Director TJ Gnanavel’s Jai Bhim, a new film on Amazon Prime Video, grips you with what the film is about in the first 10 mins itself. The central point of the film is about how the native, indigenous people are given a scorching mistreatment by the police and by the authority. It’s the perceptive and important statement of the film.
The film sets a brilliant stage for it to spin an epic in the form of a yarn structure. Like a yarn, the story has the plausibility to move forward and backward and also in a circle, to get to the good parts. An innocent tribal man is framed for a theft. He is convicted by the privileged authorities in the face of an overwhelming, fake evidence. The film follows the toils of the wife of that man, Sengani, who seeks justice.
For a court room drama, the astonishing ability of this film to captivate the attention of the audience is surreal. It curdles your blood. Jai Bhim arrests your breath, engrosses you and slaps you with ugly truth. It preserves hope to strive towards equality. The asset of the film is how it maintains the dignity in the tale it chooses to tell without having to depend on any overselling emotional manipulation. There is no preaching, no narrations. It balances the usage of any naivety in the tale to the perfect amount. And we get the point. The film doesn’t just capture the history but also it’s flavor.
Surya, as the determined advocate Chandru, is with conviction. He carries the conviction like it’s part of him. The film is organic in the way how it establishes the everyday life of tribal people in the face of struggle to make an honest living amongst many viled, privileged gazes those look down on them. It emphasises on the importance of acquiring the voting rights to the oppressed. It is thoroughly literal and meaningful.
There are some fascinating bits like a night owl and a snake, they witness the injustice in silence like yet another voiceless creatures, an attribute they share with the oppressed humans. It occurs powerful to me when Chandru interprets and equates the dominance of the privileged as snake bites to Sengani. The film silently brews in submitting its validity for why the win of an oppressed civilization and their rights for equality is necessary. The film and its characters are fulfilling. They keep the film intact. The brutality is not muted or is not kept loud for a mere selling point. The purpose of it is executed effectively as it demands.
ஜெய் பீம் திரைப்பட விமர்சனம்
Surya, as a kind, gentle and fierce lawyer, brings the win home with his strong suits such as legal and morale. His wit and vocabulary makes him the finest in his fighting field. He is subtle when he shows various emotions. He has a stone carved Karl Marx face on his wall. He follows Ambedkar’s path. He iterates what he believes in often. None of them intrudes or distracts the course of the film. The realities of the year 1995 act as the backdrop. The courtroom scenes deserve a celebration for doing it right. And the verdict is greeted by an unbelievable quiet.
The beauty of this drama is how the film looks past the nobility of Chandru and keeps its focus on its credibility where it is needed. It is not making the film a heroic tale of one man but the collective triumph of all the oppressed and their allies. Chandru is a mere but important catalyst in this battle. The people are treated as characters with close up shots and not as props with long shots. The film grows gripping on the point of what’s next. It’s very realistic and clear sighted.
The film confronts with a granularity in its character builds. Lijimol Jose as Sengani is astounding. Manikandan as Raja Kannu, Prakash Raj as an ally from the police to the needy, Rao Ramesh as Attorney General, Guru Somasundaram, Ilavarasu as a privileged man, they are brilliant to their bits.
Jai Bhim earns its hard-earned triumph.
