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Unlike his more mainstream contemporaries, who are often complicit in the silencing of women through their so-called progressive cinema , director PS Vinothraj attempts to expose the oppression of ancient systems by questioning his own position in them. His decision to restrict the titular ‘Adamant Girl’ of his latest feature, Kottukkaali, to essentially one line of dialogue — a haunting line that stays with you long after the credits have rolled — isn’t so much an act of denial as it is an act of defiance. Played by Anna Ben in the year’s best performance, Meena is the moral compass of Vinothraj’s movie — a symbol of silent resistance, of civil disobedience, of simmering rage. Kottukkaali is a tremendous second feature for the talented Vinothraj, a poet of the people whose cinema deals with the often fluid duality of freedom and fear. His characters wander, perennially ill-at-ease, across the rural landscapes of Tamil Nadu . But they are all caged in one way or another. At just two films old, Vinothraj already has a fully-formed, and instantly-recognisable aesthetic; Kottukkaali opens with something of a signature move — a long, uncut tracking shot that reveals more about character than reams of dialogue ever could. Also read – Maagh – The Winter Within: The finest Indian film of the year, the only alternative to all the Animals out there A middle-aged woman pours buckets of water over her saree-clad body in the earliest whispers of dawn. She isn’t bathing; it’s almost as if she’s cleansing her body of an unspeakable evil. She walks from her home to a nearby shrine, offers prayers, and then trudges back to where she came from; sobbing, shaking, clearly disturbed about something. But we don’t know what. It is not yet time for us to know. We follow the woman back inside her house, where she comes face-to-face with her daughter, the ‘adamant’ Meena, sitting silently, lifelessly, staring at a symbolic rooster chained to a rock. It will be over an hour into the film’s 110-minute run-time that someone finally spells out what’s happening. But by then, you’d have formed a fairly accurate picture of the near-farcical fable that Vinothraj has set out to tell. Meena has been betrothed to a man named Pandi (Soori), whom she refuses to marry. She was in love with another man, but was forbidden from being with him because he belonged to a different caste. Meena retreated into herself, refusing to speak about, engage with, or acknowledge the injustice being exacted upon her. Pandi’s family decided that she must be possessed. Kottukkaali follows these characters as they embark upon a journey to meet a shaman, who specialises in exorcising women deemed imperfect in the eyes of patriarchy. All of this, to be clear, is communicated through the power of suggestion . Yes, there is more dialogue here than in Vinothraj’s landmark first film, Koozhangal, but the conversations don’t come across as basic exposition. Instead, they invite further exploration of the film’s themes. He peppers the ‘plot’ with chatter that reveals the petty preoccupations of these characters. One lady is outraged that her husband is being made to pay for everything; two hangers-on are more concerned about scoring liquor. Even though this entire excursion has supposedly been orchestrated because of Meena, nobody seems to (want to) pay much attention to her. She is treated as furniture. They might as well be transporting a desk in need of a fresh polish. But is it Meena who needs an exorcism, or the society that robbed her not only of her agency, but also of her will to live? There is a stench of doom to this whole enterprise, as if we’re witnessing the very final stages of Meena’s resistance. It’s like she’s being ferried to her own grave. But perhaps the most surprising element of Kottukkaali is the wicked humour that Vinothraj laces the meandering narrative with. He can’t help but mock the men and women who have solemnly gathered to escort Meena to an uncle who supposedly has magic powers. Vinothraj understands the absurd horror of the situation, even if he can’t quite grasp why this is happening. Along the way, the convoy — Meena and the other women are symbolically shafted into an auto rickshaw with the sacrificial rooster , while the men ride alongside them on bikes — runs into a series of increasingly ridiculous hurdles, each of them more allegorical than the last. A police man stops them on the highway, perhaps hungry for a hefty bribe. But the second that he is told the purpose of their journey, he sends them on their way with his best wishes. He actually believes that by not standing an obstacle in a family’s quest to provide care for a young woman, he is being chivalrous. Kottukkaali is all about these little ironies. The group stops for pee breaks, for poop breaks, for period breaks. Vinothraj pointedly cuts to a closeup of a stream of urine splashing on discarded plastic — waste upon waste. When a woman ventures out into the woods to change her pad, there is the briefest hint of a brewing escape plan — she’s weaponising the emblem of her supposed ‘weakness’ to stage her own salvation — but it is quickly revealed to be nothing but false hope. A pipe-dream is reduced to harsh reality. Also read – Aattam: A masterclass in misdirection, Anand Ekarshi’s anti-whodunnit is an early contender for the movie of the year In one scene, a fly assaults Pandi’s eye, bringing the entire convoy to yet another abrupt halt. As he throws a fit — there is a reason why something as puny as a fly is chosen to be the cause of his discomfort — Vinothraj deploys another of his exaggerated closeups. His sister sticks her tongue out, and proceeds to lick the insides of his eyeball. It’s a powerful image, one that perfectly encapsulates the strange tonal cocktail that Vinothraj is deviously mixing for us. Women are indispensable to the survival of patriarchy . It’s an unfathomable truth, and nothing can perhaps communicate the inherent dichotomy of this idea than the sight of a lady licking her brother’s naked eye in slow-motion. Another indelicate metaphor emerges in the form of a bull that blocks the convoy’s path and refuses to budge. While the women stay put inside the auto, the men tumble onto the road and posture before the large animal — an emblem of masculinity if there ever was one. It’s a face-off. Ultimately, after deliberating among themselves about how to handle this inconvenience, the men are effectively rescued by a little girl from a neighbouring house. The bull is her pet. In another scene, the men physically lift up the auto to turn it around in a narrow street. Vinothraj cuts between closeups of their faces, twisted beyond recognition, screaming at the top of their lungs as they manhandle the vessel that Meena has attached herself to. Read more – Paradise: Darshana Rajendran’s thrilling Malayalam gem exposes the micro-aggressions of toxic men In Koozhangal, the woman’s story unfolded entirely off screen. It dealt with the aftermath of events that would normally form the plot of a regular film. We (literally) followed the alcoholic, abusive protagonist on an almost biblical quest across the harsh desert as he tracked his runaway wife. God knows what he had done to her. Unlike the many Hindi films that seem to be clueless about perspective , Koozhangal doesn’t present the protagonist like some sort of remorseful hero. The film’s greatest achievement was to get you to pray for a woman you’d never even seen, let alone met. But there isn’t a single scene in Kottukkaali that doesn’t revolve around Meena. That’s how Vinothraj centres the drama. That’s how he establishes his solidarity with her. He will not abandon her even if her family has; he will not leave her side, even though she is doomed; he will continue ignoring the emptiness that others see in her eyes, because what he sees in them are the last remnants of hope. Post Credits Scene is a column in which we dissect new releases every week, with particular focus on context, craft, and characters. Because there’s always something to fixate about once the dust has settled. Rohan Naahar is an assistant editor at Indian Express online. He covers pop-culture across formats and mediums. He is a 'Rotten Tomatoes-approved' critic and a member of the Film Critics Guild of India. He previously worked with the Hindustan Times, where he wrote hundreds of film and television reviews, produced videos, and interviewed the biggest names in Indian and international cinema. At the Express, he writes a column titled Post Credits Scene, and has hosted a podcast called Movie Police. You can find him on X at @RohanNaahar, and write to him at He is also on LinkedIn and Instagram. ... Read More None
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