Paava Kadhaigal (2020) is an anthology of crimes done in the name of honour, love & lust. The four stories are made by Tamil cinema’s popular directors: Sudha Kongara, Vignesh Shivan, Gautham Vasudev Menon & Vetrimaaran. It is available on Netflix.
The first story starring Kalidas Jayaram & Shanthnu Bhagyaraj is about a village Hindu boy in the 1980s falls in love with a Muslim girl and the couple getting help from her transgender brother. Kalidas Jayaram has performed remarkably well, he has earned himself an award. I liked the twist in the end and this is the best one of the four in the anthology. The story is written by my friend Shan Karrupusamy who had earlier written for NOTA (2018).
The second story is about twin sisters (played by Anjali) falling in love with people from different castes and gets strongly opposed by their father. Anjali has succeeded in showing differences between the two sisters, and, Kalki Koechlin has done the role of a friend well. Though everyone had acted well the story was predictable and failed to impress me.
The third story starring Gautham Vasudev Menon & Simran is about child rape, a horrible crime. This one had taken a very important subject and handled it well. Simran brings out the emotions of a mother who is seeing her child suffer. Unfortunately, Director Gautham as an actor fails to exhibit any feelings, I was unable to see a father in his character.
The fourth story starring Prakash Raj and Sai Pallavi was the second-best in the series. It was about honour killing, an atrocity that we have seen in length in feature films like Rummy (2014) and Kathiravanin Kodai Mazhai (2016).
I wish to appreciate the makers for throwing light on the dark alleys of our villages & towns. Had the stories shown more variety and diverse conditions (like an urban setup in one story) the film would’ve got a ‘Ripe’ in the Mangoidiots scale.
பாவக் கதைகள் (2020)
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