The plea claimed that the movie targeted Vaishnavites and had sought a stay on its online release.
Published Oct 23, 2024 | 11:46 AM ⚊ Updated Oct 23, 2024 | 11:46 AM
A poster of the film 'Thangalaan'. (X)
The Madras High Court recently dismissed a plea against the OTT release of Pa Ranjith’s Thangalaan. The film released on 15 August, is awaiting its OTT premiere.
According to Livelaw, “A division bench of Chief Justice KR Sriram and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy in its 19 October order noted the submissions and dismissed the case as withdrawn. The plea claimed that the movie targeted Vaishnavites and had sought a stay on its online release.”
The Madras High Court also mentioned that since Thangalaan has already been certified by the Censor Board and released in theatres, a ban on its OTT release cannot be imposed.
Recently the producer of the film Gnanavel Raja reportedly said that Thangalaan is likely to release on Deepavali, 31 October.
The director was quoted as saying: “They (Netflix) scheduled the release for Deepavali (Diwali). They wanted a festival release since Thangalaan is a big film. However, our favourite YouTubers are claiming that there are some issues with Thangalaan. They have a knack for claiming that there is an issue when in reality, there isn’t any.”
However, there hasn’t been any official announcement yet.
An advocate from Tamil Nadu, Porkodi on 21 August filed a case against Thangalaan movie director Pa Ranjith for allegedly demeaning Vaishnavism. She alleged that the movie, in an attempt to promote Buddhism, has demeaned Vaishnavism as a religion.
Set in 18th-century Tamil Nadu, the movie is about the trauma and the suffering that went into the making of the Kolar Gold Field (KGF) and how a village, empowered by a fierce leader, takes charge of its destiny.
Referring to a particular scene in the movie that portrays someone following Vaishnavism, Porkodi in her initial complaint to the police explained that, “even though oppression based on caste has been eradicated in India for a long time now, it is unfair that a person belonging to a dominant Hindu caste dehumanises the person from her (Porkidi’s) community in the film. While the words used against the Vaishnavite in the film are supposed to be ‘funny,’ it ridicules people belonging to the community.”
The plea also claimed that the Central Board of Film Certification had issued a certificate for releasing the movie without even scrutinising and analysing the disputed scenes which hurt and injured every Vaishnavite.
“Thangalaan reaffirms Pa Ranjith’s authority as a storyteller, demonstrating his innovative approach to reinterpreting history and making it relevant for contemporary audiences—a quality that was only sporadically evident in his recent works,” reads our review.
(Edited by Sumavarsha Kandula)
