FILMMAKING OVERTAKES STORYTELLING IN THIS MOSTLY EFFECTIVE PRISON DRAMA

We are often told that hell is for sinners and heaven is for the morally upright. In Sidharth Vishwanath's metaphorically rich Sorgavaasal, we are shown how the prison, which operates much like hell, is a place where sinners rule, and more often than not, the innocent are condemned to either rot or turn sinners themselves.

- PRASHANTH VALLAVAN

If not for anything, Sorgavaasal is exceptional in capturing the grimy, decadent life inside the walls of a prison.

There are a couple of moments where both a powerful gangster and the jailer, at various instances, talk about how the inmates dread looking them in the eyes and we understand exactly what they are talking about. We feel the dread of the powerless and the meek inside the walls. A character does not simply throw the line, "Hope is the most dangerous thing inside the prison." We get an elaborate demonstration of this statement when RJ Balaji's Parthiban is given just 5 minutes to visit his home.

At the end of it, when Parthiban is dragged back to the prison kicking and screaming, we feel how hope rots into cruel despair inside the desolate walls of a prison. Sorgavaasal has a number of such thematically charged isolated moments but the sum of the parts does not work as effectively.