Vaazhl movie review: Arun Prabhu Purushothaman's film lacks self-awareness, engages only with romanticised idea of nature

Language: Tamil

Mild spoilers ahead.

Would you go on a real holiday to be one with nature if your murderous love interest didn’t manipulate you into a road trip? At its heart, that is the question Vaazhl, Arun Prabhu Purushothaman’s sophomore venture, is asking.

Prakash, the protagonist of Vaazhl, is an IT employee whose code is buggy, girlfriend is nagging, sister is eloping, mother is stifling and life, overall, is without a purpose. At a funeral, he meets Yatramma, a distant cousin, who he develops feelings for. Within days, he is neck-deep in her problems, driving her around scenic towns of coastal Tamilnadu. Also joining them is, the unruly and charming son of Yaatramma (his mother is called Yatra-amma, literally, the mother of Yatra). The relationship between the three, and the eventual connection Prakash makes with Yaatra forms the rest of the film.

Arun Prabhu goes quite the distance to establish the existential crisis in Prakash’s life — the sister, the girlfriend, the mother, the manager, and the extended family are written and shot as crude caricatures. The sequence where his mother discovers that his sister is dating someone, and the assumptions, conclusions and interventions that follow, are realistically ridiculous — reminiscent of Arun Prabhu’s dark humour from Aruvi, his previous film.

We are not expected to empathise with them as people, only see them from a distance as pesky but believable stereotypes. Prakash, himself, is not a creative soul enamoured by wanderlust either. He has no special longing or calling. At no point in any of this, do we see him wanting to leave his situation. He is one of the very caricatures the film mocks. In that, we don’t develop a connection with Prakash or root for his redemption.

Pradeep, who plays Prakash, is convincing as the easily manipulated pushover. As a voyeur enjoying Prakash’s plight, we too mock him, revel in his discomfort, anticipate his downfall. He is regularly beaten, abused and disrespected by random strangers, all of which we laugh at.

The strength of Vaazhl is this irreverence. It treats everything we hold sacrosanct in modern life with derision. It mocks every person and every belief. By extension, it also disregards genre conventions. It’s a thriller for a few minutes, murder mystery after, comedy in between, travelogue later, and almost a memoir in the end.

Pradeep Kumar’s music plays along, tunes across genres blending and swaying effortlessly throughout. It plays a fundamental role in giving the film its timbre. Without the music, the film might have appeared confused or even disjointed. Pradeep Kumar elevates the film, confirms that its staccato nature is deliberate.

In execution, though, the film’s beats feel off. For instance, in one scene, Prakash tells Yatramma, “ennana psycho madhiri pesaringa?” (What! You’re speaking like a psychopath.) To which she replies, weeping, pleadingly that she’s not a psychopath, just a criminal of circumstance. Shot in a moving car, Prakash struggling between the road and the recent revelation, the scene is naturally unsettling. Yet, there is a comical undertone, a sudden gotcha moment, forcibly tickling the audience about Prakash’s plight. This juxtaposition of mockery over the serious crisis is a recurring theme in the film — something that rarely works, though.

Yet, the film falls especially flat when it suddenly takes itself seriously in the second half — a drastic turn towards self-discovery. Someone violently uprooted from his natural habitat, Prakash discovers himself in a remote tribal island. In the company of a cigarette-smoking, passport-forging, street-fighting, guitar-playing, Tamil-speaking Bolivian anthropologist, Tanya, he begins to feel the shackles of modern life suffocating him. (I wish we were spared the awkwardly accented rendition of Semmaan Magalai in the film, though.)

It is here that the film becomes less and less convincing; more and more fantastical. Prakash and Tanya travel to a tribal village in Papua New Guinea to see what it means to live unanchored. Here, Prakash is a tourist, a voyeur too, watching people’s lives and sulking about his own.

Vaazhl lacks self-awareness, only engaging with the romanticised idea of nature. The camera shifts to wide angles and drone shots in stark contrast to the closeups in the moving car that we saw in the first half. Shelley Calist’s visuals are breathtakingly beautiful. Raymond Derrick Crasta, the editor, lets Prakash linger in these scenes, in no hurry to meet the next milestone. The film slows down. Even Yaatra calms down, throwing no tantrum at all.

Yet, Prakash’s self-discovery seems superficial. Especially when Tanya sums up the message as a “one month in a year visit to live with nature”. Was all this fuss just for a holiday?

Vaazhl streams on SonyLIV. 

Rating: **1/2

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