Meiazhagan - the kindness of strangers

 

Movie: Meiyazhagan

Year:2024

Language: Tamil

Genre: Family Comedy

Where to Watch: in local theaters

Director: C. Prem Kumar

Cast: Arvind Swamy, Karthi, Sri Divya, Jayaprakash, Swathi Konde

Mohan's Measure: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Words will fail to describe just how inspiring this movie is.  Meiyazhagan can be described not as a movie, but as an emotion, a sentiment, even a spiritual awakening.

Arvind Sir stars as Arul,  a disillusioned man who returns to his native village after nearly a quarter century of conscious estrangement.  What he finds about the people, his history, and the inner meaning of life is what this beautiful vignette provides.  It does so without flashy dialogues or in your face rhetoric. Rather it presents a calm, heartwarming, affectionate vignette, creating the aura of what South Tamil Nadu's people are known for.

Arul's host is played by Karthi, a man Arul cannot remember but who claims to be a cousin.  The very fact that he cannot even remember the man's name is telling of just how much Arul rejects his past. Their time together is only a few hours of conversation, food and drink, but it unfolds before the audience like verses from Thirukkural, witty but ripe with ancient, practical, wisdom of what it means to be a simple, good human being.

In a telling scene, two inebriated men sit around a roaring fire, as one describes to the other the history and values that have now been pushed aside by our own egos.  There is a mythos here, an almost Jungian psychological healing, which neither man shows, but feels. We are asked, what would happen if we were to rediscover and adopt such history, such emotion? The movie brilliantly provides no answer, no judgement.  It merely allows us as an audience to think.  Since when did an Indian movie ever do that?

On a personal level, as a Indian American, living in the USA all my life, this movie did little to stir my own memories as it perhaps did others in the audience.  But, it touched my soul, bringing out the values that my wife and I have built ourselves around over the years, values clearly rooted in a past far more ancient and hoary than our grandparents could have explained, perhaps even understood.

If you see only one movie this year, please see Meiyazhagan.  Let it stir your memories and awaken your soul.