Vaazhai review: Mari Selvaraj’s film is heartwarming and gut-wrenching in equal parts

Vaazhai, based on true events from Mari Selvaraj’s life, is his most personal, close-to-heart and affecting work. It is the kind of film that leaves you speechless and absolutely dumbfounded by the end of it.

It takes a lot of time to process most of it, especially the film’s gut-wrenching end, which you can’t even describe as tragedy, as much as you try and make sense of it.

Vaazhai comes from a very deep place from Mari Selvaraj’s formative years as he presents a story filled with dreams, first crush, friendship, dignity, and helplessness.

The story is centred on a young Sivanendhan, who divides his time between school and helping his mother and sister on the banana plantation to earn a meagre wage.

A bright student and a topper in his class, Sivanendhan hates working on the plantation and always tries to find some excuse to miss work—which is the taxing job of carrying bananas from the plantation to the truck.

When not working and breaking his back, he finds solace in his school teacher Poongodi (played by the effervescent Nikhila Vimal) and develops a special liking for her, which transforms into a beautiful bond.

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There’s more to it than meets the eye

As the film delves deep into the life of Sivanendhan and his innocence, the story also touches upon issues like caste dynamics, the dignity of labour, capitalism, and more.

Unlike his other work, Mari Selvaraj presents Vaazhai almost like a children’s film, which helps us see various issues that he addresses through a different point of view altogether.

For instance, Sivanendhan doesn’t understand the sentiment behind the villagers’s protest for a better wage—a mere one rupee increase. He only sees it as an excuse to skip work during the protest so that he can go to school to study.

He and his friend even wish for the strike to continue so that they can both go to school and never set foot on the plantation again.

Through the eyes of young, unadulterated minds, Mari Selvaraj presents a story that’s both heartwarming and gut-wrenching.

As charming as it is for the most part, Vaazhai gets unimaginably shocking towards the end. Throughout the film, underneath all the heartwarming moments, there’s a constant sense of fear that lurks around, which gets built like a ticking time bomb.

Eventually, when the fear is unlocked, the film turns into a tragedy, but it is still nothing short of a masterpiece, overall.

Be it the writing, cinematography or music, Vaazhai shines across technical departments. Theni Eswar captures the milieu like nobody else and each frame contributes towards making the storytelling even more immersive.

Santhosh Narayanan’s music, too, plays a very key role in aiding the story in leaving the intended impact.

Child actor Ponvel M as Sivanendhan is unarguably the pick of the actors. It is such a sincere performance of a lifetime and Mari Selvaraj extracts absolutely the best out of him.

Final take

Vaazhai, which is easily Mari Selvaraj’s best work, is a piece of art and there are no second thoughts about it.

(Views expressed here are personal.)

(Edited by Y Krishna Jyothi)