MASTERPIECE DOCU. ON DREADED DACOIT VEERAPPAN
"There has never been a set of developments like this in the history of the modern world." "There never ever has been a man, a criminal, like Veerappan." With these proclamations of formidable foreboding, so opens the explosive documentary on dreaded dacoit Veerappan by director Selvamani Selvaraj, another visionary production by Netflix, featuring a spectacular cast of interviews with top police chiefs, a journalist with an impressive baritone voice anchoring this epic narrative, and a whole slew of insiders who spill the secrets on this rip-roaringly dark Indian chapter.
Director Selvaraj's thrilling four episode series fuses the best of documentary and cinema in a dazzling feat of true-life story-telling, requiring not one, not two, not three but all four writers - Forrest Borie, Apoorva Bakshi, Kimberley Hassett and the helmer himself. What is seared into consciousness is the blood-'n'-bombs saga of a legendary forest brigand who butchers elephants, cuts down and smuggles a whole forest's worth of precious sandalwood and mounts daringly barbaric attacks against the police whose STF (the custom-designed Special Task Force) rips apart people in their equally blood-thirsty pursuit of him.
You'll be hard pressed to find another documentary where every single interviewee is impressive in their riveting soundbites and unique personality - whether it's the assortment of villagers whose names are shown in marquee XL font, the phalanx of police officers each different and yet each offering their own slice of cutting insight into this forest nightmare, and Veerapan's wife Muthulakshmi and gang member Anburaj who humanize the monster.
You have the Milieu and the Music. The milieu, adroitly lensed by Udit Khurana, is the magnificently dense jungle straddling the state borders of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, often covered by painstakingly getting up before dawn for stunning mist-shrouded shots. The Music by Jhanu Chanthra, crackles, snarls and laments, in a razor-sharp value addition. Full Review @ Upnworld.
Director Selvaraj's thrilling four episode series fuses the best of documentary and cinema in a dazzling feat of true-life story-telling, requiring not one, not two, not three but all four writers - Forrest Borie, Apoorva Bakshi, Kimberley Hassett and the helmer himself. What is seared into consciousness is the blood-'n'-bombs saga of a legendary forest brigand who butchers elephants, cuts down and smuggles a whole forest's worth of precious sandalwood and mounts daringly barbaric attacks against the police whose STF (the custom-designed Special Task Force) rips apart people in their equally blood-thirsty pursuit of him.
You'll be hard pressed to find another documentary where every single interviewee is impressive in their riveting soundbites and unique personality - whether it's the assortment of villagers whose names are shown in marquee XL font, the phalanx of police officers each different and yet each offering their own slice of cutting insight into this forest nightmare, and Veerapan's wife Muthulakshmi and gang member Anburaj who humanize the monster.
You have the Milieu and the Music. The milieu, adroitly lensed by Udit Khurana, is the magnificently dense jungle straddling the state borders of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, often covered by painstakingly getting up before dawn for stunning mist-shrouded shots. The Music by Jhanu Chanthra, crackles, snarls and laments, in a razor-sharp value addition. Full Review @ Upnworld.
- uprashanthnayak
- Sep 30, 2023