Edhu thevayo, adhu dharmam, Aaranyakaandam says at the beginning and at the end. Righteousness is whatever is necessary at any point. It means there can be no objective morality in a world that isn’t an equal playing ground. For some privileged and comfortable enough, a belief in virtue and righteous behaviour may be possible. For some others, survival becomes the only virtue. Subbu, of course, is the most obvious example of this. If you’re being beaten, raped, held against your will… what morality dares govern your behaviour? Is it a surprise then at the end when she urges us, and perhaps Thiagarajan Kumararaja himself too, not to see Sappai as an innocent victim. “It’s a man’s world out there.” So, how innocent can a man be, she asks…

There’s a hierarchy to things that Aaranya Kaandam casually captures. Man to woman. Leader to right-hand man to henchmen. Father to son, which strangely enough here, is reversed. Human to rooster. This hierarchy crucially might be a signifier of power, but it doesn’t have much to do with contentment itself. Ayya (Jackie Shroff) might be an apex predator in the jungle, an aging lion (Singaperumal)… and yet, he can’t even smile genuinely once. In fact, he becomes most frightening when he bares his teeth and fakes a smile at various times in the film. Watch Sappai and Subbu, right after they have sex, and you’ll see a kind of joy you see in almost no other face. The other two you see genuine love and joy in, are Kaalayan and his son, Kodukkapuli. 

It’s fantastic how fluid this film is, how TK seamlessly brings in characters. I think the film’s opening sequence is a masterclass really. It begins with Ayya trying to force himself on Subbu and beating her up to compensate for his impotency. It’s all fairly dark as well, keeping with the neo-noir aesthetics of the film. All the while, you hear strains of ‘Aatathil Naane’ playing. The song, it turns out, is playing from the outside, where Ayya’s henchmen are all seated, talking about ‘aunties’. Sappai (Ravi Krishna) joins in, and you see him being bullied about. And before you know it, Pasupathy (Sampath) comes in as well, and you can sense the tension in the air. He suggests that they take hold of some cocaine that’s up for grabs. And in about 9′, TK has not just established various characters, but sowed the seeds of future disagreements as well. It’s brilliant.

Though by now, the idea of using old songs isn’t as revolutionary anymore, TK’s use of it, and his refusal to use any conventional songs in the narrative beyond these tracks, is quite striking. ‘Ponmeni Urugudhe’, ‘Sandhanakaatre’, ‘Oru naalaikkul ethanai kanavu’ (significantly newer at the time), ‘Mambattiyaan’, ‘Va Va Pakkam Va’… I could keep going. It isn’t just the use of these retro songs that makes this film rather… Tarantinoesque. I loved how TK builds tension through casual conversations that escalate suddenly. That whole car scene where Pasupathy and others are chatting about in a car is such an example of this. They are talking about aunties and sex and betting one second, and the next, everyone has knives pointed at each other.

The film’s dialogues are full of wit and humour. “Gabbu paatha mabbu illa.” “Kutti onnum avlo kuttiyaa illa.” And perhaps my most favourite: “Nee mattum uyiroda irundha, unna kolai panniruppen!” The cuss words are liberally used in the film too. In fact, it’s a film that recognises how storytelling is such an inherent part of our conversations. Someone’s talking about how to pick up aunties. Someone’s narrating a Usual Suspects-like story about the other apex predator, Gajendran (who’s deliberately named after an elephant, because someone eventually makes him really go mad and TK even uses the word, ‘madham’). 

Like in Super Deluxe, the music here is largely an amused companion. A strange flute that’s having too much fun for what’s actually unfolding on screen. Some almost Irish music that comes out of nowhere. Look at the fun he’s having when both gang members are about to kill each other at the end. He’s constantly, deliberately composing against what you’d typically get in such scenes. The only places where he genuinely gets in with evocative violins, feature Kaalayan and Kodukkapuli. First, when the young boy dresses up his alcoholic father. Second, later, when the alcoholic father feels humiliated when his son looks at him and yells, “Poyaa waste-u.”

In this film which features sliced throats, severed fingers, beheaded animals, you’d think at the end that Subbu would get run over, in a brutal pay-off, considering she killed the man who’d previously saved her from being run over. But TK’s films, and it’s strange to say this about cinema which features so much casual cruelty, are eventually very compassionate and giving for the most vulnerable. That’s why Subbu gets out, and with a whole fat bag of cash. That’s why Kodukkapuli gets some cash too, and is allowed to leave with his dad. I wondered why Pasupathy is allowed his redemption. Perhaps because he recognised his folly? Perhaps because he suffered as much? But I suspect it’s because he treated Kodukkapuli right.