In 1968, Chinese leader Mao ordered all intellectuals living in cities to return to villages to re-educate themselves from the villagers and get a renewed sense of revolution; all while remaining in his palace in luxury.
All populist, authoritarian leaders have romanticized rural, simple ways of life for their people against the unauthentic, distrusted, intellectual urban life.
They weaponize nostalgia to turn emotions into obedience, and their faith into political truth; again all while, dining and breeding in the luxuries of places and servants.
Idli Kadai adds another layer of righteousness to this political gimmick. When you are adherent to this romanticism, you have the self-righteousness to bend ethics and values to suit you comfortably. When you find peace with the rural way of living, all your wrong doings, in this birth and the previous ones will be justified. Like the protagonist in the movie goes back on his words to halt a marriage with an influential billionaire diva. The protagonist can just casually say sorry and move on. When the diva’s brother reacts in anger and creates misfortune to the protagonist, he crackles his knuckles until he says sorry, apologetically.
When you are in love with your rural life, it all magically happens to you. The forgotten recipe for soft idli will be brought back to you by the deceased father who reincarnates as a calf. You have the ability to choose between violence and non-violence based on your whims and fancies. You can bend your values, beliefs and ethics to oppress the elites as long as you are not one among them. Or as long as you are not aspiring to be one among them.
The film promotes the idea that Mao wanted his countrymen to follow. Leave your intellectual and professional abilities, go to the rural parts of India, do something menial so that you can learn from your nostalgic past. The propaganda is that you should have high regard for those menial things and consider them worthy more than your life because you are expected to be an emotional fool. In the event of becoming an emotional fool, all your wrongdoings can be self-righteously justified. You are free to betray rich, moonshot wealthy families who made it big using their intellectual capacity.
Ever since the beginning of cinemas, Protagonists have always fought against evil at all cost, and justify their actions aligned with superior moral values. Today’s movies do not support them any more. A protagonist’s moral values can be compromised and deteriorated to fit into a political narrative that hates its contradicting ideology.
The contradicting ideology of libertarian thought has been the norm till date in cinematic storytelling. The world is one and all people are equal. There is no social hierarchical order, no god’s chosen people, evil loses and virtue wins. In Idli Kadai, what wins is not purely virtuous. It has been made to look virtuous because it should look virtuous. That’s the mandate in an authoritarian sphere. A conservative, rural-loving protagonist can betray an urban billionaire and their family despite having a lower moral compass. And then he accuses the billionaire for being a bad actor because he reacted to the mess created by the protagonist himself. When the protagonist protects cows, decides to hurt fellow humans, displays superstitious beliefs over logic and reason, bravo. It’s his homecoming and he deserves every applause even though his moral compass missed a few beats.
The most important question is: What is happening to our storytelling? Pandering to such political pressure should never compromise the quality of stories being told.
Like it or not, evil must be called evil — even when it wears the face of your protagonist.
Leave a Reply