Kakka Muttai(2015)

Kakka Mutta is a Tamil drama film written directed and shot by debutante director Manikandan. The film is produced by Dhanush and director vertimaran. the film is about the life of Two slum boys and their desire to taste a pizza. The film was screened in 2014 Torronto Film Festival.

Cast: Vignesh, Ramesh, Ishwarya Ramesh & Silambarasan(guest appearance)

Plot and Story line:

The film portrays the life of two slum children, their way of life , the difficulty they face living in a city and how the people around them exploit them. I cannot say the film is filled with grief  and hardship, all this is shown in the film in a comic narration. The two brothers ( Peria Kakka Muttai & Chinna Kakka Muttai) , we actually know the name of the children in the entire film, They live with their mother and their grandma in the slums of Chennai. Their father is struck in prison, to cope with the situation the mom works in a utensil manufacturing facility, the who boys stop going to school instead they pick up coal from the railway tracks and sell I to support their mother. Though we can from the first few moments the state in which the boys lives, we never get the feeling film going tragic, rather there is more fun filled scenes between the boys and their mother and grandma.

A new pizza store opens in their place and Actor Simbu attends the function, the boys see him eating a pizza, they are immediately attracted towards it, they watch the commercials in the TV and they sets their minds towards eating it. Their financial situation is beautifully shown when they devise a plan to buy a 300 Rs pizza, they calculate from their daily coal sale and finally plan to save for a month to buy the pizza, They meet a friend – Pazharasam ( a friend in the coal business ) , who shows them the coal storehouse where they scavenge daily to save the money. Finally they save the money and get ready to buy the pizza.

The characterization of the slum kids is beautifully done in the film, their innocence is beautifully captured, there is no big ambitions for these kids, they live a carefree life, the main of the objective of the boys was to taste a pizza, Even though they try so hard to gather the money the brothers, they never indulge in any wrongful way to achieve their goal. Especially the elder one is really believes in honor,  Though they are offered some left over from a rich friend, he denies it and tells that they will earn it.

The director now shows the status of these slum kids in the eyes of the society, the security guard doesn’t allow the boys inside, they try several means but they get thrown out and even get beaten up finally by one of the managers. Then the tragic part in the movie begins, when the boys return home their grandma is dead. The later part of the film shows how the situation of the kids is mindlessly exploited by all the other people, but the kids know nothing of it. Some random kid shoots the video of the kids being hit by the shop manager and media gets a hold of it, How the exploitation happens is exactly portrayed and it seems real. All the layers of the society use this opportunity – the police, the media, the politicians, the local thugs . The irony of it is that the mother and the boys do not know any of this is happening not until the end of the film.

Verdict:

At the end of the film when they finally eat the pizza, they say to each other “ Do u like it, I don’t, How are we going to finish the whole thing. Grandma’s dosa was better than this!”( PS: in their local language it was far better to see  than what I wrote). In the Background all the drama by the politicians, the shop owner takes place. The boys see each other like they have accomplished a big feat and the movie ends.

The films making and the dialogue and the acting all are nowhere near an offbeat film, there is no special dialogues, there is no extra-ordinary acting by anyone. But this is a work of art. The film won two national awards too

The director doesn’t emphasize the grief or the poverty of the children, rather they are happy throughout the film( may be he wanted to say something can’t just be bought with money). Hats off to the Director for making such a film and to Danush and Vetrimaran for undertaking a different one.