Karthik Subburaj's Dorothy

 I watched Karthik Subburaj’s (KS) film Dorothy this past Sunday. This is his second film that has gripped me in a tight chokehold — like a challenge, an inescapable introspection — after Iraivi, which I watched about a decade ago.

And what is challenged? The male ego, as I know and see it.

The male charade of brute physical strength is exposed as weak. The patriarchal insistence on family honour is exposed as hollow. And the stereotypes of toxic masculinity are exposed as meaningless and futile.

The film is set in the parochial milieu of the Madurai region of Tamil Nadu in the 80s and 90s. Male bonding is cemented through the tropes of physical violence, guts bordering on bravado, and an emphasis on being insensitive to human feelings — men don’t cry, don’t flinch on seeing corpses, and don’t recoil from witnessing or participating in gross violence.

The young, macho Subbu turns the more timid Karthi into a gutsy, reckless teenager and adult. And he himself transforms into Dorothy.

All the legs that toxic masculinity stands on are shown to be baseless and weak. The transformed Subbu is much stronger emotionally, and also physically, than all the men who set out to attack her at a wayside dhaba, for example. She is easily able to tackle her rowdy brothers and father after her transformation.

The film also leaves us with questions about whether Whistle Ayya is actually Subbu’s father or possibly his grandfather.

KS masterfully uses imagery and symbols to bring out interesting perspectives. The wall screams “Raymond — The Complete Man” when Subbu reveals the transformation to Karthi’s mother in a deeply sensitive scene. The journey in the truck, when Subbu is about to reveal this to Karthi, has the silhouette of childbirth inside a tent of nomads. The fight involving Karthi and Subbu with the upper-caste goon on a muddy field has, in the background, the struggle of an ant and a huge mudball — almost like a David-Goliath encounter.

The naming is fascinating too. The film is named Dorothy — a name used symbolically in LGBTQi communities. Dorothy is also the name of Subbu’s sister-in-law, the person he feels closest to at that point and to whom he can reveal his secrets. It is also the name he gives to the male rooster he is very fond of. And ultimately, it is the name he/she acquires at the end of the film, after the Nirvaana.

The two childhood friends share parts of the director KS’s name — perhaps symbolising that all of us carry within us the forces of yin and yang, the masculine and the feminine. And perhaps also that we need to give way to the feminine more often.

The questions of caste and identity loom large in the film. Marriages are never tolerated when the groom is from a caste lower than that of the bride. The men in the families of the brides place enormous emphasis on family honour. Cancelling wedding plans becomes commonplace, and some even go to the extent of committing murders with the intention of guarding this perceived family honour.

Whistle Ayya gets the girl Karthi loves married to a man of her own caste instead of the lower-caste Karthi. But when he asks Subbu’s elder brother about the caste of Dorothy, whom he brings home as his bride, he doesn't object to her being from a caste perceived as higher than theirs. Even if her name sounds Christian, he says, she looks like a Brahmin woman.

There is something deeply revealing about this.

KS uses acute cinematic skills, and the maestro Ilaiyaraaja weaves his genius through the film, raising it into what will surely become a cult classic. The cinematography, the background score, the skillful use of landscapes and lighting, and the songs make the film a true cinematic experience.

There will hardly be a heart that is not moved to tears by Ilaiyaraaja singing the solo lines “VaNNakkiLi…” in the middle of trance music that this generation can dance and sway to.

There is no way one can watch the towering, rugged backdrop of large rocky structures and mountains and not be struck by the contrast with the tiny human characters inhabiting that landscape.

And perhaps there is no male who will not feel a little uncomfortable — perhaps even guilty — watching, on screen, exactly the toxic masculinity that many of us have grown up with.

Dorothy is a film of transformation.

I hope those who watch the film will come away wanting to create less violence — in the bedroom, in society, and even on the roads of India.

That, perhaps, is the transformation that we truly need.