Aadiram’s Ranathantra may appear to be a horror-thriller but at the heart of it is an elaborate sermon on Indian culture and how women must behave. “The hand that should be used to make a beautiful rangoli now holds a cigarette,” rues a young man during the climax of the film as he speaks about how modern, ‘software women’ drink, smoke and behave like men. This is not our culture, he says.
The story is about the man, an LIC agent, who sets out to kill five young women who ragged him, forced him to drink alcohol and smoke a cigarette when he went to their house to get them to sign up for an insurance policy. We are told that he was in dire need of money to pay for his dying mother’s hospital treatment.
Things go horribly wrong, and he slips and hurts his head in a drunken state. Assuming that he was dead and hoping to cover their tracks, the women dump him in a suitcase and throw it from a cliff. But the man, who was merely unconscious, wakes up and plots revenge. He tracks down the women and kills them one by one.
Instead of citing the attempt to murder and harassment as his reasons for revenge, in his elaborate lecture at the end he says women have turned into “culture criminals” wielding glasses of alcohol and cigarettes in their hand, and this is why, men like him will return and kill them. The film ends on this note and a grand song on Indian culture plays as the credits roll.
Up until the climax, the plot is littered with suggestions that this is a tale of ghosts and spirits, a deliberate ploy of the film-maker to mislead the audience in order to induce awe and shock at the time of the climax. But the real horror story was in the sermon delivered at the end.
One could talk at length about the ill-timed songs and the unnecessary item number, but those are just elements added for a ‘populist appeal’, as they say. On top of this, the mediocre performances by Vijay Raghavendra and Haripriya make the film a tedious watch.
Director: Aadiram
Cast: Vijay Raghavendra, Haripriya, Satyajit Vishal Agarwal
