 How many people know about your welcome, Matt? No one. You should come over sometime, especially if you speak Hindi. I have a welcome, Matt, that says welcome. And then it has, underneath welcome, there's this Hindi script. Underneath the welcome. Says Matocho. No joke. Hey, welcome back to our stupid directories of Corbett. I'm Rick. You follow us on Instagram? Twitter? Of course you do. It's Chelsea. You're gonna know how it goes. Thanks to Patreon, fellow should I count? And subscribe if you haven't and bring the bell to be a part of the notification squad. If you're little Matochots. They were doing a movie of you. Of the 2021 or 2022? I don't know. Because it said it was coming out and then I don't remember when it actually hit theaters, but it had just hit OTT platforms. But the new film called Kadaizi Vada Sei. It really, I said this in drawing. I said it's, I hate that so many films that we see, especially from South India, have titles that are so difficult to pronounce and difficult to remember because we wind up saying The Blank Movie. Yeah. Because we don't know how to pronounce it, which was endearing in some spots like The Debra Film and Gersnatch. Because we're big dumb thumbs. And Bajramasthani, which was. Bajramasthani. Bajramasthani. Bajrami Masanani. But yeah anyway. Anyways, but it's directed, written, produced and edited. Nope. Cinematographer by M. Manikandan. And then starring, say his name, Nalandi. And I, mistakenly, when we first saw this, thought this was going to be a VJ Sanapathi. Film. He's a very supporting character in this, along with Yogi Babu, who we've seen before. But this is Nalandi. Nalandi. This is his film. This was his first film. He was, him and most of the village as well, were just, I think, village people that they casted in this film. And then he sadly passed away before he ever got to see his film. Which is incredibly sad. Incredibly sad. It's so sad. Anyways, but it's going to be a 100% overview. We saw it on Sony LIV. If you haven't watched it, go watch it. Come back, Ricky, your initial thoughts, please. Oh crap, I just realized when I did this, the numbers. I didn't put the numbers down on there. Okay. Well, we all go back to the last one, which was the cashmere files, and then add it, and you'll get to that. We'll get to that. I was originally writing, and it was too long, and I just cut to the chase. Okay. One of the most beautifully Indian and universally human films I've ever seen, that I consider to be the best film we've seen thus far this year, and the one I believe India could consider, and should consider if it was this year, as a front-runner for submission to the Oscars. You hated it? Why? God, I mean, Rick hates Tamil films. I loved it, too. I love it. I think it's a phenomenal. It's going to be a long review. There's so much to talk about. I think it's an absolute phenomenal. What a film. Almost fly-on-ish-to-wall-ish kind of film. Gave me vibes of the other village type films that we saw, like Thiefi and Care-dash of, but it obviously had its own feel and its own rhythm about it, and it had its own messaging. I thought everything, it's incredible that this man has never acted in his life. You know what it reminded me of in that regard? It reminded me, I put it in my notes, if you've seen The Florida Project, I talk about how I just, the lead actress in that, Bria, I don't know her name, but I know you're talking about Bria Veneta. Yeah, Bria Veneta is the lead in that. She had never acted before, and it's pretty astonishing because she does an Oscar-level performance in that film. Yeah, this guy was incredible. This was so believable that if the cinematography and sound design and lighting weren't so magnificent at that level of artistry, I might have considered, because documentaries are just raw footage. You're not thinking about lighting, you're not thinking about framing. They're typically not really incredibly well done, unless you've had a lot of time to do it, like my octopus teacher, a lot of documentaries or kind of raw guerrilla filming. This felt like I was just watching real people in a documentary in this village. And essentially you were. Yeah, because outside of Yogi Babu and Vijay Sarapathy, they were all just actors that they, and we've seen that a lot from Indian cinema, which you don't get here, hardly ever outside of small films like Floater Project, where you get non-actors or people that are actually in this situation that they're like, hey, you want to act in this film. It used to happen a lot more, like in, it's not an Oscar-worthy film, but Days Confused, the kids, they famously walked into them all and saw kids that looked like the guys they wanted to cast. And they turned out to be terrible actors, but that's what they did. You've seen that a lot in Indian cinema. A lot in Indian cinema. Because I guess, and it's been going on for a long, long time, I guess you can get people that act in a, like are part of a village to just be like, do what you normally do. I'm just going to film you. Just don't do anything. And they don't know how to act. They don't know how to pretend. So they're just like, okay. And so I guess like that, and he was giving me, what's his name? He just passed away not too long ago, old man been in the industry for a long time. God, it's killing me that I'm American or Indian? American. He was in. Oh God, it's going to kill me. Um, kills me. Sorry. Chris, Christopher Plummer. I like old Christopher Plummer vibes for a long time. But man, he was so good. And it's just because he wasn't acting. He wasn't. And obviously that's what the best actors have to do, but they have to get over their training. And we've talked about this all the time, that they don't use their tricks. And they