Thangam may just have been sufficient to capture its all-encompassing theme. There’s the unlikely love triangle involving a sibling and a best friend, there’s unrequited love that forms the emotional core of the film, and the forbidden inter-faith relationship between its two principal characters. But despite having a heavy agenda, Kongara doesn’t appear to bite off more than she can chew. The movie effortlessly chugs along like a Malgudi Days’ tale, and tugs soulfully at our heartstrings. Along the way, the movie brings to the fore a heartbreaking reality that while families may eventually reconcile and accept their children, when it comes to letting a human being choose their gender, the world remains a massively one-sided place
Paava Kadhaigal Review: Hard-To-Watch But Compelling Quartet Of Classily-Crafted Tales
Paava Kadhaigal Review: Hard-To-Watch But Compelling Quartet Of Classily-Crafted Tales
Paava Kadhaigal Review: The actors are in prime form and the abridged narrative format gives them, and the directors, the scope to create sharply chiselled, dire, disconcerting portraits of putrid patriarchy. Paava Kadhaigal Review: A still from the anthology. (courtesy YouTube)
Cast: Prakash Raj, Kalki Koechlin, Kalidas Jayaram, Shanthnu Bhagyaraj, Gautham Vasudev Menon, Sai Pallavi, Anjali, Simran, Adithya Bhaskar
Director: Sudha Kongara, Gautham Vasudev Menon, Vignesh Shivan, Vetrimaaran
Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)
The idea of the family as a safe space is hurled out the window in
Prakash Raj and Sai Pallavi in Paava Kadhaigal (2020) | RSVP/Flying Unicorn Entertainment/Netflix
In the latest Netflix anthology film centred around a theme, a trans woman sacrifices her love for her sister, twin sisters tackle their hypocritical father, parents deal with the rape of their teenaged daughter, and a pregnant woman sees her father in a new light.
The often violent defence of honour, especially in the name of caste, and the burden borne by women during this exercise unites the four mini-narratives in
Paava Kadhaigal (Stories of Sin)
. The Tamil-language anthology film follows
Bombay Talkies, about the Hindi film industry,