Jai Bhim Analysis

Jai Bhim (2021)

Written and Directed by: T. J. Gnanavel 
Produced by: Jyothika and Suriya
Streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

Films about oppression are forming a new sub genre, a new wave in Tamil cinema. Visaranai, Pariyerum Perumal, Karnan, P. A. Ranjith's films and a lot of films. However, this film is set as a legal drama, and it also has flavors of an investigative thriller. That's what sets this film apart. The film has a lot of graphic depiction of police torture and it gets taxing to watch it after a point. The film's structure is interesting, the way it keeps cutting back to the original incident, revealing the incident parts by parts. There are a set of sequences in the film, which arise interesting investigative blocks. Like, the part where she knew about the phone call which she didn't tell Suriya. However, apart from this the film has a sense of predictability. We know that he'd win the case. That's the reason, there is not much emotional curiosity from us towards the film. An issue I had with this film is that, the pay off is barely satisfying for the amount of trauma we go through while watching the oppression. Rajamouli's pay offs satisfy us. Even in Karnan, I felt that the set up was too exhausting and it had gotten beyond repair.

The film is shot with a distinctive visual palette, the court scenes are shot in a way, the police station torture scenes, and the scenes of Suriya's office with yellow lighting. The last shot of the film is beautiful - it encapsulates the whole idea of the film. A small girl, from an oppressed community, hesitantly picks the newspaper and sits on the chair cross legged in front of an elderly, accomplished man. It shows how education, basic equality is also a privilege to some people.