After quite some time I loved seeing a movie, and I was eager to catch up more on the layers of the movie and wanted to see it multiple times.
The movie which I mean here is Vikram Vedha. I am neither a critic nor a person who knows the intricacies of film making and the nuances of it, but with some interest and all the interviews I followed I have slowly understood and getting a bit of it.
This post is a bit of it, may be correct or may not be correct, for this is my understanding from the movie of what went into it.
SPOILERS AHEAD !
As everybody is aware this is a movie regarding Vikramaditya and Vedhalam based on the Vetala Tales.
Lets cut open to the beginning title animation sequence which was made beautifully.
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| Vikram Introduction - Madhavan | Vedha Introduction - Vijay Sethupathi |
Madhavan who plays Vikram, his name appears when the king is shown.
There is a monologue which goes for few seconds when no credits roll.
Then when 'Vedhalam' is announced in the animation, credits for Vijay Sethupathi who plays the role of Vedha appears.
The color of the animation could have been anything, but overall it gives a black-white-grey shade only for the entire animation , guess to signify what the plot is going to offer.
What is going to unfold over the entire movie is directly shown in the short and crisp sequence.
Coming to the frame where the title is shown.
On observing closely at this point it looks like a puzzle to be solved where some parts are in the grey area, while some are clearly bright, and some dark.
And you one could draw a perfect straight line right in-between those two names, and it would bisect the two perfectly making each name fall on the sides of the line.
And the maze is again full of straight lines, its not a circle or any other shape they could have made.
Now to scene where Vikram and Vedha meet for the first time face-to-face, Vikram comes with a neat full-black beard and mustache and in a white shirt, and Vedha turns up in black shirt with a white-grey beard.
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| Vikram - White shirt | Vedha - Black shirt |
Just like the animation sequence Vikram wants to find Vedha, but it is Vedha who appears first before Vikram. Vedha does not open up to other cops and waits for Vikram to come in and also Vedha's first dialogue in the movie is 'Oru Kadhai sollata sir' as in the animation.
Intro scene of Vedha where he directly walks into the police station with a cookie for the barking police dogs clearly shows how well he plans and executes, and neatly played to the gallery for getting the whistles and claps, which is nowadays there always for Vijay Sethupathi.
The dialogue portion between both of them in the confrontation sequence again plays to the gallery, but also with both of them contradicting the other immediately.
When they discuss about the number of encounters/murders done, Vedha clearly says Vikram had done 15 encounters and purposefully leaves the 3 which Vikram did in the introduction sequence. And when Vikram corrects him as 18 encounters, Vedha asks about the last encounter with a subtle neat emotion and the steady voice becomes a feeble and shaky one too to show the sadness of his brother's death, giving a clue there itself to Vikram, that he is emotionally connected to the deceased.
Story 1 : Thiruda Thiruda
And after the first story which Vedha narrates to Vikram, when Vikram is wondering about what Vedha did , Vedha asks Vikram to think about the moral/dharma involved.
At the end of the first story, Vikram feels that both the characters involved are bad and says both of them should be punished, while Vedha says though both did bad, there should be a moral/dharma involved when choosing who has to be punished.
In the first story, Vedha narrated he says when wearing black sunglasses, nobody else will be able to make out what he thinks. When Vedha walks over with bail, he looks at Vikram and says that they have become friends now and when Vikram questions Vedha why the later surrendered in the first place, Vedha puts his coolers on and asks Vikram to find it out.
-- Vikram's wife says to Vikram not to look at things only with his point of view.
-- Vikram in home is questioning his wife on moral/dharma involved in lawyers profession.
-- Vikram's wife questions back on moral/dharma involved in the fake encounters police do.
-- They discuss it exactly face-to-face sitting in the opposite ends of the table.
-- Vikram sticks to his view point, camera shows Vikram inside a box, while for other portions they show in a bit wide angle and outside the box.
-- After Vikram realizes that the encounter involved Vedha's brother Vikram comes back to the same place in living room, but this time camera does not show him inside a box.
-- What Vedha gains from this is that he has got Vikram thinking on the reason why Vedha came back from hiding, and wanted to convey that there were enemies for him in his business/area of residence as well, and he cares about his brother very much.
Interval Block
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| Vedha in back of Vikram | Interval - Maze Mirror reflection |
-- Vedha right at the back of Vikram, as in the classic story, and animation.
-- Vedha again asks whether he can narrate a story.
-- Vedha questions the morale of Vikram for the reason behind his action of sponsoring education for the children of deceased. Vikram responds that the child should not become a criminal, while Vedha reverts back with a question again asking whether Gandhiji's father did a Gandhi and whether Ghotse's son did a Ghotse.
-- For the interval block, the maze has become clear with the blurring removed, and one can now clearly see that the maze is formed by small pieces which themselves are built using mirror images, and overall the final maze as well has two halves one being the mirror image of the other.
