Cop violence and systemic oppression in Vetrimaaran’s Visaranai and Viduthalai 1 & 2
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| A haunting depiction of the collusion between feudal landlords and police authority, where villagers like Karuppan are collectively punished—symbolizing caste oppression reinforced by the state. | Perumal and His Mentor KK. Captured in a rare moment of intimacy, this image reveals the ideological foundation of Perumal's activism, nurtured by his mentor KK.. |
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| More than a rebel, Perumal emerges as a teacher and visionary, organizing resistance through education and dialogue. | Perumal silently witnesses the brutality of law enforcement, his face marked by pain and resolve, as he begins to question the state's legitimacy. |
Systemic oppression and state violence intersect in societies stratified by race and caste. Police violence, as a tool for maintaining state power, upholds structural inequalities. While race has historically served as the key axis of such oppression in the United States, caste functions in a parallel way in India, shaping socio-political hierarchies. Vetrimaaran's films Visaranai (Interrogation, 2015), based on M. Chandrakumar'snovel Lock-Up (2006), inspired by real-life experience, Viduthalai 1 (Freedom, 2023) and Viduthalai 2(2024), which were based on Tamil's well-known writer Jeyamohan's short story Thunaivan (Companion, 2000), offer a compelling critique of police violence in the Indian context, exploring mechanisms of state brutality that bear a striking resemblance to racialized police violence in the United States.
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| Viduthalai 1 (2023). The first part introduces a world saturated with drone surveillance and moral ambiguity, where the protagonist begins to unravel the violent core of the system he serves. | Viduthalai 2 (2024). The continuation intensifies the political stakes as the battle between ethical conscience and institutional power reaches its climax. |
Critical perspectives on Viduthalai Part 2 —
head over heart
Viduthalai Part 2, the sequel to Vetrimaaran’s hard-hitting political drama, has sparked varied responses from film critics who both applaud its ambitions and question its execution. Although the film boasts powerful performances—most notably by Vijay Sethupathi—and a clear ideological stance, several reviewers suggest that its narrative and stylistic choices sometimes undermine its emotional depth. Such a perspective comes from a review published in the newspaper, The Hindu. According to this review, the film is propelled by Vijay Sethupathi’s commanding performance, which anchors the narrative even as the director shifts focus toward grand ideological statements rather than intimate storytelling. The reviewer argues that while the film’s thematic ambitions are laudable, the emphasis on ideological debate occasionally comes at the expense of personal connection and subtle character development (The Hindu). [open Works Cited in new window]
In contrast, a review from Galatta Plus offers a more critical stance regarding the film’s structure. The reviewer contends that director Vetrimaaran overloaded the narrative with too many ideas and subplots. Although the film is a noble effort and a solid work of political cinema, this review suggests that lack of narrative discipline results in a work that feels less engaging and coherent than it might have been (Galatta Plus). Here, the reviewer does not critique the film politically. Sudhir Srinivasan’s review, titled “When Words Overpower Feeling,” further deepens this critique. Srinivasan points out that the film’s dialogue and rhetoric—while intellectually stimulating—often overshadow the emotional core. According to this perspective, the film becomes more a discourse on ideas than a vehicle for stirring genuine emotional response, leaving some viewers disconnected from the characters’ inner lives (Srinivasan). In fact, such an assessment underscores a recurring tension in politically charged cinema: to balance idea-driven content and affective storytelling.
A fourth review, which describes the film as “[a] solid political drama that ought to have been more powerful,” adds yet another layer to the discussion. This review acknowledges the film’s technical and thematic strengths, particularly its commitment to political realism and its exploration of systemic oppression. However, the reviewer laments that the film falls short of its potential due to an uneven narrative pace and missed opportunities for deeper emotional resonance (“Viduthalai Part 2 Movie Review”). Taken together, these reviews reveal a consensus on the film’s significant ideological ambitions and robust performances. Yet, they also highlight a shared concern: the film’s narrative overload and stylistic choices occasionally dilute the impact of its political message. The discussions in these reviews thus reflect broader debates within contemporary Indian cinema about the balance between message and mood, and about how filmmakers can effectively combine political urgency with affective storytelling.
