Some films are done more justice by one-liners from audiences than by writing full-length reviews. By the time the intermission rolled up for Kathar Basha Endra Muthuramlingam for example, one bemused audience member observed: “Padatha poduvanunga nu paatha, sandaiyadhaan pottukitte irukaanga” (the person, after taking stock of the countless fights that happened on screen until the interval block, wanted to know where the rest of the story was). A reaction to be deeply empathised with.
Kathar Basha Endra Muthuramalingam follows the dramatic lives of Kathar (Arya) and Tamil Selvi (Siddhi Idnani). Very quickly into the film, Kathar declares, “I know only justice, truth, and honour. Apart from that, I know how to stab, punch, and kill”. The latter is what he spends most of his time in the film doing.
Cue high-decibel nerve-wracking music:
Slow-motion shots of Arya tying his vetti.
Slow-motion shots of Arya removing his vetti before a fight.
Slow-motion shots of Arya tossing around men like sacks of rice.
Slow-motion shots of Arya lifting a rowdie by his foot with one arm.
Slow-motion shots of Arya lifting yet another rowdie, but by a different body part. (For variety, you know?) Anyway, you get the picture.
If this was all that was wrong with the film, it’d be easy to dismiss it as yet another vacuous endeavour by Kollywood. But this is an M Muthaiah film, so alongside seemingly endless fight sequences, is a large helping of Thevar caste pride.
The director has previously made Viruman and Deverattam amongst others, both of which rely on evoking caste fanaticism. Muthaiah’s Komban, which released prior to Viruman, also ran into trouble for the same reason. Yet, nothing has deterred the director from making another movie that leans heavily into whipping up caste frenzy.
Kathar Basha Endra Muthuramlaingam makes direct reference to Muthuramlinga Thevar – a caste leader who died in 1963 and is still revered by Thevars. If you need to know the magnitude of political power that Muthuramlingam held, and that Thevars–an intermediate caste cluster–continue to wield, I urge you to read about the Mudukulathur Dalit killings and the murder of Dalit leader Immanuel Sekaran.
Kathar Basha Endra Muthuramlingam is even set in the same Ramanathapuram district where the aforementioned real-life events took place. The film first introduces us to Tamil Selvi and her family drama is so convoluted that it will require a new Wikipedia entry to properly explain. The gist of it is that two of her uncles want her to marry their sons, but she wants nothing to do with either of them. She ultimately falls for Kathar, who also has a dizzyingly complicated backstory involving far too many relatives to keep track of.
Interestingly, Kathar is raised by a Muslim man called Kathar Basha Endra Muthuramalingam, played by Prabu. Actually, Arya’s Kathar and his adoptive father have the same epithet as if this film isn’t confusing enough already.
For clarity’s sake, I’ll refer to them as Kathar Sr and Kathar Jr. The Kathars’ hometown is an idealistic utopia, the director wants you to believe. Muslims and Hindus live in affectionate harmony and celebrate each other’s festivals together. Sounds progressive in these times of anti-Islam hate-mongering, doesn’t it? There’s a catch though. Their unity is based on the problematic idea that—let me quote directly from the film—“even if they’re Muslim, they are from our caste.” Is caste endogamy the only reason Muthaiah could think of to dissuade viewers from Islamophobia?
The dramatically nefarious intrigues of Kathar Jr and Tamil Selvi’s birth families converge to offer us a plot line so tangled, you’ll wonder if the director was just trying to obfuscate the fact that he doesn’t have an engaging enough story to tell. Muthaiah introduces more villains into the story than the combined products Apple has possibly launched in the last few years. Each of them is cartoonishly monstrous and hardly ever part with their aruvaals (machette). One villain manages to exceed all these antics by routinely lighting his cigarettes with country bombs.
Since every single character, all of whom are Thevar, is obsessively preoccupied with their maanam (honour) and gauravam (stature). To make sense, here’s another reading recommendation for you: look up the correlation between aruvaals, intermediate caste pride, and their imagination of ‘honour’ in Tamil cinema.
The villainy of these legions of antagonists in the film is by no means a criticism of real-life violence by Thevars. One should note that all the characters are from the same caste. There are the good ones like Kathar Jr who are prone to using their fists and aruvaals to address problems. And then there are the bad ones who are inclined to deal with their problems similarly, but additionally also carry out sickening practices like female infanticide. The story is about whether the Thevar who uses violence for ‘good’ prevails over the Thevar who uses violence simply because he’s been written as the villain.
This binary version is an old tale with a new coat of paint. Kathar Basha Endra Muthuramalinga is the same feudal noblesse oblige of the 1980s and 19990s caste pride, and all Tamil movies relied on this kind of binary. The few dialogues in Kathar Basha Endra Muthuramalingam that profess communal harmony collapse in the face of the Thevar-pride the film depends on to make an impact. But it is unsurprising that with a wave of anti-caste films in Kollywood led by Dalit filmmakers, pro-caste films have found another generation of supporters.
Disclaimer: This review was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the film. Neither TNM nor any of its reviewers have any sort of business relationship with the producers or any other members of its cast and crew.