Paava Kadhaigal (Sin Stories) — known directors, relevant stories and yet, a colossal failure.
By: Kartik Kj
Tags: Movie Review, Netflix Originals, Short Film, Tamil, Paava Kadhaigal

What happens when you take relevant topics and butcher them with writing that ranges from lazy and sloppy to irrational and even irresponsible? You get Paava Kadhaigal (Sin Stories) — a collection of four short films that wants you to sympathize with realities. While the scenarios are shocking and brutal, the films are just a poor, mostly melodramatic collection of scenes with one or two credible performances. (Spoiler Alert)

Short films have sadly been restricted to film festivals and only a rare few get some mainstream attention. One would think that the rise of Netflix, Amazon and other Streaming platforms would breathe new life into this grossly under appreciated format. After all, the audience today is constantly in search of good, episodic, easy to consume entertainment. Sadly, it hasn’t really happened yet. Which is why I was super excited when “Putham Pudhu Kaalai” (A brand new dawn) — which deserves a separate review — released on Amazon prime a few months ago. It featured short films by 5 prominent directors. While not everything was awesome, a lot of it was fresh. I hoped we’d see more of these.

Within weeks after that the trailer of Paava Kadhaigal dropped, and it did feel like a new dawn had indeed arrived for Tamil shorts . (It did seem odd that two of the directors were also part of the Amazon anthology, but i brushed aside any prejudice, because I love a good short film and I definitely did not hate their previous outing.) But what unfolded was a journey that went from bad to worse to abysmal to indifferent.

So here’s an snapshot of my angsty reactions:

Episode 1: Thangam

The first story is called Thangam (My Precious) featuring an endearing performance by the lead actor and a soundtrack that is the only one that stayed in my mind . It’s a good premise. A spirited, effeminate man (played brilliantly by Kalidas Jayaram) bullied by villagers, aspires to go to a city and undergo a gender transformative surgery. He clearly has feelings for a local vendor — his friend and evidently the only gentleman in what is an entirely homophobic village. So far so good. I will stop here in the hope that people will watch this one only for the lead actor. The rest of the plot is just sensational writing fit for a telenovela.

If at some point you ask yourself is this a dream sequence because it’s so incredulous, then know that it is a nightmare. And you’re the one living it.

I had loved director Sudha Kongara’s light and refreshing Ilamai Idho Idho in the Amazon anthology I mentioned earlier. This one seemed to expose her inability to handle the subject as well as the set up.

Episode 2: Love Panna Uttranum

The next story is called “Love Panna Uttranum” (Let them love). Where do I begin! There is SO MUCH wrong with this one. From the caricaturization of the extremist villains to their sudden change of heart — this one is a masterclass in sloppy writing. But the most unforgivable crime is how they fetishize and then bastardize the concept of sexuality to create ‘aha’ moments. At the very least, the writing and treatment didn’t belong in anything named “paava kadhaigal” — the deliberate misleading of the audience for a climatic twist feels fit for a soap opera you’ve already seen or a sitcom that just isn’t funny. The final shot in this film shows a defeated villain laughing at how they were fooled by a bunch of people. Ditto audience.

Episode 3: Vaanmagal

The third story is called Vaanmagal (Daughter of the skies). Starting off as a story of a girl with a dream in a small town, in an obviously unsafe neighborhood, the story takes a sudden, harsh turn. It’s as if the format forced the director to not spend time on developing backgrounds or characters. You want to feel for the characters, especially the the victim, but you know little about them other than the obvious and the obviously horrendous events they go through. While you feel the shock, the sympathy is undone quickly by an ensemble playing a busy cocktail of emotions headlined by Simran playing a textbook regressive mother. Things carry on a hasty pace where anger, guilt, stigma, motherhood, fatherhood, all compete for attention in this short format but fail to make any impact. The so called climatic reveal is but an anticlimax for a story that feels as raw as the age of the young victim. Gautham Vasudev Menon happens to be one of my favorite Tamil directors, but between this one and his previous short in Putham Pudhu Kaalai (which was not a bad one), it is hard to tell if the effort is half hearted or there is a genuine discomfort in stories that are not love stories.

Episode 4: Oru Iravu

The last story — Oru Iravu (One night), is possibly the simplest story. Unlike the other three, it does not complicate the format of a short film with multiple sub-plots. To call a spade a spade, director Vetrimaaran is not fish out of the water in a set up that deals with the nuances of a rural story. His handling of the melodrama also seems relatively balanced when juxtaposed alongside the high pitch of the other films. But that’s where the success (?) ends. This is not a new story — as horrific as it is — this is a typical honor killing content told in a typical manner.

The film ends with a very detailed postscript seems, which packs in more story (even fresher content) than the film itself. Read that again.

In conclusion

There they are — four duds, with a sprinkling of some star names, some good acting here and there, but they are each singularly bad and collectively disastrous. Perhaps it could have worked in early 2000s. This is 2020 — menstruation, sex and sexuality have already come out of the closet in mainstream cinema and we don’t need movies (especially from renowned directors with access to big platforms) to take a backward step. If anything, short films and streaming platforms can push the envelope further. Why use these themes to carry half baked plots about caste and society to some sort of fruition? Even within the theme of society, stigma, caste and honor killing, far better movies have been made.

It pains me to watch this anthology fail, but hopefully this doesn’t sway producers and streaming platforms from this format. We need more shorts — why, there already are several great short films. Look at the listings of any film festival and you are bound to find a fabulous collection of short films that you’ve never heard of. I hope the streaming platforms are listening.

The streaming platform unlike the mainstream are equalizers — stars have failed, genuinely good content has succeeded. So stringing along some big names in the cast or even pulling together a group of known directors for an anthology, isn’t a guarantee for success. In fact, the disappoint is far worse, as was my experience with Paava Kadhaigal, where the otherwise credible directors faltered, oh so colossally.