As a director, Vetrimaaran is known for his ideological vision, rendering visible the predicament of the marginalized, and he is acknowledged as a leading voice among contemporary Indian filmmakers. In his scripts, an investment in politics is carefully balanced with the requirements of storytelling in Indian mainstream cinema for elements of romance and familial bonding. However, his political overtones border on propaganda. His films are dubbed and, like many contemporary Indian mainstream directors, he takes liberty at the cost of lip sync; in technical terms, sometimes the out-of-synch dubbed voices become noticeable. In particular, such a flaw draws attention to the verbosity of the master. Thus in Viduthalai the protagonist Kumaresan’s (Soori’s) monotonous voice-over giving explanations can become irritating. Though poles apart, Vetrimaaran’s “show and tell” aesthetic recalls another contemporary master, Wes Anderson, in his investment in the verbose.
Brief history of police violence in Tamil cinema
The depiction of police violence in Tamil cinema has undergone significant transformation, reflecting broader socio-political shifts in the region. Early Tamil films, especially those from the 1950s and 1960s, often portrayed police as righteous enforcers of justice, aligning with state propaganda that positioned law enforcement as an instrument of national progress. However, as a region, Tamil Nadu experienced political awakenings through the Dravidian movement and the rise of anti-caste resistance. During this time, Tamil cinema began to challenge this narrative of a benign police force, offering more complex and critical portrayals of law enforcement. During the 1980s and 1990s, Tamil cinema produced films that acknowledged police excesses, particularly in rural settings. Works such as Kuruthipunal (1995)–the critically acclaimed remake of Govind Nihalani’s Drohkaal (1994)–directed by the legendary cinematographer P.C. Sriram, questioned the role of law enforcement in perpetuating state violence, highlighting how police power was often wielded to maintain state and upper-caste dominance. Similarly, films like Moondru Mugham (1993) and Kaakha Kaakha (2003) marked a shift in police narratives, moving from moral absolutism to more brutal and reactionary explorations of power and violence, disavowing any ethical concern.
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| Moondru Mugham (1993). This film, though stylized, reflects the mythic aura around law enforcement, complicating real-world narratives of abuse and injustice. | Kaakha Kaakha (2003). A defining cop film that popularized the glorification of extrajudicial violence and masculine aggression in Tamil cinema. |
The turn of the 21st century, particularly with films like Visaranai (2015) and Viduthalai (2023), marked Tamil cinema’s significant departure from glorified portrayals of the police. These films align with Michel Foucault's concept of disciplinary power, showcasing how the police function as law enforcers and state-sanctioned instruments of biopolitical control. Recalling Frantz Fanon's critique of colonial policing, Visaranai exposes how police brutality disproportionately affects marginalized communities, echoing real-world instances of caste-based custodial violence, such as the Sathankulam case. Furthermore, the depiction of police violence in Tamil cinema can also be examined through Achille Mbembe’s theory of necropolitics, which explains how the state exercises control over life and death. In Viduthalai 1 and 2, for instance, the police serve as enforcers of law and arbiters of who is allowed to live and who must be eliminated. Significantly the use of open landscapes and remote terrains as sites of police violence in Viduthalai 1 and 2 highlights a shift from the claustrophobic urban brutality seen in Visaranai. This expansion of the cop narrative away from the city reinforces the idea that state oppression is not confined to institutional spaces but extends into the very geography of resistance.
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| People's protests against police brutality.ccc | |
Tamil cinema, therefore, provides a crucial space for examining the evolving discourse in India on police violence. From early nationalist portrayals to contemporary critiques of state oppression, these films reveal the deeply entrenched nature of caste-based and political violence, offering a cinematic history that parallels real-world struggles against police brutality in India.