have to actually be believable. He was just being himself, which if it works, it works better than any other act. And it works when you just need them to be that person for that film. Because what they don't, what an unexperienced actor can't do is incarnate multiple beings and remain like an Irfan, where you're playing countless different kinds of beings and you're consistently not performing. But I was staggered at a lot in this film that we can talk about. Assuming y'all have seen it, you have not seen this film. Stop watching the review. Sony Live. Go watch this film. It's on Sony Live. It's, once again, it's not a VJ Sarapathy, but we will talk about VJ Sarapathy. I thought he did a fantastic job. But he is not the star of this film. The star of this film is Nalandi. And he does a phenomenal job. And it's a phenomenal overall film. Again, if you haven't watched it, please go watch it. And I really feel like, man, where to start? Because, well, let's start with acting and then let's get into the overall technical things beyond that and the story itself. Yeah, absolutely. You heard what we have to say about him. He's just believable every frame of film. He brought so much, obviously, realism. But you deeply cared for him. Oh, my goodness. Even if, obviously, we've never been to an Indian village like this, but you know people like this. An old man who's just always gone about his business and worked every single day his entire life. And he doesn't want money. He doesn't, he just, his life is his job. That's what he wakes up to do. And everywhere in the world, there's people like that. My stepdad's grandpa was like that. He had worked on ACs from the time he was like 15 till 80. His entire life. And so it's just, it's a very relatable character. And then you see this awful stuff that's like happening to him. And he was like, I just want to go back to my field. Yeah. I'm the only one who can do anything. But he's not like causing a fuss because he doesn't, you know, he can't really do anything. But man, he was just, it was so good. And we'll get into more of the story. Everybody in this film did a really good job. Vijay Sadapathy, I thought it was a very interesting character. Loved his character. I thought it was so interesting. And there was a lot metaphorically going on in this film as well. And spiritual. We'll get into when we talk about story. And spiritual wise. The acting. His character, and I know we haven't seen enough of him, but I love, I love his character in this. I thought he did a really good job. It was so unique. I thought he did so many things that I've never seen him do before. It's very different from even in songs or the films that we have seen of his. And I know he does that. That has been, we already knew that obviously before this, but man, I thought he did a really, really good job. And to create this quirky, unique in his walk and his way he carried himself, I thought he did a phenomenal job. Again, the key to it all is believability. You know, Corbin and I talk a lot about the difference between a movie and a film. And they're both motion pictures. But a movie is primarily something that's created for entertainment purposes. It may have elevated artistry within it as it does that, which is a bonus. But it's not something that is the criteria for it to be a movie. A movie is just something that you go and you watch and you love. We always talk about Greece as the quintessential example. A film is something that is always characterized by elevated artistry at all levels of artistry, as well as important universal truths and morals to stories. And that's why this is a film, this thing on every level. And with the acting, I just was so taken even in the courtroom scene. Here you are in the courtroom scene or watching it and reminded me of court. Yeah. Because the actress who played the judge was absolutely fantastic. Yeah, I want to talk about her. I thought she did a good job. And every single person in that room, every single person in that room, I'm watching them all. And there's moments, you know, what'd she say? And then one of the person over there is just going... Nobody felt like they knew the camera was on them or that they were doing something because it was going to be seen. Everybody just felt like they were these people in this village dealing with this real thing. And it never, from start to finish, every single actor in this was believable. The whole way through. The whole way through. The judge who you were just talking about, I thought, one, I feel like we've seen her before. She's not on IMDB. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I don't know her name. But God, I know I recognized her from... I can't place her. Yeah, not multiple things. So please let me know where we know her from. She did a great job. Wonderful. At one, being this judge who obviously has to bring a certain amount of authority and elegance with her, but also bringing the empathy of... She was like, why is this whole man here? Which thankfully was written that way. Yeah. She actually was somebody, as a point where she says something that's right and one of the older village ladies in the back, there's just a quick shot to her and she goes, because it's very clear. And then they go back to the little person standing in the window and she says, she says, I'd vote for her and you wouldn't even have to pay me, basically, right? I'd vote for her too. Oh yeah, we'll get into the rest of them. Yeah. But yeah, she did a great job at bringing the heart, a lot of the heart of this. Once I go at the ending, I love the hall ending. Everything about it from... Once again, this is spoilers when he thought he was dead. Which I knew. There's several things I knew were going to happen. That was one of them. I'm like, they're going to come out there. He's going to be dead. And I thought he was dead. Yes, I did. I was like, oh, this is super interesting. They obviously took his life away. Right. And it was symbolic of like his field died and he died. