From the get-go, Bala was a phenomenon in Tamil Nadu cinema: starting with his debut Sethu (1999), he developed a world and aesthetic immediately recognizable as his and his alone. Bala’s films tell stories about men on the brink – often that between sanity and madness. With I Am God, he unleashed his perhaps most mesmerizing creation: Rudran, born (according to his superstitious father) under an evil star and therefore abandoned by him when he was still a child.
Rudran became an Aghori: an ascetic who spends his life close to death – which is why people fear him and his kind; there’s something mad about him, something wild, something decidedly larger than life. And he will need all these qualities (bordering on curses) when he comes face-to-face with Thandavan, the ruthless ruler of a band of handicapped beggars. Seeing is believing. And you haven’t seen anything like this before.
Also see Vagabond.
Film details
- Country of production
- India
- Year
- 2009
- Festival edition
- IFFR 2018
- Length
- 125'
- Medium/Format
- Betacam Digi