Thanga Pathakkam and the
evolution of police narratives in Tamil cinema
A precursor to contemporary critiques of police violence in Tamil cinema is Thanga Pathakkam (Gold Medal, 1974), written by the iconic J. Mahendran and directed by P. Madhavan. This film, which stars Sivaji Ganesan as the strict, duty-bound police officer S.P. Chowdhury, marked a significant moment in Tamil cinema's portrayal of law enforcement. Unlike contemporary films that either demonize or glorify the police, Thanga Pathakkam occupies a complex space where the protagonist embodies both the virtues and the rigid authoritarianism of the police system. The film's central conflict—between the disciplined police officer and his rebellious, anti-establishment son—mirrors a generational struggle over the role of law enforcement in a changing society. Chowdhury's unwavering commitment to duty, even at the cost of his relationships, highlights a key contradiction in Tamil police narratives: the tension between justice and authoritarianism. He makes a decision to shoot his own son, rather than compromise his principles. That action underscores the idea that state power operates above familial and personal bonds, reinforcing Michel Foucault's assertion that disciplinary institutions shape not just public order but also personal morality.
Additionally, Thanga Pathakkam can be examined through the lens of understanding contemporary institutional functioning. In this light, Max Weber's concept of bureaucratic rationality indicates how modern institutions, including the police, operate as impersonal control mechanisms. Unlike the films Visaranai and Viduthalai, which expose law enforcement's corrupt and violent underbelly, Thanga Pathakkam’s script presents a more traditional, duty-bound view of police power, albeit with some critique. The film's tragic resolution indicates that an unwavering commitment to the institution of policing ultimately results in personal devastation, a theme that later films would explore in more radical terms. I point this out to indicate how the evolution from Thanga Pathakkam to Visaranai and Viduthalai signals a broader shift in Tamil cinema's approach to police narratives. While Thanga Pathakkam grapples with the dilemmas of duty and familial responsibility within the protagonist’s rigid moral framework, later films deconstruct the very foundations of the police force, revealing its structural complicity in caste and state violence. Vetrimaaran's work, in particular, can be viewed as a response to earlier, more conservative representations of law enforcement, pushing Tamil cinema into a more overtly political and radical space.
Prison abolitionist perspectives on police violence
Abolitionist scholars such as Angela Davis, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, and Mariame Kaba argue that policing and prisons are inherently oppressive structures that maintain racial and caste hierarchies rather than ensure public safety. They contend that reforming the police is insufficient; true justice requires dismantling carceral institutions and investing in community-led alternatives. In her book Are Prisons Obsolete? Angela Davis critiques the prison-industrial complex as an extension of slavery and racial capitalism, highlighting how the U.S. criminal justice system disproportionately targets Black communities. Similarly, in India, the carceral system disproportionately criminalizes Dalits, Indigenous People, and other marginalized groups under draconian laws like the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), which has been used to target activists and dissidents.
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| Kumaresan's gradual realization. As he begins to see the world differently, Kumaresan's transformation is marked by a slow erosion of faith in the state. | Inhumanity of the system. This frame encapsulates the sheer indifference of bureaucratic violence, where cruelty is normalized and rendered invisible |
Vetrimaaran’s Viduthalai 1 and 2 resonates with abolitionist critiques by exposing how the police function not as neutral law enforcers but as agents of state oppression. A crucial scene in Viduthalai 1 shows the protagonist, Kumaresan, grappling with the realization that his duty as a police officer is not to protect the people but to uphold a violent, hierarchical system. His internal conflict in the script echoes abolitionist calls to rethink public safety beyond policing. Similarly, Visaranai presents a harrowing depiction of how the police manufacture guilt and extract forced confessions to sustain the illusion of justice. The film reveals how the police system thrives on criminalizing the powerless while protecting the interests of the ruling class. This mirrors abolitionist critiques that suggest policing is less about preventing crime and more about controlling marginalized populations. Abolitionist thinkers propose alternatives such as transformative justice, community accountability, and investments in social welfare instead of punitive measures. In the United States, movements like Black Lives Matter advocate for defunding the police and reallocating resources to education, healthcare, and housing—addressing the root causes of violence rather than criminalizing poverty. In India, Ambedkarite movements and grassroots Dalit organizations similarly call for an end to caste-based policing and increased investment in social justice initiatives. Vetrimaaran’s worldview, as represented through his films, is similar. For instance, through the eyes of the newly recruited cop Kumaresan, Viduthalai traces the trajectory of Perumal Vaathiyaar (Vijay Sethupathi) from being a teacher to worker in a factory, mentored by a Marxist leader, to taking up arms as a leader of the People’s Army and advocating for voting and elections as a way to resist/change the government. Thus, Perumal Vaathiyaar is a fusion of Marxist and Periyarist and Tamil nationalist who advocates for eradicating caste. Let us look at the hero’s arc in his films.
