On August 15, 2022, when the entire country was celebrating 75 years of Independence, a Dalit panchayat president at Senthakuddi village in Pudukkottai of Tamil Nadu broke down in tears soon after hoisting the
national flag. Though he has been the panchayat president for the past two years, it was the first time he was allowed to hoist the flag, after continuous reprisals against caste-based oppression. One of the woman panchayat presidents had even written to the deputy superintendent of police saying she wasn’t allowed to hoist the flag by the dominant community members in the village.
Not just hoisting the national flag, in most panchayats the Dalit presidents do not even have a chair to sit on. Imagine if a MLA faces the same disrespect as these panchayat presidents. In Maamannan, director Mari Selvaraj tells us what this disrespect means, how a chair to sit is denied to many, particularly those from the oppressed community.
Set in a town near Salem in West Tamil Nadu, Maamannan opens with the hero Adhi Veeran, played by Udhayanidhi Stalin rearing pigs in his farm. His father Maamannan, played by Vadivelu is a MLA who preaches equality and tells each of his visitors to sit in front of him. But when he is denied basic courtesy by those who elected him, Veeran gets furious.
While Maamannan talks about societal oppression and explores assertion at many levels it doesn’t rage with fury like Pariyerum Perumal or Karnan. Mari’s Pariyerum Perumal was instrumental in bringing a new thrust to the Dalit movement in Tamil Nadu. His second film Karnan, starring Dhanush talked about the deeply entrenched power dynamics in the society and the quest for justice and social equality. Compared to Pariyerum Perumal and Karnan, the screenplay of Maamannan is very slow as the story gets into an election mode. It feels like the director himself is tired of telling the stories of oppression. The character introduction scenes, be it Leela or Rathnavel or even Maamannan are also very slow, plain, and hardly enthusiastic. Even the flashback story of the problem between Maamannan and Adhi Veeran, told in black and white, is barely gripping.
Like his earlier films, Maamannan too has striking metaphors—the dogs and pigs—leaving the audience suffering an overwhelmed silence. While Vadivelu, as a MLA and as the father of a Dalit youth who fights oppression has delivered his best, the director has not used the extraordinary talents of Fahadh Faasil. As a man who rears dogs and sets them out to attack those who oppose him, Fahadh Faasil's Rathnavel ends up being just an ordinary villain in a political drama. Keerthy Suresh as Leela doesn't have much to do except to hang around the hero as he fights societal discrimination.
The first half has a gripping screenplay, while the second half ends up being just another political drama with an election, campaign and voting. A.R. Rahman’s background music is top-notch as it expresses the anger and pain within a man who is oppressed by societal norms.
If Pariyerum Perumal is the story of the struggles of a Dalit youth who is confronted with hostilities in his college and Karnan a surrealistic representation of the Kodiyankulam massacre in Tamil Nadu in 1995, Maamannan reminds me of the incident of Jayalalithaa choosing a man from the Arunthathiyar community from a constituency near Salem in west Tamil Nadu as the speaker to send out a message to everyone about social justice and equality. But the problem is that the director fits the story of a MLA from the opposition party into a film that has all the symbols of the ruling DMK, which Udhayanidhi Stalin too is part of.
Film: Maamannan
Cast: Udhayanidhi Stalin, Vadivelu, Fahad Fasil, Keerthy Suresh
Director: Mari Selvaraj
Rating: 2.5/5