Maharaja

Maharaja is a simple story of a father. This is a spoiler review, so yea. Look away if you haven't already seen it.

As stated a million times everywhere, the screenplay of Maharaja is the standout feature. It is only a layer on top of a simple story of a father, and his vengeance for his daughter. I initially found it very engaging up until the 3/4th mark before the reveal that he was in fact not the one who was assaulted, because it was pretty obvious from the get go, that it was either something in the dustbin, or about the dustbin that he finds so fascinating. So the mystery of what this man was talking about, coupled with many instances of humor kept me quite engaged. Of course, if it was revealed early on in the film that such atrocities were performed on the girl, the movie would not have been able to hold it's comedic tone for any length of time after that. 

After the reveal of the break in and the rape however, I was struck with a wave of sadness. Which is good, I think the movie intended for that to happen. But I was also overcome with a slight annoyance. I wonder how many people are familiar with the term 'fridging'. 

Women in refrigerators is a literary trope coined by Gail Simone in 1999 describing a trend in fiction which involves female characters facing disproportionate harm, such as death, maiming, or assault, to serve as plot devices to motivate male characters, an event colloquially known as "fridging".

Now that you know, and are familiar, does it feel at all like this movie used that to turn us strongly against and hate the villains in this story? I do find it quite weak for a writer to make a villain out of this sort of behavior. Atrocious as these acts are, I feel like I expect more nuance when I sit to listen to a villain's origin story. I find disturbed lunatics, and motivated faulty altruism to be way more engaging. But also, ambiguity in whether the villain is right or wrong can be quite annoying without the right backdrop. Black Panther achieved this Killmonger perfectly, but one example does not justify my case much.

All in all, don't like villains who are evil because they are leering rapists. They have no defense, no thought process and can be braindead in their motivations. In this movie I feel like apart from being a serial rapist, Nallasivam (played by Singampuli) genuinely has some potential allure. In almost all his scenes, he can be seen as being quite resourceful. His spying tactic on Maharaja, his method of availing the dustbin, and his volition to jump at taking up the role of a thief at the prospect of more money. He definitely has some character, but it's all overshadowed when we see him be a mega dick-weed by raping the underage daughter of the protagonist. 

I think Im looking for someone like Loki in the first few Thor films. Smart, sort of attractive, interesting, in a way that you know they are evil, but they aren't stupid. They have reasons, but they are still evil. Anurag Kashyap comes close to filling that void for me. But while he isn't shown to rape the girl, his complicity makes him equally terrible in the crime. And I understand how this pays off in the end, him committing suicide because of it, but it still comes off as a weak character when he allows his colleague to carry it out on Maharaja's daughter. I feel like he would feel some sympathy when Nallasivam asks for permission. Anurag had already caused enough damage I feel, and Maharaja should've been the target. He was planning on killing him anyway, so his end monologue claiming to have hurt him internally, feels unearned too. Like he came up with it on the spot.

But again. I love this movie, because it makes a comeback with the corrupt police doing a good job plot point. I think this might be my soft spot of common small time crooks turning into saviors. When the policeman played by Natarajan Subramaniam reveals that he knows that Nallasivam had raped Maharaja's daughter, I actively felt my body shake in anticipation and prospect of a twist where people can all do better, and have the ability to surprise you. The only downside is I feel like I am gonna expect all policemen in future movies to deliver this way. The last time this was shown was in Laapatta Ladies btw, and I loved it then too.

Someone described Maharaja to me as Inception by the way. That made it slightly more fun to watch, because of how incredibly wrong they were. LOL.