Vedha gives a opinion different from Vikram everytime, and keeps only asking question to Vikram and it is to be noted that Vedha too responds to questions of Vikram, in a manner that it answers but also makes Vikram stare at the next question.
Like for instance, the above opinion of Vedha gives a different view point to Vikram's and his friend Simon's statement of 'Sins of father will affect son' as well.
Story 2 : Thiruda Thirudi
-- Story raises a question on morale involved in the fight between gangs , when all gangs are doing illegal things anyways.
-- Vedha says to his friend to find out the informant who leaks the whereabouts and other information to the opposite gang.
Indirectly questioning Vikram to find out who was the informant involved in the murder of Vikram's friend Simon, and how did the murderer's knew about Simon's availability in the location.
-- In the end Vedha asks Vikram on the decision he has to take for now both the characters involved are innocent and the logic for such a morale/Dharma.
-- Vedha gives a clue to Vikram when narrating that his brother was never into illegal business and his brother wanted to live a clean life.
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| Vedha out of Box with edges blurred |
-- Vikram's wife questions whether it is good morale to use one's wife without her knowledge to get things done for him. This makes Vikram realize that what he did is almost similar to what Chandra did by stealing money of Vedha/Vedha's brother for her need cheating them, as narrated in the story 2.
-- Vikram's wife cares for him though they had a misunderstanding , this makes him again realize that Pulli would have been asked to come to the encounter area by making his wife/girl friend as bait, also helped with the forensic reports, as Vedha mentioned that he asked his brother and girl to move out of city.
-- Vikram loses his peace of mind and knows now that he has done a mistake in killing Vedha's brother.
-- Vikram in pursuit of his ultimate goal of finding out why and who killed his friend Simon, decides to find out reason for death and presence of Pulli, a innocent man in the encounter spot.
-- And as Vedha told in the story, Vikram realizes that to find out this, he needs to find out the informant who helped to plan the encounter by leaking the whereabouts.
-- Now the camera shows him a bit farther, showing him with the edges of the boxes blurred.
-- For Vedha, he has got Vikram convinced that his brother was innocent, and also got Vikram convinced that he had got nothing to do with murder of Simon and also has got Vikram working to find out why Pulli was killed.
Story 3: Thirudan Police
-- Vedha realizes that somebody is targetting his gang and killing people.
-- Vedha after getting the information from Vikram that Ravi had informed about his and other gang member whereabouts, Vedha kills Ravi for avenging his brothers and other gang member's death.
-- Vedha's motive of coming out of hiding accomplished.
Vikram's learnings :
-- Ravi had tried to kill Vedha gang using contract killers, but contract killers were not up for it as they did not have guns.
-- Vedha's gang members were encountered by police only after the story happened as third story was set 6 months before current time, and Vikram had relocated to his house only 3 months as per his wife's statement, and after that only the whole sequence of encounters happens.
-- Vedha's gang members were killed in sequence, but enemy gang members of Vedha were not involved.
Climax
-- Vikram says Vedha is thinking of only what he wants, and he does not think about other people involved. Vikram's motive of police job was only to kill criminals, as his father was killed by a criminal.
-- Vikram realizes that all other people in his team were in need of money for various reasons and hence they had taken bribe and killed only Vedha's gang members.
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| Vikram realizing the motivation of his team |
-- Vikram applies the dharma/morale learned from story 1 to decide who has to be killed .
-- Note how camera opens up all the police officers in front of Madhavan, when he realizes that all of them were corrupt, it is such a wonderful piece of art that will get us thinking as well !
Overall there are lot of black-white-grey sequences and I guess they were more than the colour sequences. Colour sequences were more in the stories which Vedha says I think.
At the end of movie, you would realize that almost all dialogues in the movies starting from the title credits have a role in solving the bigger puzzle.
Note that in the end Cheta is still alive, the nemesis of Vedha's gang, as he had nothing to do with Pulli's death. Dharma saves, and Adharma kills !
And also costumes of Vikram starts with white in the beginning and always with clear contrast between his t-shirt and jean, and towards the end the contrast is not that high and t-shirt changes to dark shades.
While the story was a very common one, which could have been said in a linear screenplay, they made it to look complex and interesting by opening up sequences only when the actual characters realize it themselves , but still giving us clues all the way along just like how Vedha gave to Vikram.
Special credits to Vignesh Shivan for penning the lyrics of Karuppu Vellai song, and Sam CS for the music and background score as well !
Opening with a big puzzle, and then carefully weaving small-small stories and finally coming back to the big puzzle only to make it now clear , is a wonderful and skillful way of storytelling. This movie is a master piece for that.
And for the final icing on the cake is to make the audience think for the question of whether Vikram should kill Vedha as a responsible cop, or Vikram should set free Vedha for saving his life.
As the whole movie goes, it is not a easy question to answer to decide which is Dharma !
Time to pick up Vikramathithan stories and search for the question and answers !
Bye till next,
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