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It made sense. It made me dead. Fuck that. I laughed out loud. It was brilliant. So much better than if he had just like woken up from a nap. The fact that he pops away like that. Yeah. So, so good. So good, because obviously he probably never takes naps ever. And he's just exhausted. He's exhausted. He's been in jail for two freaking weeks. But then I love the whole ending. But I want to get into that. Sorry. Yeah, we'll get into the story more. But yeah, there's so many actors. I thought, even though he was in a tiny little bit, but Yogi Babu, I thought had a really nice, interesting character. Very interesting story. And she's not on here. And I'm sorry. I know. The actor. Give her credit. There's like five people on the whole. She was wonderful. She was wonderful. But the little person who was 22. 22 years old. One of the husband. She was great. She was freaking great. I love her. I want to see more of her. Absolutely. I hope she's in more films. Please. Because I really enjoyed her performance and her personality. I did too. I really, really liked her. So believable. In fact, there was a moment there. I'm like, okay, come on. You're telling, you know, it reminded me of the greatness of first time acting believability of the guy whose name is escaping me, but he was nominated for Captain Phillips. Okay. Yeah. Who when he, if you haven't seen Captain Phillips, see that and there's that moment, you know the story where when they were filming, the first scene, the first day of work he did was the takeover sequence in the captain's home with Tom Hanks. And he's in there and Tom's about to say something and he says to him, hey, hey, I'm the captain. I'm the captain now. That's all improv. And Hanks said to him afterwards said, you've never acted before. For it, for somebody to know that they can go off script just because they're so in character like that, mind boggling. She had a moment like that where the guy, forgive me if I'm calling him guy. I don't know if he was technically a priest who's there with the oxen to, you know, give her the teller her fortune about what she's going to get. And she says I want a husband. And then when he says here, come close so that you can be blessed. She gets underneath and she has a little interaction because she got a little bit annoyed that the oxen was as close to her as she was. And she kind of, there was another thing that happened like that with, I forgot who it was with the elephant. Yogi Babu. Was it Yogi Babu who was walking when they're walking into the thing? Yeah, it was his interaction with the elephant. They're walking into the elephant, like sprayed him as he's walking in and he gives it a look. And that's what you do when you're a really good actor. You don't like stop and look at the director and go, do we need to redo it? The elephant got me wet. You use it. Yeah. She did that. Yeah, she did a great job. I really loved her. I hope when she's, maybe she was just part of the village as well. You know, like she's a great addition. She's not an actress. I think she should be because I think she's really good. Great. Did a really good job. Yeah, the overall story of this film, and there's so many elements that we could talk, because there's, we got to talk about the directing, writing, filming and cinematography, score, sound. Yeah, there's a lot. The overall story was really, really interesting because you're wondering where it's going to go and what the overall message is. And then I loved the ending. For all of you who think I don't like happy endings, I love this ending. Sorry, everybody. I loved the whole ending of it. From, obviously, when I thought he was dead, right, he pops up. But basically that on, when obviously the judge was bringing him to, and then all the village came of, and the police also helped, and then they had their whole festival. From basically that moment on, I was just smiling the entire time. I was like, this is wonderful. I love this whole thing. I'm so happy. And then obviously he went in and was like, I'm not going to just sit here and let you guys work on my field. I got emotional from the point of him standing and looking at his field that had died, which I knew was coming. I knew it was coming the minute the cop bathed in the water. I'm like, bitch, all your toxins are going off into his field. And then when he did the thing and the guy went up, there's so much to talk about story-wise, but I cared so much about this man. And I, can we jump real quick into the genius of the cinematography? Right from the beginning. So much beauty in sky shots. So many, there was one shot. Thank you drones. Oh my goodness. And there was one stable shot. I don't know how they did it, but it was up on those tile roofing, looking down into where he lives toward the beginning. And I thought, oh, come on. And then they immediately cut to a ground shot that was probably a steady cam carry-in, or it was a dolly if they didn't have a steady cam, but the daylight was exactly the same. So I don't know if they had set them both up at the same time with two cameras so they could get them simultaneous, but if they didn't, they struck and reset in a matter of five minutes so that the shadows were shooting exteriors are so hard down a bright sunny day because 15 minutes later, the shadows are different and the shadows were exactly the same. These shots of those beautiful hands, not just his, that sequence on the wheel when he's