Kaadan - Elephant Man

 

Kaadan

2021, Tamil

Directed by Prabhu Solomon

Stars Rana Daggubati, Vishnu Vishal, Anant Mahadevan, Zoya Hussain

Mohan's Measure ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Civil Engineers learn early on that our business is a compromise with Nature, and that we are mere stewards to a far higher purpose.  What happens when we overstep bounds is a lesson we all have should have learned in the past 14 months of isolation and tragedy that continue to plague us.

How disturbing the delicate balance results in personal and communal tragedy is presented in this beautifully made film, which has been simultaneously made in three languages.

Mr. Daggubati has given the performance of his life in playing the title character of Kaadan.  Dubbed as the "Forest Man of India," he is a true man of the wild.  He movies his head about like a bird, walks with quiet of a cheetah, and attacks like a lion when the ways of his beloved elephant herd are threatened.

While the birds and deer are a giveaway, one cannot really tell if the elephants are CGI or not.  There is a deep expression in their eyes, a knowable sense of both happiness and pain, and we as an audience are left aghast at just how much we find ourselves feeling for them.

I have cried through movies of human suffering, but this is the first time I found myself crying for the animals.  This movie has evoked the gun-shy feeling of mistrust psychologists say is normal at meeting fellow human beings after such a long isolation. It also reveals the need to for all of us to return to a new normal, one in which we should be more sensitive to Nature, as much as we are to each other.

Privacy is what our friends in the animal world need to survive.  And, in this case, the folks whom we would label outcasts and nonconformists are the ones willing and able to provide it to them, at the cost of their own life.

Kaadan is a rough film, a sad film; but it is a most certainly a thought-provoking watch.