If it was the propaganda ‘corporate is a criminal’ in Kaththi, this time, in Sarkar, A R Murugadoss has come up with a version of Vijay who is a ‘Corporate-Criminal’ himself.
The teaser of this third collaboration of the actor-director duo, as expected, has stimulated Vijay fans and politicos of the State by touching upon incidents and controversies that happened in the recent past.
The one-and-a-half minute teaser, launched last evening, is packed with ‘fan-moments’ and ‘Murugadoss-elements’. It looks like a shorter version of Sarkar itself.
Leaving the commercial value moments like songs and action blocks alone, frames that stick out are ones that resemble real-life incidents like the self-immolation scenes of a family of four at the Tirunelveli collectorate after being harassed by a moneylender, in October 2017.
The original issue led to a lot of charges and criticism of the government, leading to the arrest of cartoonist-journalist Bala for defaming the Chief Minister, Tirunelveli Collector and the police department in one of his sketches.
The question among political observers now is what would be the reaction of those in power? “For a cartoon #EPS & #Tirunelveli collector arrested @cartoonistbala Let’s see what they do now!” tweeted a senior political journalist.
There is another frame where we see cops breaking a container to find stacks of Rs 2,000 currency notes in it. Remember, during the 2016 general elections of Tamilnadu, the ECI seized three containers at Tirupur district with Rs 570 crore? However, later it was claimed by SBI that it was transporting the money with RBI authorisation.
As shown in the Sarkar teaser, we can assume that Vijay, an Indian origin CEO of an MNC that acquires firms across the globe, step into India to cast his vote. But, to his shock, his vote is already cast. The teaser progresses in such a way that Vijay wants to put an end to this corrupt system as a ‘Corporate Criminal’ in just two days. As Murugadoss has already said in Kaththi, corporates can do whatever needs to be done in no time, which he establishes through Sarkar.
It is a well-known fact that Vijay personally has been politically active by participating in protests and meeting victims of various issues like the Thoothukudi police shootout and the family of NEET aspirant Anitha who killed herself.
At this juncture, his Sarkar, from its very suggestive name, is high on politics and is expected to be a roadshow of the actor’s political entry. Nevertheless, according to the teaser, there is not any evidence of Vijay directly joining politics, but backs an honest politician who is, maybe, Pazha Karuppiah.
Keerthi Suresh, too, gets a prominent place in the teaser as she seems to be working as an official in a polling booth. The gestures Vijay and Keerthi share at this sequence look like they have known each other for a long time. After this, Keerthi is seen coming out along with Vijay after he gets to know his vote has been cast illegally.
CHARACTER INSPIRATION
Apart from the storyline and the controversial frames, Sarkar teaser also has a lot of Easter eggs in the form of characterisation.
Starting from Vijay, who is an Indian-origin business tycoon living abroad, it looks like he is a Tamil, and CEO of an American company. Guess who? – Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai. Earlier, Murugadoss revealed that Vijay’s name in Sarkar would be ‘Sundar’.
However, it is not Vijay who has made jaws drop, but Varalaxmi Sarathkumar. In the teaser, she is dressed in a green saree with a tight knot on her head and a big round bindi on her forehead. Is that Jayalalithaa, ask a few on social media.
There are also assumptions by Vijay fans that the roles of Radha Ravi and Pazha Karuppiah could be resemblances to political leaders like O Panneerselvam and M K Stalin.
In a scene, Radha Ravi is seen assisting Varalaxmi and in another, he shoots a villainous look at Vijay, which is shot at the entrance of Sun TV office – maybe they are in for a political debate.