Mahaan มหายาน ชายผู้ยิ่งใหญ่ (2022) [บรรยายไทย]

Karthik Subbaraj is quote-unquote ‘the stylish filmmaker of Tamil cinema’. But nothing can be purely stylistic, at least within the genre framework Karthik Subbaraj is nowadays working. Unless you are a Sergio Leone, who in his best works makes style itself his strongest substance. Or if you are a Quentin Tarantino, for whom visceral form precedes over substance. Or at least a Mani Ratnam, who sells us his style more effectively, despite the unreal situations and all-surface substance. Well, these are the three filmmakers Karthik Subbaraj pays some kind of tribute in his movies. Hence the references to them, before getting into the part of why Karthik Subbaraj’s latest work Mahaan sucks.

Buried beneath all the empty style and swagger, Mahaan does carry some substance. It has something to say about ideology, the burden of legacy, freedom to make mistakes, religion, sins of the father, etc. But it’s all the more facile and pretentious than Subbaraj’s style. I think Karthik Subbaraj has started suffering from delusions of grandeur when he was roped in to do a Rajinikanth film. He has only made four films by then. Pre-Petta, with three fairly good movies – Pizza, Jigarthanda, Iraivi – and one misfire – Mercury  – it felt that Karthik Subbaraj is a very promising Tamil filmmaker. Even though Petta wasn’t out and out a ‘Karthik Subbaraj Padam’, it was an efficient pastiche of extraordinary Rajinikanth movie moments. In fact, Petta was the nicely packaged ‘Thalaivar padam’ after Padaiyappa (1999), and Sivaji (2006).

Obviously, Subbaraj wrote Petta as a fanboy, cooking up moments that he would like to have in a Superstar film. A filmmaker might get away with it when it comes to a Rajinikanth film. Considering the legacy of that man, even a stylish spin on the very predictable story elements can work great for the Tamil audience. The problem is that Karthik Subbaraj is yet to recover from the hangover of Petta’s success. He has pursued that same mode of writing in Jagame Thandhiram (2021) and Mahaan (2022), i.e., twisting and bending the narrative in order to include the so-called ‘mass’ moments for the star actor. The Hindutva villain in ‘Petta’ or the racist old guy in ‘Jagame Thandhiram’ is simply added as flavors.