Kaala

Dharavi is a slum in the middle of Mumbai and its ground is very valuable. Karikaalan grew up here; the neighbourhood calls him Kaala and comes to him when there is trouble. Hari Dada is a politician; he presents himself as clean and wants to build a new city where the neighbourhood stands. First money is offered, then the police come, then fire. Kaala is not playing for a title deed but for staying. The matter is not a plot of land; it is whether the people there count as belonging to it. Pa. Ranjith wrote and directed. Rajinikanth, Nana Patekar, Easwari Rao, Huma Qureshi and Samuthirakani are in the cast. Dhanush's company Wunderbar Films produced it. It is an Indian production in Tamil. The matter it treats is land; the film puts ownership directly as a political question. Colour works inside the narrative; Kaala's black is set against the other side's white throughout. Ranjith puts the politics of oppressed castes at the centre of his films, and here he places it inside a major star vehicle. Rajinikanth plays within the usual hero mould, but the narrative shows him as beatable. The film runs the organising of the neighbourhood's women as a separate line. The narrative is an epic and religious imagery is used openly. It was one of the year's large productions at the box office and was much argued over for its political readings. The ending brings forward not one man but a crowd. Its limit is length; the narrative is long, the side lines many, and the message is spoken outright in places. Who it is for: viewers who like political storytelling and large scale Tamil films. Who it is not for: it is long, sloganeering, and it ends in confrontation.