Review: Pariyerum Perumal

Film: Pariyerum Perumal
Director: Mari Selvaraj
Cast: Kathir, Kayal Anandhi, Yogi Babu, Karate Venkatesh, Marimuthu and others
Music: Santosh Narayanan
Cinematography: R K Selva

Every year, anywhere between 300 to 400 Tamil films manage to hit the screens. A vast majority of these are not even worth watching once. Some are good enough to be viewed once. Very few manage to earn your admiration and continue to stay on in your mind, long after you have watched them. But it is only one or two in a million that manage to overwhelm you so much, that they literally leave you shaken.

Pariyerum Perumal is that one-in-a-million film. A film that is so true to its soul that it is bound to strike a chord with anybody and everybody watching it.

This is Mari Selvaraj’s first film. If a director can narrate such a soul-touching story without any compromises whatsoever in his first film, one only wonders what he will be able to do in his future films, when he has experience too on his side.

Without much ado, let’s get on to what the film is about…

Pariyerum Perumal (Kathir), a youngster from the oppressed classes, joins the Tirunelveli Law College in the hope of becoming a lawyer one day to help those from his community. His community members are exploited and ill-treated by those from the upper castes at every given opportunity. The first from his community to even enter law college, Perumal has a burning desire to realise his dream of becoming a lawyer for the sake of fulfilling a promise he has made to an elderly gentleman from his community.

Despite his desire to learn the law, the youngster finds the system to be heavily stacked against him. Professors teach in English and for the poor, intelligent student who studied all his subjects in Tamil medium, their words appear to be Greek and Latin. Several professors insult and humiliate him. One professor in particular makes students of the opposite gender mock and jeer at him. Day in and day out, he is taunted, humiliated and made to feel like an outsider in the college where caste politics rule supreme.

Jo(Anandhi), a student in Perumal’s class, initially joins her jeering classmates, when they make fun of him. Eventually, she understands that he is an intelligent student who suffers only on account of his lack of knowledge of English. She offers to help him learn the language and a traumatised Perumal, gratefully accepts the lone offer of help.

He is a fast learner and from being unable to spell or write even basic words in English, he quickly reaches a state where he passes both his English papers. By now, Jo has taken a liking for him. As a result of that liking, she extends an invitation only to Perumal for her sister’s wedding. Perumal too decides to go for the wedding in neighbouring Ambasamudram. What happens there changes the course of his life…

The film showcases the exact situation that is prevalent even to this day in many parts of the state. The inconsiderate and inhuman manner in which people of some communities treat people of other communities which they presume are lower to theirs in terms of stature is brought out beautifully in this film, which is more or less based on the real life experiences of the director and those around him.

From honour killings in which upper caste people choose to kill the boy of the lower castes to how cops and those in the system believe that those from the lower castes should take their insults and taunts without a whimper of protest to the deplorable and inhuman levels people can stoop to to establish their so called superiority in stature to the arrogant manner in which they even kill innocent pets of the lower castes as a means of exhibiting their power, everything is showcased as it is.

Right from the word go, the film catches your attention and leaves you watching with bated breath as to what will happen next. It transforms you to the scene of the incidents and subconsciously makes you put yourself in the place of Perumal. As a result, you experience the agony he experiences. The humiliation, the insults, the pain and the trauma a boy from the lower castes experiences couldn’t have been brought out better.

Mari Selvaraj also needs to be immensely complemented for showcasing men the way they really are. For years, Tamil film directors have been showing men as being irresponsible, women stalkers, whose only mission in life is to get laid. Mari Selvaraj’s hero Pariyerum Perumal is someone who is immensely disciplined, extremely patient and delightfully intelligent. More importantly, he attaches great significance to his dignity, the way men in real life do. Despite being provoked repeatedly, he holds back and responds only when the provocation goes beyond a level that is humanly impossible to take.

Kathir as Pariyerum Perumal deserves a National Award for his performance in the film. Be it the sequence when his dog is brutally killed, or the sequence where he runs to defend the honour of his dad who is stripped and made to run nude, or the scene in which despite his immense pain, he continues to show a smiling face to Jo, whom he considers his friend, Kathir nails it. The youngster does such a fine job that you wish wholeheartedly that he gets the rich recognition that is so due to him.

He deserves all the appreciation that an actor can possibly get for portraying a character so realistically, that you actually feel the character’s pain and humiliation.

Actress Anandhi comes up with an equally brilliant performance as Jo. Both actors do a phenomenal job in playing their parts.

On the technical side, Santosh Narayanan’s music is just brilliant in the film as is R K Selva’s cinematography. Both technicians seem to have put their heart and soul into this film, just like every other member who has worked on this film has. In short, this film is a gem.

Films like Pariyerum Perumal and Merku Thodarchi Malai are the kind that reassure you that Tamil cinema is still way ahead of its other counterparts like Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada or Hindi. In a nutshell, Pariyerum Perumal is a film that leaves you shaken, stunned, moved and thinking. In other words, it’s a masterpiece!