Vanangaan feels like a mishmash of vague Balaesque ideas. A gritty, feral protagonist, a mouthy, high-energy female lead, quirky supporting characters who can either provide humour or bawl their eyes out when necessary, the young innocent moral centre who has none of the eccentricity of a Bala character, often portrayed as a thangachi, are all present in this film.
A low-resolution imitation of randomly selected elements from Bala’s filmography, Vanangaan, however, has none of the rich themes or insights found in a Bala film. We do get monologues about the hypocrisy of organised religion, the crippled judicial system, and more. But none of them coherently feed into the overall theme of the film.
Speaking of which, whether the film has any central theme, a fresh perspective, or even a singular thought or emotion it wants to imprint on the audience, is a big mystery. It could be argued that Vanangaan wants us to feel both angst and rage, possibly against the darkness that exists in certain people that leads them to prey on the innocent and vulnerable.
In the film, this is depicted through antagonistic forces who are sexual predators preying on young visually challenged girls. However, the conflict is thrown at us in a way that makes us question whether the only thing the film wants out of us is to feel sympathy for the victims and revulsion for the bad guys. The exorbitant lengths to which the film goes to milk these emotions out of the audience far exceed its focus on giving us a compelling story.
In the first scene, Arun Vijay, who plays Koti, emerges from the ground, salvaging things lost in the 2004 Tsunami. He holds statues of Periyar and Vinayagar but apart from isolated moments of characters discussing religion and rationalism, it hardly connects to the central conflict of the film. The climax cleverly echoes the opening scene, as it plays with the idea of how Koti again loses his soul in the same place he tries to salvage all that he lost as a kid.
A similar clever touch in writing is seen in how Koti, who is both deaf and mute, falls in love with a loquacious girl who charms her way out of trouble by spinning yarns and is also a polyglot travel guide. However, Bala quickly expunges any merit to this writing choice by making a supporting character explicitly point this out.
Perhaps, the biggest issue with Vanangaan is how even the positives mentioned above fail to connect to the central story. Almost an hour into the film, we are still left wondering what the story is or where it is heading towards. With Pithamagan and Naan Kadavaul, Bala has proven himself, when it comes to humour, which sadly becomes his biggest drawback in Vanangaan. In the first hour of the film, we get long stretches of interactions between Koti and Tina (Roshini Prakash), that are neither humorous nor tasteful.
With a plethora of problematic takes and half-baked ideas, Vanangaan’s biggest issue remains its complete disinterest in giving us a cohesive story. Scenes to introduce the protagonist and his ill-temper are followed by scenes introducing his love interest, which is again followed by the director’s isolated rants about society, religion, and more, packaged as conversations between characters, none of the above contribute anything substantial to the central conflict that arrives just before the interval mark. Arguably, sexual assault as a crucial plot point, has become an easy writing choice in recent times.
However, we still cannot restrict a filmmaker from choosing the conflicts they want to choose for their film. Also, if a filmmaker wants to make the audience uncomfortable through a scene, then they very well might choose to do so. However, if the film’s intention to milk strong emotions out of the audience is not in proportion to the overall theme, intent, and storytelling purposes, then it comes across as a weak effort. If emotionally heavy, relevant topics are used in the story, in such an emphatic manner, just so the protagonist can rage out, it seems like a disservice to the sensitive themes being handled.