Gautham – The Modern Tragedy Master

When something happens twice, you can call it a coincidence. But when it repeats four times in a row, it is difficult to see it as just a coincidence. That is why we are discussing a queer aspect of Gautham Menon movies, a hint of tragedy. This is nothing but a musing that occurred while thinking about all the Gautham Menon films over the years, Minnale being the lone exception to this. This musing makes no attempt to be judgmental about the director’s style of film making, its quality or any other technical or non-technical aspect. It is just an observation from a normal moviegoer’s perspective of the seemingly inseparable element of a Gautham movie- death, mostly of a female lead.
Kakka Kakka had Maya (Jyothika) being tragically shot down by the antagonists, Vettaiyaadu Valaiyaadu is best remembered for Aradhana’s (Jyothika) close escape from a certain death, but one should not forget the killing of Kayalvizhi (Kamalinee Mukherjee) which comes early in the first half. Then, in Pachchaikili Muthucharam, it was Jyothika again, this time playing a negative role, being gunned down by the protagonist Sarath Kumar. Finally, it is down to Vaaranum Aayiram where one of the female leads (there are three of them, we don’t want to spoil the suspense for those who are yet to watch the movie) is killed by fate conspiring against her, or should we say, the conspiracy of Gautham’s script. A Gautham Menon script is certainly not a safe place for a female lead character to be in. They are always in some kind of mortal danger, it seems. Always being pursued for the dint of being associated with the rather adventurous and dutiful male lead, that was the case in KK and VV. PM was a case of novel scripting, putting an actress in a zone that Tamil movie actresses have seldom been in, while in Vaaranum Aayiram, it was neatly written in by Gautham as fate. Different as they may seem, all four situations resulted in the same eventuality for the character in question.
We are not trying to interfere with a director’s or scriptwriter’s freedom here. We also have to agree that death and mortal fear have an impact on the story that no other twist can have and Gautham uses it well at key points in his movies. He does not deal in high voltage sentimental scenes, tear jerking dialogues or those touching final moments when one character lies on another’s lap delivering an extended farewell with a good number of bullets having passed through his/her body. But he does manage to shock us, touch us and move us at the same time. We may even call him the Modern Tragedy Master of Kollywood.