Pa. Ranjith: the game changer of Tamil cinema

The filmmaker’s success over a decade has ensured that Dalit culture, traditions and anti-caste politics have become an important part of the mainstream

Filmmaker Pa. Ranjith emerged onto the scene 10 years ago but Tamil cinema is still grappling with the unprecedented impact he continues to have on film narratives, culture and politics. In just 10 years, Pa. Ranjith has put anti-caste politics in the front and centre of Tamil cinema, which had previously normalised the glorification of dominant and upper caste characters and feudal society that they inhabit, their lives and culture.

In the 1990s and 2000s, Tamil cinema was churning out movies that were centred around a dominant caste — a male with immense social power within the village. Films such as Ejamaan, Nattamai, Chinna Gounder, Thevar Magan and others justified the caste — Hindu male’s glory and power derived from the remnants of the feudal system and the narratives would typically call the audience to imagine the past in the present. These films have had a deep social and political impact, particularly in the southern and western districts of Tamil Nadu, where each of the socially and politically dominant castes had their own on-screen heroes.

Ranjith’s success in mainstream Tamil cinema has meant that Dalit culture, traditions and anti-caste politics have become an important part of the mainstream. Credit to Ranjith, the filmmakers of today — both young and old — are bound by the code of social justice and it is no more acceptable to portray Dalit characters, women, transgenders, queer from the disadvantaged sections of the society negatively on screen.

When producers were reluctant to fund these movies, the success of Ranjith’s movies had opened up the space for filmmakers from disadvantaged sections to tell their stories.

Right from his film Attakathi, though not as stridently political or ideological as his other films, Pa. Ranjith has steadily featured assertive Dalit characters, who swear by their anti-caste politics inspired by B.R. Ambedkar and many other Tamil political icons such as Iyothee Thass and so on.

While Attakathi, which was an enjoyable film about a youth failing repeatedly in pursuit of love, showcased the colourful life and culture in the villages around Chennai, it wasn't noticed for these reasons.

It was his second film, Madras, featuring actor Karthi, which put Ranjith on the map for his politics. It was a searing critique of Dravidian politics from the ground-up. It featured ambitious and politically conscious Dalit characters and its narrative critiqued mainstream Tamil politics for setting aside its emancipatory ideals for meagre political gains. The film notably re-imagined ‘North Madras’ as a place where software engineers, and hip-hop artists thrive rather than as a den of rowdies and drug peddlers.