Ensemble acting, people's cinema, and the
hero's journey in Viduthalai
With scripts that trace the intersection of the hero's journey and police violence, the films Viduthalai 1 and 2 and Visaranai offer compelling narratives to critique how individuals navigate oppressive state structures. In contrast to mainstream cop films that often portray law enforcement officers as heroes overcoming adversity, these films subvert this trope by placing their protagonists within systems that corrupt, brutalize, and dehumanize them. In contrast to Joseph Campbell's monomyth structure that traditionally involves a heroic protagonist who embarks on a transformational journey and returns with newfound wisdom or power, these films disrupt such an optimistic trajectory, illustrating the futility of seeking justice within a violent, hierarchical system.
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| Kumaresan's journey - the ethical challenge. | Perumal, the mentor's call to adventure. |
In Viduthalai 1, Kumaresan's journey begins with idealism—he believes he can serve as an honest officer. His 'call to adventure' is his posting in a conflict-ridden region, where he gradually witnesses his superiors’ relentless cruelty. Unlike conventional hero narratives where the protagonist successfully overcomes systemic corruption, Kumaresan's story highlights the state’s coercive nature, leaving him morally conflicted rather than triumphant. In this way, his internal struggle reflects Frantz Fanon's idea that colonial and state violence subjugate the oppressed and distort the psychology of those who enforce it. Similarly, Visaranai follows a tragic trajectory where the working-class protagonists, initially hoping to clear their names, are systematically broken down by police brutality. Their journey mirrors what Paulo Freire describes in Pedagogy of the Oppressed—a cyclical process in which the oppressed are forced into submission through institutional violence, stripping them of agency. These films have a narrative structure that challenges the hero's journey by denying its characters any return or redemption, instead showing them consumed by a system that thrives on their suffering. Specifically, both films dismantle the myth of individual heroism in law enforcement, illustrating that in a casteist and authoritarian state, justice comes not as an attainable personal conquest but a collective struggle against systemic oppression.
One defining characteristic of Viduthalai is its ensemble approach to casting and performance, which aligns with traditions of people's cinema while integrating elements of the hero's journey. Unlike mainstream Tamil cop films that center upon an all-powerful protagonist, Viduthalai disperses agency among multiple characters, emphasizing collective struggle over individual heroism. This ensemble approach resonates with the theories of people's cinema, particularly as articulated by Solanas and Getino in their manifesto on Third Cinema, which advocates that films prioritize the collective over the individual, depicting the masses as agents of resistance rather than passive victims. Kumaresan's character arc, however, as the hero of a mainstream film, also follows a version of Joseph Campbell's monomyth of a hero's journey, albeit subverted to reflect structural oppression rather than personal triumph. He begins as a naïve police recruit (the 'Call to Adventure') and gradually becomes disillusioned as he witnesses state violence ('The Road of Trials'). Ultimately, he is forced into an ethical confrontation with the system ('Atonement with the Father'). However, rather than a triumphant return, as seen in conventional hero narratives, Kumaresan's transformation underscores the impossibility of reforming a system built on oppression. This deviation from the classical hero's journey aligns with anti-colonial and Marxist cinema traditions, which reject individualist narratives in favor of structural critique.
The ensemble nature of Viduthalai 1 and 2 also enhances its ethnographic realism. By using actors who embody their roles with documentary-style authenticity, the film moves beyond melodramatic performances to capture lived realities of police violence. Non-professional actors and minor characters are given significant screen time, so that that the story is not just about Kumaresan and Perumal Vaathiyaar but about the larger community affected by caste-based policing. This technique to attain cinematic realism within fiction film is reminiscent of Italian neorealism, where everyday people and non-actors were used to lend films an immediacy and authenticity that professional performances often lacked. Vetrimaaran's approach to casting and directing operates at the intersection of political cinema with narrative realism. While the cop Kumaresan provides a moral center for the audience to engage with, the film resists individualistic storytelling by emphasizing the predicament of the larger community. This duality and the concomitant tension—between the hero's journey and an ensemble-driven people's cinema—adds to Viduthalai's complexity, making it a crucial text for studying socially engaged filmmaking.
