Visaranai (2015)

 

For the uninitiated, these pictures are screengrabs from the 2015 Tamil language film, Visaranai, directed by Vetrimaaran. The film is based on the book "Lock Up" by M. Chandrakumar.

When I started watching the film, it appeared to be a film about linguistic divide and the sort of hegemony that locals tend to exert over immigrants. Boy, was I wrong! This is nothing like that. Visaranai kept me hooked to it. It took me a long time to unravel my mind and actually come to terms with the entire film. It is an ugly film that was shot beautifully, with actors who have done immense justice to their roles.

Visaranai means Interrogation. Or at least that's what Google tells me. The film begins in Andhra Pradesh where we first meet some of the characters of the film, a small group of Tamil immigrants. They are soon picked up by the police and their life turns upside down. Beaten up by the police to coerce a confession out of them, our four Tamil immigrants are forced to be the scapegoats for a crime they did not commit. They're waterboarded, mercilessly beaten up and soon they break down. There's a scene where the police takes them to the house that was robbed to recreate the crime.

Although by a stroke of luck, they seem to escape their fate of being locked up, it only gets worse. Out of the frying pan into the fire.

Corruption, class struggle are the major themes of Visaranai. The violence is brutal, gut wrenching and it leaves you numb. If you have a low threshold for violence on film, I'd suggest you to skip it. But if you can take it, this is one film you should not miss out on.