Pithamagan

<p>An anonymous woman dies while giving birth in a graveyard. Her child, Chithan, is found and raised by the caretaker of the graveyard. Chithan grows up among corpses with minimal human contact and is seemingly autistic. He growls, runs like a beast, but seems to understand loyalty and is a social animal. He ventures into a town in search of food and gets into trouble as he does not understand the concept of money. He is rescued by Gomathi, a petty dealer. She sees his ability to be loyal and enrolls him into the service of her employer Sekar Vasudevan, a large scale marijuana grower. Chithan is caught during a drug raid and arrested. Sakthi is a con artist. He gets into trouble when he cons a woman named Manju into losing all her personal effects in a game of dice. Sakthi gets sent to jail thanks to Manju’s detective work. He meets Chithan in prison and starts protecting him out of sympathy and pity. Chithan starts to reciprocate to Sakthi’s kindness with blind loyalty. Sakthi serves his term and then clashes with Sekar to get Chithan released from jail. Chithan gets out but commits a crime when he obeys his master’s instruction to burn the body of a murder victim. Sakthi, realising that Chithan is being used as accessory in crimes that he cannot comprehend, prevents Chithan from going back to working in the marijuana fields. At the same time, a budding romance starts between Sakthi and Manju, and Chithan too starts to see a shared spirit in Gomathi. The police catches wind of the murder and arrests Chithan. Sakthi gets Chithan to side with the police as an informant. Sekar later attacks and kills Sakthi and dumps his body in the middle of the road. Chithan does not understand that Sakthi is dead and zones out when everyone surrounds him. While Gomathi, Manju, and the others are crying, Gomathi sees Chithan’s confusion as indifference and angrily drives him away from Sakthi’s body. Chithan slowly starts to understand that Sakthi is dead as he sees him on the funeral pyre. His realisation is complete when he wakes up in the morning next to the burnt remains of Sakthi’s corpse. He experiences emotions that he has never experienced before: fury, agony, betrayal, and pain that he has never felt, and decides to take revenge on Sekar. Chithan sets fire to the marijuana fields, lets Sekar experience the pain of his loss, and then sets upon destroying him physically. He drives him through the street, taking his time by breaking a few bones at a time until he is done toying with him. He then kills Sekar by biting his neck, and with nothing left to lose, leaves the village. After (2001), Bala announced his next project with and , the main lead actors of his previous films who received popularity after struggle. For Gomathy’s role, Bala selected Rasika P. Mani after considering , and and also changed her name back to . and (credited as Sivagangai Karuppu) made their Tamil debut with this film. Most of the film was shot in . The soundtrack was composed by . The song “Piraiye Piraiye” is set in raga. R. Rangaraj of wrote, “The maestro has not failed his fans. Although the music is not of the racy, peppy variety, it is bound to do well due to the different approach in terms of mood and tone. It is not often that one has to compose songs to be shot on a Vettiyan. Like a Phoenix rishing from the ashes, Ilayaraja too rises to the occasion”. was released on 24 October 2003, coinciding with . The film released alongside ‘s , ‘s and ‘s . The film received critical acclaim with praise for the story, direction, screenplay and performances of Vikram, Surya, Laila and Sangeetha. Malathi Rangarajan of praised Vikram as “Without any dialogue to support him he carves a niche for himself in the viewer’s mind with his expressions and excellent body language” and Suriya as “Who would have thought that this young man, pitted against the serious Chithan, would prove so perfect a foil?” going on to declare the movie as “..a symphony on celluloid”. A reviewer at noted, “..it is the expert performance of the lead actors that elevate the film above the commonplace”. Film critic remarked, “Bala’s ingeniousness is evident everywhere …. And he gets tremendous support from his leads…It all adds up to a first-rate film that excoriates as much as it entertains”. Malini Mannath wrote in , “It’s an off-beat, sensitive and a serious film, which may lack in commercial ingredients but which a discerning viewer will find a welcome change”. Visual Dasan of praised the performances of lead actors, Bala’s direction, also praising Balasubramaniam’s cinematography and Ilaiyaraaja’s music for working equally hard with director and concluded is not Vikram and Surya film, it is Bala’s unique work. was dubbed into and released as ( ) on 2 April 2004. The film was remade in as (2007), with Mahedevan reprising his role. In October 2011, it was reported that bought the remake rights of the film. Later, it was reported that he wanted to reprise Vikram’s role. However the project failed to materialise.</p>