how we consume and get manipulated by the media.

Virumaandi was another achievement under Kamal’s direction and a masterclass in not only taking a little effect from a yesteryear Japanese film but making it our own with the smell of Madurai’s soil. This concludes the trilogy on my most-liked Kamal films. I might make another trilogy of Kamal films in the future but for now, I would like to thank you all for the tremendous support you’ve shown for the channel and these videos. Until next time, this is Kishor signing off saying…