Director Tamil Dhayalan’s latest film Gevi offers provocative commentary about systemic oppression in the garb of a survival thriller set in the hills of Kodaikanal. The film follows multiple storylines, but at the heart of it is a married couple (Aadhavan and Sheela Rajkumar) whose plight represents the whole community’s struggle for basic human rights. The wife, Mandharai, is facing extreme labour pain and must get to the hospital immediately, but the place being a hill station lacks basic transportation facilities. The villagers have no option but to place her in a makeshift cradle and carry her downhill all the way to the hospital far away. However, it is Mandharai who bears the brunt of the oppression by omission. Her torment highlights how the systemic neglect in offering basic necessities, such as hospital care, affects vulnerable people, particularly women in contingencies such as childbirth. It is the kind of oppression where the system’s failure to offer a safety net leads to situations with lives at stake. On the other hand, her husband Malaiyan’s torture at the hands of corrupt police represents a form of oppression that stems from coercion. When people like Malaiyan voice out against injustices and neglect, the state machinery uses force and intimidation to silence them, a direct attack on their agency and free speech. The torment the wife faces due to the lack of medical facilities and transport, and the torture the husband endures for speaking out against neglect, represent the duality of systemic oppression. Together, these scenarios in Gevi illustrate how systemic oppression operates on multiple fronts.

Director: Tamil Dhayalan

Cast: Sheela Rajkumar, Aadhavan, Vivek Mohan, Charles Vinoth

The film’s story is undeniably powerful enough to affect the audience, but it does not work fully due to the treatment of the material. The cops are flat-out one-dimensional, with very few layers to them. They come across as downright evil characters rather than products of a system that has been failing them for a long time. The film uses the “good cop, bad cop” trope just to highlight the extent of injustice the community faces on a daily basis. This trope is unnecessary, especially because there are enough good people in the larger system within the story to achieve the aforesaid effect. In hindsight, it comes across as a “one good apple in a rotten bunch” scenario, which sometimes threatens to dilute the whole point of the film. The one-dimensionality also applies to some of the other supporting characters, such as Gaayathri’s crude doctor who is also a female chauvinist.

The other factor that takes the sheen off Gevi is the heavy dose of melodrama it dishes out from time to time. The perilous situation of the locals itself reaches out to you, but the melodrama often makes it pitiful rather than poignantly painful. The frequent use of oppari (an expression of lamentation) in the narrative only underscores this contradiction. Despite the flaws, it is the performances that redeem Gevi to a large extent, especially those by Sheela and Aadhavan as well as Vivek Mohan as Mandharai’s brother. There is also a sense of rawness to the film that helps ensure that it does not merely explore the plight of the oppressed just for the sake of entertaining the privileged class. Producer Jagan Jaya Surya’s work, doubling up as the cinematographer, highlights the beauty of the Kodaikanal hills while never distracting from the aspect of suffering at the heart of the story. Commendably, Tamil Dhayalan does not offer any false promises either and walks the tightrope of being a cautionary tale, a call to arms, and a story of survival. While the film offers its messages with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, its bluntness keeps it from becoming problematic at any point.

Somewhere in Gevi, there is a subtle suggestion that the community is partly to blame for their own status quo, but Tamil Dhayalan’s sensitive direction keeps it in safe territory. Now, if only the writing measured up to the other aspects of the film.