Ashwin’s film is born out of a simple idea: half-brothers. Think of Agni Natchathiram. Think of Cheran Pandian. Mandela is more on the lines of the latter, but it ends up correcting what the KS Ravikumar film flirted with. One of the things that really work in its favour is how honest and earnest the film remains till the very end. And this earnestness seems to come from a place of self-awareness, as Ashwin and the makers seem to be aware of their privilege. That, one suspects, is the reason why they have made Mandela as a satire. Sometimes, we laugh with them and sometimes, we laugh at them, which is the film’s achievement: to draw humour out of a serious issue like caste and vote-bank politics.
It is self-aware because it understands caste structure. Take this scene, for instance. When Mandela (Yogi Babu, who just owns the film in the second half) is given a buffet of options (of names) to pick from, they narrow down on Nelson Mandela, the former President of South Africa. In that scene, Yogi Babu innocently remarks: “What if that was an upper-caste name?” That sense of fear is real.
The film does not explore the conditions that made people like Mandela an outcast by the same people who are now vying for his vote. Instead, what it does get right is to not make the character feel apologetic, like last year’s Serious Men, about the offers that he receives from the caste leaders. The saviour template is (delightfully) inverted. Yet, it is a bit of a drag and sometimes too melodramatic.
There is no explicit mention of caste names, or political parties. Everything is implied and reduced to background information, and we are left to draw our own conclusions. I particularly liked how Ashwin had used Ramki as one of the photos you find in Mandela’s saloon. People who grew up in the 90s would know how the actor, like Rajinikanth, was well-known for his hairstyle.
For a film like Mandela, you somewhere begin to worry on how it is going to end. The suspense starts building within you, but Ashwin gives a fitting conclusion with a voiceover and a static shot — perhaps to indicate a larger point: it takes a village to stand up for one’s right.