Vadivelu, the comedy king of Tamil cinema, has been making us laugh for the past 25 years. Even when his films were far and few between in the recent past, the flood of memes featuring him more than made up for his absence. Yet when he appeared as the doting father and a subservient Dalit politician in Mari Selvaraj’s Maamannan, he was masterful. When he cried all alone on a hilltop — swallowing the lump in his throat as he suppressed his rage and sadness, with a visible confusion of his heart and mind yearning to pursue different paths — years of his humour and comic delivery took a back seat. This brilliant performance is only gracefully enhanced by Theni Eswar’s cinematography.
After he cries, the camera cuts to a wide shot from behind, capturing the huge mountains, and the drone slowly moves to show the vast lands below. As the camera lingers, you feel how lonely and helpless Maamannan (Vadivelu) feels. During the film’s pre-production stage, Eswar primarily focussed on deciding the specific angles, lenses and lighting to capture Vadivelu’s scenes. The cinematographer says, “It was very important to have a certain camera angle and lighting that will make Vadivelu sir look different, unlike the several shots of his we’ve seen before. For instance, we don’t have any makeup for Vadivelu sir. He did tell me that when he wears makeup, he can perform even better. But we wanted to tone it down for the character. If you take that flashback sequence where he cries, for instance, the focus is always on him, with the cars and fellow politicians blurred in the backdrop. I have also cut some natural light that fell on his face to give the sad effect. The scene’s success is definitely because of the director’s vision and Vadivelu’s acting; the cinematography techniques add more value to it. It is always about the hidden layers.”