Sai Pallavi is paving a path of her own. And her latest release, Gargi, which is now streaming on SonyLiv, is a testament to that. The Tamil movie, directed ...
One of the places where the movie hits it out of the park is the casting of S Sudha, a transgender person, as a transgender judge in the movie. What was utterly discomforting and traumatic to watch in the movie was the prolonged shots of abuse and rape. The movie’s producer, Aishwarya Lekshmi, also plays a small role in the movie, that of a journalist forced to listen to TRPs instead of logic. Gargi is kicked out of her teaching job at the school and family is boycotted. The everydayness of life is captured beautifully in the shots where Gargi’s routine is shown in an unpretentious and plain way, like how life actually is. The film initiates important conversations about what happens when a family sides with the abuser instead of the survivor, and the psychology behind it.
Gautham Ramchandran's 'Gargi', starring Sai Pallavi, continues to get rave responses ever since it released in theatres in July.
I was one of the firsts to sign up for the course. She owns up to the role and the film. I grew up in Bengaluru. In 2011, I came to Chennai with my colleague. She spoils you for other actors with respect to what she brings to the game. So in ‘Gargi’, everything looks like it is stitched out of the same frame. I was keen on knowing what happens in the mind of the audience. I love Shankar Nag’s ‘Minchina Ota’ (1981). I still remember the way it started and the anti-climax of it. I have reversed the father-daughter relationship that’s shown decades together in the cinema. In ‘Drishyam’, the father was trying to safeguard his family. In that period, there were few women scholars who were given the privilege to talk. I was focused more on the mind play. The disturbance was intentional as I didn’t want people to forget the nature of the incident.