Hot Spot(2.5 / 5)
Fans of the bespectacled, cleft-chinned, ponytail-toting Vignesh Karthick – and those who’ve watched his split-the-d difference Yours Shamefully films, and a few other features – know he loves a bit of shock and awe. Hot Spot goes one step further. The trailer for Hot Spot practically dives straight into clickbait. In shallower waters, it aims to provoke outrage, the very thing that compels many to watch, if only to complain. Instead, it’s a cunning ruse. The film itself is far tamer than the sensational trailer would suggest, even as it covers much of the same ground: patriarchy, incest, sexual permissiveness. While the intent of the filmmakers is laudable, Hot Spot is marred by tonal shifts and uneven portraits.
Director: Vignesh Karthick
Cast: Gouri Kishan, Adithya Bhaskar, Sandy, Ammu Abhirami, Janani, Subash, Kalaiyarasan, Sophiya
Hot Spot, which was hyperlinked by Vignesh Karthick, who also plays a documentary filmmaker in the film, extensively explores four of society’s major dilemmas through its fiction. These issues push the audience to question their notion of right and wrong, and also to think of solutions to these problems. Though the four films are discrete, they build up to a central idea: ego is intrinsically linked to morality. Often, we perceive morality subjectively, based on an individual’s self-interest.
Remember the wacky premises of Vignesh Karthick’s earlier film Adiyae? True to form, Hot Spot is replete with crazy scenarios, such as when Dhanya (Gouri Kishan) ties a nuptial chain around Vijay’s (Adithya Bhaskar) neck, or the child asking her father whether she is sexy in the dress she is wearing. Indeed, his film delves into such gender role reverse scenarios as well as incest (for instance, Vijay wants to have sex with his mother when she asks him to give her a shoulder bath), not for the titillating shock value that is usually the crux of such cinema, but to prompt a real discussion on social advancement. None of these are themes that Indian cinema hasn’t dabbled in on and off, in varying degrees. But when Karthick brings them back, it feels like a novelty because he forces the audiences to reflect on the need for social evolution. ‘Bayangarama feminism pesura ponnunga kooda kalyanam panni purushan veetuku dhaane poitirukkanga’, literally, ‘Nowadays, the women who are not feministic, will tie a nuptial chain around the man, and call it a marriage wedding’. This line will appease the audiences since it echoes ‘old-school’ plot lines they may have watched, but it also asks them to sit with the idea for a long time.
The episodic structure of the film (each story carries a runtime of about half an hour) works especially well in keeping the viewer hooked. But at the same time, it also errs on the side of the public service announcement, especially with extended monologues delivered either by characters or by Vignesh Karthick himself at the end of each section. The pedantic self-righteousness ended up seeming cringe-worthy at times, and the ethical questions never quite closed in a satisfying way. But the messages are, in fact, important. The problem is that the sermonising undermines their potency. This is an advertisement that wants to be film, yet remains a chunky truism. Sahodaran (2019) is full of moralising.
The third segment, featuring Subash in a double role as Vetri and Anitha, starring Janani in titular roles of the girls, is the most original and exciting segment in the anthology. Dealing with a topic as daring as lust, love, sexual permissiveness within relationships in the guise of a slapstick comedy nail-biting gripping tale of entertainment in the masturbating department will also have you chuckling awkwardly and then suddenly bursting into laughter. Hot Spot, after that high of comedy, turns towards a less-talked-about issue in the third segment itself with the title Thakkali Chutney. The anthology then plunges into many murky and gritty depths in its fourth piece, Fame Game starring Kalaiyarasan and Sophiya. Despite the direction Vignesh and the rest of the cast and writers were ready to take it, Fame Game, is still a tonal shift too jarring to ignore. And one that will most definitely leave you in a very different place mentally while walking out of the theatre from the one you held (I imagine) at the end of the intermission.
I am not picking on the fourth film of the anthology – it comes with the most worthy message. In fact, it is about the innocence of children, how and why they lose it and how it impacts them, the great ‘loss’ that leaves behind irremediable scars for them to carry throughout their lives. Directed by a renowned filmmaker, Viswaroopam (2010), the film parodies the many such Tamil-language talent shows that wielded the innocence of children like a siren for the sake of television ratings. The ep also manages to give its two bits about how modern technology is more of an agent of harm than of help for the young and impressionable. That the film is unbearably high-minded is beyond doubt. But its two other obvious pitfalls are the uneven portrayal of the role of women and the sensationalism of the subject it deals with.
The inconsistency is stark. In Happy Married Life it was Dhanya, the heroine, who was the defying patriarch as the breadwinner in a household led by the lady of the house. In contrast, we see in Fame Game Ezhumalai (played by Kalaiyarasan) blaming his wife alone, Lakshmi (played by Sophiya), for the misfortune of having a daughter because he had an argument with her some years earlier. I guess he just repressed his voice and remained silent till bad luck turned up at his door step, just to raise a finger at his wife and say: ‘I told you so…’ What kind of man is that, what kind of father is that, who can allow his daughter to get into trouble and blame his wife, and not come forward to help his child-in-treble-doubling-trouble or, at least offer words of solace? Double standards in relation to parenting also show up in the way in which the wicked talent-showhead in the film is a woman ‘devoid of empathy and arrogant’. The portrayal of her is entirely in line with the sexist notions of the heroine’s mother shaming another woman, even as the film seeks to puncture patriarchy.
The epilogue states in caps: ALL KIDS IN FILM [THANK GOD] WERE RECORDED IN A SAFE SETTING BECAUSE THEY ONLY SPKE [sic] AND DANCE HEALTHY WORDS AND THE ADULTS DUBBED TOO WORDS FROM THE MOVIE LIKE SEXY & FIRST NIGHT. But the film also includes a lengthy, sound-centred depiction of abuse shockingly uncalled-for and triggerless, and as gratuitous as it is ghastly: in a creative choice almost begging for attention scarce, and the last scene in the film, it seems to be the one scene in the film aimed at wringing the maximum moister out of the cinema.
Hot Spot culminates in an emotional Kalaiyarasan who wrings out his equivalent of tears and tenderness in an equally affected siege on our sentiments. If you find yourself thinking about the future generation after the film, it is a gratifying feeling. However, the shortcomings of the film experience are equally hard to ignore; quickly sticking to your mind even after the films conclude. Towards the beginning of the film, the producer character says: ‘Naalu per namma padatha paathu maranum,’ and that sums up what Vignesh Karthick attempted to make all along. Therefore, when the flaws are pointed out, we would have to conclude that social messaging that might inadvertently reiterate patriarchy can be ingrained all the same into films that begin wanting them to end badly for everyone involved.