making the jars. And I'm reminded of all those videos we watch of the artisans in India doing these jobs that are dying and they've been around for centuries and his beautiful feet, those old that are... Talk about a movie that tells you if people are connected to their land. Oh my goodness. Just gorgeous. Yeah, the cinematography... There's so many things that are striking about this film, but cinematography almost immediately because... Immediately. I think it never stops. I think it starts with the drone shot, actually, because I think it goes over the hill. It does. It's a beautiful drone and right as it comes over the hill and shows you the place you see in the distance, middle, foreground, the little first credit of the film. Yeah. Yeah, it was really great. Just off the bat, you're like, okay. And it reminded me because obviously in Malayalam, since they have such a beautiful landscape to film, you get a lot of like, oh, that's gorgeous. Gorgeous. That's gorgeous. And this had that exact same feel just in this certain village, wherever I don't... Where did they say, what state did they say they were in? Oh. Was it Tamil Nadu? Yes, I think it was. I'm pretty sure it was Tamil Nadu. It's a Tamil film, so I don't know. I'm pretty sure it was. I remember my research. But yeah, so it had so much gorgeous landscape and the cinematography, and I thought even the court shots were really pretty and just how they were set up because it would just look like... Just like in court. It looked like a fly on the wall and they did... Some people might not like fly on the wall films because sometimes they can get boring per se if you're not like invested in the story. But man, if you just tell a wonderful human story, I think people are invested. Obviously unless you just want action and then obviously this is not your thing. It really... Okay, here's a great example. When I was a server at a restaurant called Brio, there's all kinds of food that people can eat. All kinds of food you can eat. The masses for economic reasons but also because of palates that haven't been established to do it tend to eat a lot of things that are garbage when it comes to food quality. I will never forget this dish that we used to serve at this restaurant. It was chilean sea bass that was served on a bed of leeks. The sea bass was marinated in sweet sake and soy and then it was covered in a coconut lime sauce. But one of the greatest pieces of fish I've ever had the luxury of ever tasting. That's what this movie is. And it's the same kind of appreciation for fine artistry that comes in the culinary world. It comes in the photography world. There are some photographs I've seen just a black and white shot of a guy who's a rancher in Texas who stood for the guy at the camera and he's not a model. He's just the guy wanted to take a picture of him. And you look at this picture and that picture tells you so much that you can look at it for 15 minutes even though nothing's going on. That's how I feel about great cinema that's the fly on the wall kind of film like this is where the moment just go grab the dirt, put it in the jar, fill it with water, set it in the sun. Watching that and then him bringing it back and him being amazed that it grew the little meme tree I think it was. That's beautiful. And in the overall message of the film of, I mean, I'm assuming there's a bunch of different messages. Yeah, there are. But like we can't get into all of them. And some I'm sure that time that we weren't aware of obviously. But I know obviously like the city kind of taking over and not caring about the village life and their priorities. But you know, because they got to go through these mundane procedures of just ridiculous what this man had to go through. Yes. The fact that I mean it here in America it would have been thrown out day one. They would have to wait for any report that judge would have been like, wait, this your witness didn't see him do it. Right. Correct? Correct. Why the fuck are we here? Yeah, you would not. You would not remand the prisoner for two weeks. No, you'd remember. It would be done. Yeah. No, absolutely not. So it was obviously I know it's culture differences and different procedures. And we're just saying from our perspective why it's shocking to us. And infuriating. Because it's like, why? Just let him go. But the other thing for me that I think is a really big credit. I'm sure I could be wrong. I'm just making a supposition based on what I've seen. This movie made me want to learn more about the plight of the farmers in India. And I think it did a beautiful job of pointing out that farming in India is as much a part of India as is anything else that is Indian. That it's part of the soil. It's part of the skin. It's part of the motherland. It's part of everything of who they are as a people in terms of their, not just their culture, but in terms of their livelihood and a part of the way of life, which is really true about all humanity. We here in America for years, there's been the plight of our farmers and what they can do and why we need them and why we need farming. And I felt like this did a really great job of not being, what do they call it? Virtue blasting or virtue signaling. This wasn't virtue signaling. This was being very clear in the recognition of making a much broader picture symbolically to also talk about the realities of what so many people and not just what the farmers deal with because I'm so ignorant to that but makes me want to learn more. But any group of people who are doing things that are contributing to the world in such a beautiful way and in connection to the world versus the other people who think what they're doing is enlightened. I love the scene. It speaks volumes of this film