CHENNAI : It has been a week since the release of Vijay-Nayanthara starrer Bigil. It is based on the ‘sports for social change’ premise and revolves around a don and a women’s football team. Since it was first announced, Bigil has been marketed as a film ‘dedicated to all women’. And it is, so to speak: there’s many kinds of women on the team and at home and they all had a have different problem. Actor Vijay’s Micheal becomes the man-machine that breaks them down and later tears them down.
Honestly, Bigil is a semi-successful attempt in the mass fronting of women’s issues — there are many issues in the real world and the movie takes on more than it can chew by giving each player on the football team a problem to tackle and a hurdle to overcome (football puns unintended). But it does serve well to highlight them, even if it doesn’t fully understand them, and in some cases even where it does gross injustice to the actual cause. But for a moment, I want to forget ‘all the women’ the movie is dedicated to, and all those it has been made for, the many causes, the multiple side stories and the million extras. I want to focus on Angel Asirvatham, the character played by Nayanthara, and the actor herself.
The character first, and a gentle reminder that my standards are very low indeed with respect to Tamil cinema — I cry for just about anything, and will credit the smallest of progress. So imagine my glee when Angel says “One minute” and pauses — to wear her sunglasses — in slow-motion that too. I can’t remember if there was music in that scene, but the violins were definitely playing behind me, well, because here is an actor who is half the mass film, is mass-y on her own, is the female star who commands in-jokes and references to her previous films (a status usually reserved for the male stars), slips on her shades and surprise, surprise, is still the heroine, not the vamp or villain.
Where I saw the film, all the fight scenes had been chopped, but even if they hadn’t been I’d have been surprised to see the female lead on screen so much. Angel does have more screen time than other mass-film heroines of the recent past. Things I was thankful for (blame the low standards) include that the character had a name that was continuously used — no deteriorating into nick-names, shortened versions or ‘figure’, which not too long ago was the go-to word for women on screen, and that she had a profession that she was passionate about and was put to use. Angel has and uses her agency, is in a suggested equal-relationship, holds her partner accountable without repercussions (he does not wine and whine), and her character has a complete narrative arc, and a certain depth too.
Angel presses her partner’s hand and speaks when he’s itching to deliver that monologue. She does it and he’s quiet, seems proud even. She dresses like the character may and not as the heroine — heavens no, there’s no cut to mandatory midriff-showing folk number. Angel is not killed, kidnapped or used for revenge — in fact she seems unfazed by the violence around her. I don’t know what it is, but Angel certainly has a dream for the looks of it. I can assure that you none of this is insignificant.
In fact it is a big deal, because this is a part written for Nayanthara, and to write a character for the female lead, and not a stock come-in-for-song, come-in-for-glamour person in a hero-centric film would’ve been unimaginable a few years ago. For that reason, I would dedicate this film to Nayanthara, or today’s Lady Superstar, for all the women who have brought her thus far, and for many that dream to be her and shatter barriers in the film industry. If there is a young girl dreaming of becoming a super star out there, this film is for her, and I kid you not, Nayanthara has showed us that it is possible.
Whether we are in a new era of consciousness, or it is a commitment to content-driven cinema, whether it is a feminist-pisachini plot, or being forced to reinvent formulaic image-driven star vehicles in the times of OTT platforms — whatever may be the reason, we are at a better place than we were. And for the sake of this, instead of wondering where we are or how much further we need to go, just for this holiday I’m going to look back and appreciate how far we have come. And from Thamizhan, we’ve come a long, long way.
