Chitha doesn’t shy away from emotional trauma

The most heinous part of a violent crime isn’t the crime itself, but the trauma that it inflicts on the victim. Filmmakers often overlook the PTSD in such acts, especially those inflicted on young children. Instead, they choose to depict the goriness of despicable acts, seeking shock appeal while neglecting the emotional trauma of the victims.

In his recent Tamil movie Chitha, director U. S. Arun Kumar does the opposite brilliantly, shining the light on that trauma in detail. He illustrates how the event changes the victim’s life, and the effect it has on the victim’s loved ones, while also keeping alive the suspense of pursuing the perpetrator.

Its tight screenplay makes Chitha a gripping drama from start to finish, one that appeals to the mind and the heart.

A glimpse of normal life

Set in the temple town of Palani, the movie is centered around an elementary school girl named Sundari (Sahasra Sree, super cute in her oversized glasses), and her uncle Eeswaran (Siddharth, also the producer of the movie). He takes care of her like she is his own child, dropping and picking her up from school every day – a routine he never gets bored of.

The movie takes its time giving us a nice glimpse into their lives – Eeswaran’s friendships, his love interest, and the town’s idyllic existence. Amidst all of this, there is a terrific build-up of the simmering danger looming in their lives with some nicely staged setups. The one where the school security guard messes with Eeswaran regarding Sundari’s whereabouts in an early scene, or the fact that we spot more girls in the movie than boys, indicates the threat these innocents will eventually face.

Lives change forever

When Sundari and her best friend Ponni (Aafiyah Tasneem) hatch a plot to go watch a deer, their lives and everyone else’s change forever. Like the deer moment in everyone’s favorite Indian epic, the incident kicks off an unrelenting mix of emotion, drama, and rapt suspense.

The emotional highlights of the movie explore the mental scars that don’t heal over time. Chitha has several standout scenes – a hospital scenario where a wellwisher confronts the horror of a child who imagines he is someone else. The movie reveals the tenderness of kids who suffer the most horrific crimes. In a gut-wrenching scene, a girl is unable to speak to her best friend about her troubles; the friend misunderstands the silent treatment making the viewers’ hearts ache for both. 

Giving actors space

The director gives the actors plenty of space to flesh out their characters. Siddharth is in top form. Unlike leads who could overshadow fellow actors, Siddharth is remarkably restrained in this role. When his character is falsely accused of a crime, the movie stays its course on the plot. With a different actor-director combination at the helm, the movie may have descended into a formulaic one-man-crusade-against-a-wicked-system, but not in Chitha.

Both Sahasree Sree and Aafiyah Tasneem are terrific as best friends. Their scene together in a hospital is remarkable. Nimisha Sajayan’s character Sakthi may appear to be on the fringes, but there is a purpose to her character, revealed in a moment towards the end. With Chitha, the actor continues her terrific run of featuring in the finest South Indian movies in recent years. 

A ringside view of Palani

Aided by a terrific background score and some fine camerawork, Arun Kumar gives us a ringside view of the happenings in Palani. For instance, in the early scene where Eeswaran spots Sakthi outside his office, the camera doesn’t switch angles, nor are there any close-ups. It stays fixed as Eswaran notices her from the corner of his eye, and we see his reaction change. The exceptional cinematography in the movie drops us right into the events in Palani and plays a vital role in how we empathize with the characters.

One of the most unique aspects of Chitha is how it handles the most stomach-churning moments without gore. An agonizing, suspense-filled wait at a mortuary happens outside it, not inside. On two separate occasions, the charred remains of a body are teasingly hidden from the audience’s view. And, throughout the entire movie, the brutality of the crimes is expressed in the emotions experienced by the characters as they live through them.

For a movie dealing with the worst of child abuse crimes, there are no graphic scenes. The film is almost PG-13-like in its treatment of this devastating subject – I mean this as a compliment. 

Chitha isn’t just about the thrill of nabbing the perpetrators. Clocking a little over two hours, the movie covers so much territory thanks to its tight screenplay. Beyond its titular aspect, the movie is a fine story of friendships that last a lifetime, and how friends have each other’s back.

When two friends meet outside a police station after a tense scuffle with a family member, both Eeswaran and the audience are surprised by one’s unexpectedly funny reaction. The side plot about teenage love isn’t a distraction and merges nicely with the rest of the plot. Shortly after they meet in a room with a ceiling fan not spinning, there is an unexpectedly romantic moment when power is restored and a duster flies off.

In Chitha, there are thrills at all times, in different shapes and sizes. 

Anuj Chakrapani loves music and cinema among all art forms. He believes their beauty lies in their interpretation, and that the parts is more than the sum. Anuj lives in the SF Bay Area and works for a...