Following upon his maiden 2021 film Koozhangal aka Pebbles director P S Vinothraj returns to test waters again with 2024 Kottukkaali (The Adamant Girl) in his sophomore flick.

Like in the former, here too, men take the pivotal place playing the patriarchal hegemons with women consigned to partaking as victimised marginals, constantly clucking about their condition, as macho men go about their brutal business with singular stubborn determination, where the triad of M-masculinity, morality and misogyny are in full play.

If in Koozhangal one witnesses the foul mouthed affronted drunkard husband Ganapathy setting off furiously in search of his wife who has deserted him and their son, unable to tolerate the domestic violence, for her mother’s place in distant village, with his phlegmatic but prankster son, pulling him out of his school.

In Kottukkaali, you have the equally enraged and embittered Paandi embarking on a similar sojourn to meet the family shaman –resident at a distant village – to exorcise the devil of his (he is her maternal uncle) betrothed Meena – who, we are given to understand, has committed the most disreputable felony of having fallen for a lower caste (absentee) beau.

Unlike in Koozhangal, where the father and son, almost trek the distance, while taking the bus to the destination, here you have Paandi leading a ragtag retinue of relatives. He triples riding on his bike followed by Meena’s father Murugan and his son-in-law, two other men – Mani & Siva, on their respective vehicles with ramshackle autorickshaw with driver Suresh carrying Meena, her mother Muthu, her sister-in-law (Pandi’s sister) Shanti, family’s conscience keeper, and her young whit of a son along with the cockerel set to be sacrificed for warding off ritual.

But for a slight tinkering in its thematic track – the earlier being the runaway wife,here the bride to be – catalyst for combustive journey undertaken – both Koozhangal and Kottukkaali, note director’s fetish for titles with K, and rustic tales, follow the same standard operating procedure of P S Vinothraj with his signature storytelling revolving an arduous trip on kutcha village roads, whizzing rural landscape, towards the intended destination.

You have long drawn, lingering wearisome staccato shots of fleeting and almost desolate verdant and arid countryside as the camera pans across while the entourage cruises along on negotiating bad roads and other obstacles (the cockerel almost lying dead, one a bull stridently standing in their way, young boy’s pressing need to dump, and an insect getting into Paandi’s eye). Oh! We, audiences, are supposed to read metaphorical meanings into these.

Their journey being interspersed and punctuated with philosophising and acerbic asides both by men and especially women spouting everyday nuggets about expectations from women and men that everyone is familiar and have heard millions of times in their lifetime.

For example, here are some archaic gems: Bemoans Meena’s father “we have no choice but obey them. This is our fate for having given birth to a girl child.

The mute as stubborn mule Meena’s sister-in-law Shanti vehemently spouts familiar womanly gyaan: Why are you all struggling to convince her? Just break her hands and marry her, brother. She goes on “will it cost us more to feed her? As if we won’t find another bride. Brides will queue up for marrying my brother.”

The concerned Murugan, father of Meena, worriedly interjects “you troublemakers., don’t change his mind.” And not the one to be cowed down, Shanti lumbers on: Why are you so obsessed with her brother? You think you will be happy marrying this arrogant girl?”

The last straw being “I will find you a better bride in my husband’s family” she offers while applying the sacred ash on her brother’s sore throat.The man roused like a tiger shuts her up sternly “Get lost, wretch!”

Oh! My God! Woe! Me. This kind of endless supercilious empty conversations go on and on ad nauseum as the family trundles on towards finding the family shaman to get the devil of Meena’s back who seems to silently reveling in all the theatrics that unfolds before us.

Like Koozhangal with running time of 75 mins,Kottukkaali almost matches it with 78 mins of carping conversations and langsam action along the road with which director Vinothraj tries to drum home his message of gender discrimination, rigid patriarchal structures dominating India’s hinterlands and filial fissures hoping he will have his audiences invested in his didactic drama as it unfolds before them. As if such practices are absent in the otherwise elitist educated urban centres where everything is assumed is honky dory.

The audiences, like an adamant and defiant Meena, who has conveniently withdrawn into a shell, wearing stoic, sturdy silence, staring on distant wild horizon as if some sprite has stricken her, too, are mercilessly left with no choice, but listen on, resigned to their fare, watching the prosaic proceedings of the dour film that leaves one wondering at the futility of it all.

The film’s symbolism and metaphorical meanings as to the status of women in an otherwise patriarchal society fettered and shackled, Vinothraj,with a fascination for rustic dramas and their archaic practices and percepts, hopes Kottukkaali would be read the way it is intended to.

Shorn of any frills or high emotive drama and done away with background score as well lest it invest needless emotion into the visual play, Vinothraj’s Kottukkaali, like its predecessor Koozhangal turns out to be strictly artsy and film festival circuits fare to cobble up a clutch of awards while catching the “discerning” eyes of the juries around.

The wanton Indian dramedy has lots to be desired made solely to attract Western audiences, especially, film festival juries, so that they may bless it with award or two to hype up its importance in the cinema annals.

In fact, Rishab Shetty should have reserved his comments (not that he is free of the same in his own film) to film makers like Vinothraj, Prithvi Konanur, and their ilk, who are unable to graduate beyond the readymade class, caste, and gender conflicts than attempt to at better cinemas in keeping with the strides it has made and the issues that society confronts in this modern time and day.

The film, unfortunately, fails to provide meaningful, accessible cinema to lay audiences to ruminate on social issues of culture, class, caste or commune, who troop in with a heightened sense of expectations there is something in it for them only to be dumbstruck, like its damsel in distress.

In fact, neither Anna Ben nor SooriMuthuchamy, who carry the film, sees it heavily hemmed in by their presence while other fringe players actually ensure it does not sink in the morass of its own making.

Suffice to say Koozhangal and Kottukkaali are twin sides of the same pithy pastoral parables giving vision to which Vinothraj has made it a fine art taking audiences on a monotonous slow and snaking ride across verdant and arid fields and dusty highways.

The proverbial road movie is as exhausting and fruitless as it can be for audiences while Vinothraj’s half-baked second fare works in an acerbic criticism of religious taboos and practices and misogynistic power powerplay, while the irritating ensemble, constantly keep dwelling on trivialities that do not find resonance in the elitist urban audiences where the film gets screened.

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S VISWANATH is a veteran film critic who officiates as JURY at several National & International Film Festivals. He deputises as CHIEF CINEMA CURATOR/PROGRAMMER & CREATIVE ADVISOR for Bengaluru International Film Festival (BIFFes). He also curates & advises on the selection of shorts & documentaries for Bengaluru International Short Film Festival (BISFF). Mr Viswanath is the author of “RANDOM REFLECTIONS: A Kaleidoscopic Musings on Kannada Cinema”.