We are often told that hell is for sinners and heaven is for the morally upright. In Sidharth Vishwanath’s metaphorically rich Sorgavaasalwe are shown how the prison, which operates much like hell, is a place where sinners rule, and more often than not, the innocent are condemned to either rot or turn sinners themselves. If not for anything, Sorgavaasal is exceptional in capturing the grimy, decadent life inside the walls of a prison. There are a couple of moments where both a powerful gangster and the jailer, at various instances, talk about how the inmates dread looking them in the eyes and we understand exactly what they are talking about. We feel the dread of the powerless and the meek inside the walls. A character does not simply throw the line, “Hope is the most dangerous thing inside the prison.” We get an elaborate demonstration of this statement when RJ Balaji’s Parthiban is given just 5 minutes to visit his home. At the end of it, when Parthiban is dragged back to the prison kicking and screaming, we feel how hope rots into cruel despair inside the desolate walls of a prison. Sorgavaasal has a number of such thematically charged isolated moments but the sum of the parts does not work as effectively.
The film is structured as a sequence of interviews where every major player involved in a prison riot recounts their version of the event to a judge. How it all connects to Parthiban, who is falsely accused of murder, forms the central story. As everyone narrates their perspective, we are shown what actually happened, which quickly dissipates any and all curiosity regarding the characters’ greyness. We instantly understand who is lying and who is innocent. The entire Rashomon-esque structure then becomes redundant. Sidharth Vishwanath has a distinct filmmaking style but it somehow ends up detrimental to the storytelling. Over-designed name cards for character introduction, vital scenes filled to the brim with music, the camera rolling around in the mud with the fighters, a frame being shown repeatedly to hammer home the allegory, and hyper-stylised editing, all work to pull our attention away, which makes sure we don’t connect with the characters or the proceedings on screen. The film trades tension for pace and poignant character moments for stylised visuals. Even during insignificant moments, the film, in its desperation to grab attention, fills it with stylised scenes. For example, several scenes after we are shown the livelihood of Parthiban, we get a scene where a police officer introduces him to the Jailer. He says, “Idhu Parthiban, dosa kada vechirukkan.” And then it immediately cuts to a quick frenetically paced montage of Parthiban working in his food stall. Sorgavaasal suffers from several such redundant displays of indulgent filmmaking.
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