where he goes in to get his tomato season and goes, ah, these are seedless. And he's like, what's the point of a seedless freaking tomato? God doesn't make seedless things. He's like, yeah, no, but this is the white man made this so that you can come back and buy more. Capitalism, you son of a bitch. And I love him. He says, I hope the guy who came up with seedless tomatoes, I hope he has a son with no testicles. So he has a seedless son. That was great. He brought a lot of humor. Great. Once again for being a guy who's never acted before. And oh my goodness. The fact that he brought so much humor and so much warmth and so much humanity. Such a human movie. Once again, because obviously we get told this all the time. Like you won't understand. It's very cultural. Right. I got told that about this film because people think that just because it's in a village we won't understand. If you tell a human story. Exactly. We're going to understand. Everybody poops. Obviously. We all have universal truths that we live with. Obviously there's certain things that can, like when we saw that Mali Alam film with Mohan Mohanlal. Which we appreciated but we were like, I'm sure there's a ton of stuff that went over our head. I'm sure there was a ton here. Like I'm sure there's symbolism with Vijay's character and the particularity of the peacock and him disappearing and that we'll look back five years later. Oh, wow. Yeah. Missed that. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Absolutely. But obviously the overall film if you just tell a human story people are going to appreciate and relate to your film. Humans relate to humans. It's just. Yeah. And the Indianness of it with the symbolism of the peacock. Yeah. I love that whole story. I love it. It showed you someone. This is great. This is why we talk about exposition and stuff not needing to be said to show it. The very fact that this beautiful man buried the peacock in the middle and the pea hens on the sides. Didn't just bury him. He buried them with a sense of order to them. Spoke so much about this man's character that when the judge says this is the kind of man you're bringing in here you're on the side of the villagers and the side of everybody else going yes, I'm glad you see it because we know the character of this man based on the fact that we've been watching him for the past two hours and know he shouldn't be in here. And then another thing, the score. I apologize if we don't get to talk about everything. We tried too much. It's too much. And then we forget. People were like, I'm so disappointed. You didn't talk about blah blah. I'm sorry. I meant to. But the score in this was so good in a lot of ways. So subtle, non-existent at certain times. I thought it was an absolute perfect score. It says it was composed by Rajasar. I don't know if that's because there was I think a movie song. In it. I don't know. Like one time I think there was in the background there was like a movie song. I don't know if that was Rajasar's and the rest of it was Richard Harvey's. Well the score at one point I put in my notes, you know, there's some of the things I wrote in here were utterly fascinating, gorgeous score. And then he, I felt like the color purple at one point. It was so beautiful. And symbolism, like I wrote here, there's the line. Somebody says how can you prove that you're a citizen of this country? Somebody says that line. And then the next cut and the score is accompanying this. We see his feet caked in soil. Just sitting there. Someone says it and then there's a quick shot of his feet. And that's all. And it's like, you want the answer to the question? There it is. And the score accompanying that, it really, I really meant that. If it had been in consideration or maybe it can be for this year, this is an exceptional film that I think Academy members and people the world over can see this and recognize everything about tradition. Because as much as I think this is probably a very dammel film, I think it's an Indian film and it's a human film. Yeah. There's so much to talk about. Yeah. So much to talk about. So we enjoyed it. Uh, it's going on my list of one of my all-time favorite films. Yeah. I love this. Your favorite dammel film? This is my favorite dammel film. Did you look it over? Did you look over the? Yes. This is, this is, it may not be the one I want to always watch. I always use, you know, favorites. Favorites versus the ones I like to watch the most. But if someone were to say to me, what is the film in recent, because the classics you can't. But what's a recent film that you would recommend I see from the dammel industry that shows the excellence of their artistry at every level? Without even thinking or blinking, I would say that's the one you want to see. So I'm looking it over here. This is a bunch that are really entertaining. Oh, some great ones. I mean, 96, again, with VJ. Bombay. It's one that I absolutely love. But as good as that is and contemporary as that is, that I love the fact that this is so universal and so generational. The old. Great. Love that. I mean, I could knock off four or five that I love, but this would be for me the the top of the artistic. Still love super deluxe. For me, obviously. I know it's not for you. Yeah. VJ, Thotapathy, again. Yeah, what a shock. Yeah, right. But let us know what you thought about this film down in the comments below, what should be our next dammel film and what should be our next VJ Thotapathy film, whether he's supporting or starring outside of Vikram. Obviously, which is coming, which is very exciting. Very exciting. Come all us on. VJ Thotapathy and Fafa in one film. Very exciting. Please let us know what you thought about this film, which will be our next dammel film. Down.