P.Virumaandi makes his directorial debut with the political commentary Ka Pae Ranasingam. At its core, the Vijay Sethupathi and Aishwariya Rajesh starrer touches upon everything going on in the country’s political scenario. The movie revolves around Ariyinachi and her struggle to get the dead body of her husband, Ranasingam, back to his land. Ka Pae Ranasingam is more than what meets the eye and is gut-wrenching throughout. Ariyinachi, a courageous and diligent woman, finds out that her husband died in Dubai, allegedly because of a riot. Ariyinachi only wants the body back so she can have it cremated according to the traditional rituals. However, the incompetence of the system gets reflected when we see her having a hard time trying to do so.
Watch the trailer for the movie right here:
While Vijay Sethupathi as Ranasingam is one of the central characters of the story and it is at his cost that the movie goes from one point to the other, it is Ariyinachi’s story. Vijay Sethupathi is brilliant as Ranasingam. He will have you believe that it is where he comes from and where he lives. Vijay’s character is a rebel with a cause and comes through for his fellow villagers in times of crisis. He encourages them to stand up for themselves and ask for what they need from the government. It is through Vijay that the movie touches upon the water problem that the people face in Ramanathapuram, especially the farmers. It is when he gets married to Ariyinachi, and they get pregnant that he decides to go to Dubai to earn for his family. Aishwarya, on the other hand, plays a woman who is also courageous and selfless but helps her family first.
The characters in this story are real and are as authentic as it gets. No one is willing to go out of their way to help someone unrealistically, and that also translates into the fact that no one goes out of the way to wreck Ariyinachi’s life in a gimmicky fashion. Everyone is restricted to doing their jobs. There are a few instances where you feel like the government officials are passing off their work to another department, but there are also instances where when they tell you that there is nothing they can do, you believe them. The villain here is the system but not the very people in it. All in all, the story is well placed and is engaging at all points.
N K Ekambaram’s cinematography translates the disfigurement of the story onto the screen and Ghibran’s music brings out the essence of rural India alive. Ka Pae Ranasingam is not a movie that you can console yourselves with, it is a saga that will throw the shortcomings of the systems right at your face. It is unsettling but it cannot be missed at any cost for this exact reason.
Catch the movie only on ZEE5!