நாயகன் (nayakan) (1987) = *** 1/2
Velu Naicker, who witnesses the brutal murder of his father, kills a corrupt policeman and escapes to Mumbai, only to become a gangster.
copied from my letterboxd review
lot of weird stuff about this movie. kamal haasan’s typical “vaguely materialist pro-union but also about idealist humanism somehow” politics; velu marrying a 16-year-old without even asking her beforehand (does she get a say?); the fact that velu shows very little criminal smarts for a boss, apart from “one weird trick to smuggle your liquor in-country” (and in fact we never see his theoretically-bustling criminal enterprise); the fact that his scions are so ill-prepared to assume the mantle of Naicker that it immediately ends in disaster; the use of caste names such as Naicker, Iyer and Reddy as commonplace synonyms for the men behind them; the pseudo-funk that plays everytime the hotshot young AC of Police is shown brutalizing poor people; some truly superfluous songs (included to show more gyrating women, one assumes) mixed in with the plot-relevant ones; the score’s insistent strings swelling at every twitch of a facial expression.
Nayakan asks questions about liberation, but does not do so well at answering them. the movie touches upon the power of collective action of the oppressed masses here and there (notably the fantastic scene where Velu’s slum goons tear up a wealthy developer’s home, tossing his furniture out the window). but as the movie progresses, we see the power rest increasingly in the seat of the Naicker himself - specifically the power to kill, beat, and punish. Despite his Robin Hood aspirations, Velu clearly thrives upon being seen as the one in power. in this way it is very much about a form of South Indian masculinity, a patriarchal mode which thrives on control - of resources, land, people, and outcomes. In the end, it’s very hard to argue with his daughter’s perspective, that everything Velu touches seems to die, including his loved ones. he wants his children to choose a different life, but fails to take the steps necessary to allow them such a life. his punitive power only goes so far: the slums are still the slums. and when Naicker’s aura fades, the poor people go back to being beaten by cops.
Ultimately, perhaps Mani Ratnam is saying that when the liberatory paths for the oppressed are foreclosed and suppressed (see Velu’s father, the murdered union leader), only the flawed and toxic paths that Velu walks are available. Perhaps Nayakan wants to say that when the people place their hope for liberation in the figure of one man, no matter how just, such a ‘revolution’ will always fail. however, the work does not make such a reading clear, eager as it is to say something about the nature of “goodness.”
the strength of the movie is of course in that climactic scene: “neenga nallavaraa kettavaraa? / theriyalaye, pa…” (Are you a good guy or a bad guy? / I don’t know, son…)
Perhaps the real answer is that personal “good and bad” are not the determinative factors when overcoming structural oppression. This isn’t the direction the movie wants to go in, however.
speaking of cops as gang / control as masculinity, this tweet seemed relevant. one thing about tamil movies like this is that the message that “the cops are just the biggest gang” is clear and foregrounded in a way that american movies will never do. see also: jai bhim, visaaranai, etc
https://twitter.com/jonbernhardt/status/1532110605720616966
