Pithamagan : A Bala’s stroke of reality
Rawness, rusticism and realism sum up into the directorial signature of Kollywood director Bala. Bala painted Kollywood celluloid with brushes that were greyed out of some of the crudest realities of the society that mainstream cinema for some reason shied away from portraying it on screen. Having worked as an assistant to the veteran filmmaker Balu Mahendra for several years, Bala debuted as a director in 2000 with the movie Sethu, which gave ‘Chiyaan’ Vikram the much-needed commercial break. One of Bala’s depictions of the prodigies was the movie Pithamagan , that released in 2003. The movie is the first outing of the series of the rawest movies he made in Tamil.
Pithamagan is a story of a gravedigger, Sitthan (Vikram), born in a graveyard and raised by a grave caretaker. Having spent his life around corpses, ashes of cremated bodies and human skulls, he lacks social consciousness and develops into a person with animalistic attributes. He rarely speaks but emotionally screams eulogies on dead bodies which gives us a clue about his human instincts and emotions.
He moves to a village for survival and happens to meet care-giving people who later turn out to be his friends — Sakthi (Surya), Gomathi (Sangeetha) and Manju(Laila). He works as labor in ganjai field and lives happily with his god-given friends (who sometimes miff him with the antics of an endeavor to teach him civility).Sitthan shares a close bonding with Sakthivel, a trickster, who makes an earning by its means. The best part is that in the process of detailing Sakthivel’ character, some light humor is brought to the foreground in the first half which includes scenes with Manju, a college student. Gomathi works as a ganja dealer, who appears stubborn on the exterior but has a heart at its right place. She becomes the welcoming call for Sitthan into their underprivileged -yet-happy world that is coexistent and filled with compassion. All the four live together happily until their life takes an ugly turn shattering their lives.
The entire first half of the movie shows us the way Siththan is raised owing to the circumstances he is in. There are few scenes in the first half where the audience are peered over Vikram’s beastly personality and get a taste of how a grave digger raised under minimal social influences can behave like. (He is seen in ragged clothes, running around, shovelling growling with dirty teeth and chanting occasionally). You will be surprised to know that Vikram got himself literally into the real mud on the location to bring authenticity to the character. That’s the makeup he wore for the role, as insisted by the director. He just breathed into the character and the way he brought life to it explains to us what passion means to an actor who had survived an accident that led to 23 operations and had every chance to leave him handicapped for the rest of his life. His performance in the movie was brilliant and no one else could have played the role like him. Surya, Sangeetha and Laila too delivered splendid performances.
The good part of the movie is that there is no benchmark for comparison to brush it off as yet another Tamil cinema. Bala’s originality reflected throughout the movie. He seems to have either experienced or observed the rustic village lives from close quarters. The fights were plain and real, especially the ones set in the jail. The climax fight that quenches Siththan’s revenge is depicted as gruesomely. The makeup of the crucial characters was in organic essence. The village backdrop worked well with the actors’ natural attires, and the cinematography brought aesthetic visuals of the village to view. What makes the movie special is the depictions of human emotions & the intimacy among Siththan, Sakthivel, Gomathi, and Manju.
It would be a sin on my part if I don’t mention ‘Maestro’ Ilaiyaraja’s music. Who can do good justice to a story like this if not Isaignani? Maestro’s BGM captivates our souls and puts us into a trance. There is a track where Siththan runs around in the ganja field where the entire running episode becomes enthralling with the BGM. The melody “Elamkaathu veesuthe…” becomes a soulful take away from the movie. Sriram Parthasarathy and Shreya Ghoshal’s voices offered the perfect rendition of the tune.
The story, overall brings to light the dark side of human life and a harsh reality that exists among us. The movie ends on a tragic note, where Siththan walks away aimlessly unheeding to any voice which indicates that he is detached from all human connections.
The movie became a big success which cemented a special place for Bala in Tamil cinema and put him on a pedestal of elite filmmakers of the era. The movie fetched National Award for Vikram and Filmfare awards for Vikram, Bala, Surya, Sangeetha and Laila and TN state awards for Vikram, Sangeetha, and Laila.
