Iruvar

A film set inside Tamil cinema and Tamil politics. Anandan waits at the studio gates to become an actor. He gets small parts and nobody knows him. Tamizhchelvan writes screenplays. His dialogue is strong and what he writes draws applause on screen. The two meet and start working together. One writes the words, the other speaks them, and both rise. From there the film spreads over thirty years. The studio years, stardom, a political party, elections and power. The writer moves into politics. The actor turns his identity on screen into political force, and the crowds love him as he was in the films. Then they fall out. The two end up on opposite sides and the friendship becomes a rivalry. What the narrative is interested in is not politics but the screen: the film shows how cinema became a direct political instrument in one region, and leaves both men inside that machinery. There are films inside the film. The narrative builds scenes imitating the Tamil cinema of the period, and those scenes carry the political message. Aishwarya Rai plays a double role, and this was her first film. The characters rest openly on real people without being named. The long relationship between two major figures of Tamil Nadu politics is the frame of the film, and that was argued over on release. The cinematographer is Santosh Sivan; the music is by A. R. Rahman. Mohanlal, Prakash Raj, Aishwarya Rai, Revathi and Tabu are in the cast. Mani Ratnam directed. Who it is for: anyone interested in political cinema and the regional history of India. Who it is not for: anyone who does not know the background; the narrative assumes the real events and never names anyone.