Ethnographic style in Vetrimaaran's Viduthalai
Vetrimaaran’s Viduthalai employs an ethnographic style that immerses the audience in the socio-political realities of its setting. Drawing from an observational documentary aesthetic, by staging the sequences from many angles, mainly through handheld cameras, the visual style meticulously captures the textures of rural Tamil Nadu, depicting landscapes, people, and everyday life with a commitment to authenticity. Though meticulously staged, from newspaper headlines and events in the lives of real-life rebels like Pulavar Kaliaperumal, Vetrimaran seems interested in recording reality rather than stylizing it, even if he takes liberties with history regarding space and time. Therefore, news and newspaper headlines and historical events become essential markers in his films as signifiers of the sociopolitics of the period. Using non-actors in minor roles, relying on natural lighting, and paying detailed attention to dialects and regional customs create a sense of lived reality that aligns with ethnographic filmmaking traditions. The ethnographic approach in Viduthalai blurs the lines between fiction and documentary, allowing characters and environments to shape the narrative organically. Vetrimaaran's regular collaborator, R. Velraj's cinematography, enables a charged coverage of sequences and improvisational aesthetics. Such a visual style encompasses both acting and framing as the camera often focuses on mundane yet significant details. We notice how police officers interact with villagers—including police dependence on and torture of villagers. We see the challenging terrain that makes Kumaresan's journey physically demanding. And scenes linger on the everyday struggles of people caught in systemic violence.
An example of attention to the visual details of everyday life occurs in Kumaresan's love story with Tamilarasi (Bhavani Sre). It centers on her cooked food, particularly when he is forcefully starved as a punishment for his honesty by the higher-ups. Food also takes on feminist and communal resonance when Perumal cooks with his love interest, Mahalakshmi (Manju Warrier), for his fellow workers/comrades. Although choreographed for the fiction, this observational visual style enhances the film's realism and leads the audience to confront the harsh socio-political realities of caste-based policing. Furthermore, Viduthalai does not simply depict police violence; it immerses the audience within its environment, making them close witnesses to structural oppression rather than passive consumers of dramatized suffering. Long, uninterrupted takes, minimal background scores during violent scenes, and handheld camerawork amplify this immersive effect, positioning the viewer as an observer inside state brutality. More importantly, Viduthalai is filled with Kumaresan’s voice over, particularly in the form of a letter he is writing to his mother.
This immersive visual realism is further grounded in the film’s careful reconstruction of historical memory and political geography. Drawing on Siegfried Kracauer’s idea of “redeeming physical reality,” Viduthalai reanimates the socio-political landscape of the Naxalite movement through its visual and spatial design. Kracauer argued that cinema can recover and re-present the overlooked or forgotten textures of everyday life, especially when drawn from archival materials, for instance, from films shot on locations; in this case, Vetrimaaran redeems reality from newspapers, journalistic write-ups, and Tamil Nadu Films Division documentaries that documented rural unrest and insurgency. The hideouts of Perumal Vaathiyaar and the rugged forest terrain in which the People’s Army operates are not generic backdrops but are inspired by these sources, particularly records of leftist movements that took root in Tamil Nadu’s Dharmapuri region and parts of Salem, North Arcot, and South Arcot in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
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| Hungry Kumaresan relishing food. As he eats, Kumaresan's transformation becomes corporeal—he internalizes the love and trust of the people he once surveilled. | Training ground in the north. A site of ideological training and brutalization, the northern police camp represents the homogenizing force of the state. |
While Vetrimaaran departs from strict geographical fidelity—relocating the narrative to the hills and forests of Dindigul, Kodaikanal, and Kadambur—this creative shift serves a strategic purpose. The film creates a composite landscape that blends historical truth with cinematic specificity by building an entire village in these southern locales to mirror the affected northern regions. This reimagined geography does not dilute the film’s realism but intensifies it, allowing Viduthalai to function both as a fictional narrative and a sensory archive of state violence and rural resistance.
