The year's best desi picture?

Right at the first scene of Vetrimaarans Vada Chennai the goons mention how Jayalalitha will come to power in Tami Nadu next This means the lot in the room can rule for the following 25 yearsThis immediately sets the unambiguous tone for the mobviolence masterpiece set in north Chennai in the political landscape post the death of the patriarch MG Ramachandran with power thereafter essentially alternating between K Karunanidhis DMK and Jayas AIADMK in Tamil Nadu Either way its impossible to remain on the foul side of the law without adequate political patronage to get away with itThe only dreaded don Ive ever hung out with in Uttar Pradesh had similarly quit Mulayam Singh Yadavs SP to join Mayawatis BSP with his friends equally split between both sides of the divide Thats the only way he could survive Is UP often synonymous with crimemdashboth onscreen and off itmdashsimilar to TN as a fertile soil for mayhem and mass killingsDoesnt seem like it But Chennai through Vetrimaarans shockingly close lens comes across as any other Third World metropolis with a vast underbelly where the countrys young uneducated urban poor holding sickles and swords predominantly reside revolt and on occasion romanceSpeaking of which while showing how the slumhero falls in love with the girl in the adjacent neighbourhood Vada Chennai most strikingly uncovers the dark logic of the Indian street where if a single woman is found snogging a man and therefore deemed immoralloose shes common property fit to be passed around among other men in that space Howwhere did this girl and the boy meetIn that moment of extreme lawlessness and complete lapse of reason that weve only seen for years in news reports but never quite ventured deeper to find out what it is like when an anonymous mob turns riotous and begins to openly ransack shops and establishments knowing that no one can control them during a short timewindowmdashbefore a semblance of order is finally restoredThe girl is trying to get away robbing a sewing machine The boy tries to stop her Its scenes like these that give you an insight into socalled real India where the state is altogether an amorphous entity and the law is in the eyes of the beholder But the street or the slum isnt quite where Vada Chennai is entirely or even predominantly setGoing deeper into blowing the lid off the urban armpit the film patiently details the life among all outlaws in a single spacemdashthe jailmdashthat frankly I havent seen as effectively recreated since Frank Darobonts Shawshank Redemption 1994 perhaps or Shriram Raghavans Ek Hasina Thi 2004 closer home Im willing to bet a jail regardless of where in the Third World it is follows a common constitution Dont know if youve ever been to oneI have once for sightseeing honestly Theres something about the air you breathe the folk youre surrounded by and the easily noticeable hierarchies withinmdashyou can instantly tell this is a shell so different from the world outside that you could almost get used to it Inside a lockup I know that people are graded and therefore respected or pushed around on the basis of crimes that brought them inRapists for instance fall at the lowest rung of this caste system Theyre basically whacked the crap out of If youve assaulted a cop on the other hand youre the dude Full respect The prison that Vada Chennais protagonist walks into is split between the citys two rival gangs Hes caught in the crossfireThe manner in which he nimbly navigates this space is what as an audience blows your mind first Contrast this constricted space to the coastal slum under an open sky in the film where you can literally smell the rotten fish and the rogues who surround it Dhanush plays the central character almost merging into this background as an Everyman with a sword hanging over his headmdashlike everyone else who may choose not to always mind their own business The script cleverly plays with structure like a mysterythrillerThe grammar of the Mobopera isnt new of course While the highly avoidable final 20 minutesmdashthat descends into mainstream heroism and long revealsexplanationsmdashmay seem more along the lines of Vishal Bharadwajs pathbreaking Maqbool 2003 is Vada Chennai per se the southern equivalent of Ram Gopal Varmas Satya 1998 Only in the sense that Satya itself was essentially Martin Scorsese in Mumbai Or that every sprawling metropolis deserves and perhaps has its own SatyaFernando Meirelless City Of God 2002 is to Rio what Takeshi Kitanos Sonatine 1993 is to Tokyo or Matteo Garones Gomorrah 2008 is to Naples Yes Vada Chennai available on Hotstar is very much in that league of extraordinary grime Is it the most jolting Indian film I saw this year Hell yeahMayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture He tweets mayankw14 Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomCatch up on all the latest Crime National International and Hatke news here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates