Tangalan - A Timeless Epic

Thangalan 2024

Thangalan is the misunderstood elder son of Pa. Ranjith’s filmography. This movie does have the capability to become a timeless epic of this generation. The idea of this movie is so grand that it needs a bigger canvas to showcase its strength. As a director, Pa.Ranjith is an eminent storyteller. His strength in movies is his narration. Using this strength to focus on less focused stories of our roots has earned him the title of a political artist. The reason for the misunderstanding of Thangalan comes because of the gap in the storytelling of Indian history. Let us consider the Hollywood movie “The black panther” to bring in a brief comparison. However, it is clear that both these movies are not something to be compared with. One is a superhero flick, the other is historical fiction, and they both have one thing in common, “Oppression”

A still from "Black Panther" 2018

In the Hollywood movie “The black panther”, the character Killmonger’s anger towards the outside world is very easily connected to the audience. The filmmakers didn’t need to spend so much time to convey the discrimination that Is happening, a few montage shots of Killmonger’s childhood in the real world and a climax shot of that character’s redemption were all enough for the audience to empathize with the character. This convenience of spending less time to point out the discrimination was effectively used for the world-building of the movie and to provide every high moment that a superhero movie requires. Now Thangalan is not a superhero movie but a historical adventure movie then why am I comparing it with black panther? While Killmonger’s anger and rage towards the outer world and to show them that they have the power to take over the world can be easily connected with the audience why not Thangalan or the character Aarathy’s desperate attempt to hold on to their land of goldfield from any outsider is not easily connected. That’s because the Indian audiences are new to this subject which is Dalit history. Black history and struggles have been documented greatly in the past decades, through books and movies. Numerous mainstream movies talked about the discrimination in the black community, this helped the filmmakers of black panther to only subtly convey that emotion and it worked. While The history of discrimination against the Dalit people has not at all reached the mainstream audience of India. So Thangalan was expected to be spoon-fed the emotions and the history to the audience. But Thangalan did not have the time to spoon-feed, it had a story to tell.

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