Suggested Topics :
THR India's 25 in 25: Rage and Reflection in 'Pariyerum Perumal'
The Hollywood Reporter India picks the 25 best Indian films of the 21st century. Mari Selvaraj's debut 'Pariyerum Perumal' softens rage into reflection in this landmark work of modern Tamil cinema.
Mari Selvaraj’s debut feature film Pariyerum Perumal (2018) asked the simple question: what does one do when violence feels like the only possible response? And it answered it with a gentle, unresolved, yet hopeful conclusion.
Pariyerum Perumal (Kathir), a young man who belongs to a lower-caste, falls in love with Jothi Mahalakshmi (Anandhi), an upper-caste woman and his classmate in law college in Tirunelveli. She helps him with English — the language in which the lectures are delivered, a language whose aptitude is assumed, one which Pariyerum doesn’t have and is shamed for. A strangely fragile friendship blooms, one that could be mistaken for love but is not quite given the label. Mahalakshmi invites him to a wedding in her family, only for Perumal to be humiliated, beaten, and urinated on.
What is to be done with his humiliation, rage and her ignorance? Avenge himself? Pretend they don’t exist? And what does one do with rage — when does personal angst become a collective cry? A character notes, “Room-la thooku pottu saavartha vida sandai pottu saavattum (Better than dying by suicide in a room, it is better to fight and then die).”
Pariyerum Perumal is loosely based on Selvaraj’s life and the people he observed in the years he spent in Tirunelveli as a law student. He quit his studies to be part of a different world — cinema. After working as an assistant for director Ram for over a decade, he found a producer in Pa Ranjith and this film fell into place, with Santhosh Narayanan composing the music for it.
With this film, Selvaraj became part of a movement in Tamil cinema, bolstered by Ranjith, where Dalit politics and Dalit protagonists took centre stage, without any hesitation. He followed this film with Karnan (2021), Maamannan (2023), and Vaazhai (2024). These films shift the gaze away from the hyper-masculine image of Thevar (an intermediate caste) heroes and have a fragile relationship with violence and muscle as a solution. Selvaraj also brings into his cinema the inherited folk traditions of storytelling, such as paavaikoothu, therukoothu, and sambadi attam. The titular Pariyerum Perumal, too, is a local deity in Southern Tamil Nadu — a name with which Selvaraj christens his main character.
Kathir & Mari Selvaraj on Making Pariyerum Perumal
Actor Kathir, in an interview with Cinema Express, notes, “Pariyerum Perumal is all about equality. It doesn’t talk politics or preach. There are social messages embedded in this film, but if someone only wants to watch it as pure entertainment with sentiment, action and comedy, the film will work for them too. However, I believe that the audience will understand where the film comes from.”
Another of Mari Selvaraj’s provocations is his striking and politicised aesthetics — a voice that is as visual as it is political, a beauty that burns a hole in your memory of the film. In an interview with Film Companion, he said, “Visually, I wanted Pariyerum Perumal to be like a dream. I believe it is important that, irrespective of whether they liked the film or not, I wanted the film to get into people’s heads. They might not like the story, me, Ranjith…but they would like the way it's made. Then, at least a drop of the ideas in the film will reach the viewer.”
Pariyerum Perumal features many non-actors in its supporting cast, all from Selvaraj’s village, Puliyankulam. In an interview with Film Companion, he noted that he gave the villagers “A really hard time. I would shoot late into the night or get a few 100 of them to stand in as extras. They put up with me because they understood that if you wanted to make a good film, you had to slog.”
But after the film was released, “They were astonished that someone who had grown up among them had actually made a film about them. Many people are still in disbelief when they speak to me. They tell me that they thought I was just another little boy who dreamed of working in cinema. They are a bit taken aback now,” Selvaraj notes.
Pariyerum Perumal was remade in Kannada as Karki (2024) and in Hindi as Dhadak 2 (2025).