Lakshmikanthan Kolai Vazhakku: Dayal Padmanabhan's death-row drama

Lakshmikanthan Kolai Vazhakku, the new film from Dayal Padmanabhan, opens in cinemas worldwide on June 25, and it arrives wrapped in deliberate secrecy. Set in 1972 and based on real incidents, the film turns on a single night in the life of a prisoner on death row, who spends it revisiting his past, and it sits squarely on a hard question its makers keep circling: whether a person who has killed should themselves be put to death. Vetri leads, with the film produced by K.V. Shabarreesh under the 2M Cinemas and D Pictures banners. The team gathered in Chennai and, rather than say much, screened an exclusive visual synopsis and character introduction for the assembled media.

The title carries an unmistakable echo of one of old Madras’s most notorious criminal episodes, but the makers have set their story in 1972 and are holding its specifics back, with Dayal saying the details the team has intentionally concealed will only be revealed in a follow-up after the film is out. What he was willing to place on record is that this is his 22nd film and his third in Tamil, after the well-received Kondraal Paavam. A State award winner with a long body of work in Kannada, he thanked the writer Kavitha Bharathi for the screenplay and dialogue, admitting his own Tamil had gone rusty across his years in the other industry. Both Vetri and Rangaraj Pandey, he said, carry equal weight in the narrative, and Brigida Saga has a part close to the film’s heart. His producer and Rangaraj Pandey were absent, away shooting in Mauritius.

If one thread ran through every speech, it was Dayal’s planning. Cinematographer M.V. Paneerselvam said he had not encountered conviction of this kind since K. Balachander, praised a director who folds his cinematographer into the script stage rather than chasing ever-bigger scale, and called the film a visual treat. Subramaniam Siva put the same clarity in the company of Dhanush, joking that if Dayal were building a house he would probably have mapped a convenient route for the burglars too, and described a film that bridges commercial and offbeat cinema, shot to a plan that aimed at twenty days. Darbuka Siva, who scored it, said there was never a conversation about hook steps, trending formulas or viral hooks, only about what the script genuinely asked for.

The economics of the shoot told their own story. Aruvi Madhan, who directed Noodles, said the biggest surprise was being paid his fee in advance, before a frame was shot, and read it as the mark of a film planned properly enough to pay its way. Saravanan cut his own remuneration and gave the production an extra day for the climax because he felt tied to the material, and on the day the shoot wrapped, Rangaraj Pandey handed back two lakh rupees from his fee, reasoning that they had finished two days early. Aarav, who has worked with Dayal before, said he keeps asking the director why he does not cast bigger names, and keeps getting the same answer about staying with content.

The performances drew their own warmth. Vetri said he had wanted to work with Dayal ever since Kondraal Paavam and was glad the chance came. Brigida Saga described her very first scene, carrying her children and waiting for her on-screen husband, as the moment she connected with the memory of her grandmother, an emotional thread she said she carried through the whole film. Lizie Antony, who plays Soodamani, said the security of working with a director this prepared frees an actor from the usual doubt about whether the effort will show on screen. The ensemble runs deep, with Rangaraj Pandey, Maaran, Saravanan, Logan Kannan, Narmadha, Aruvi Madhan, Kanya Bharathy, Kavitha Bharathi and Subramaniam Siva among the names.

Behind the camera, alongside Paneerselvam and Darbuka Siva, Bhoopathy Vedhagiri handles the edit. After the speeches the cast and crew took questions from the press, and the room came back repeatedly to the visual synopsis it had just watched. Lakshmikanthan Kolai Vazhakku, and the argument it wants to start about the death penalty, reaches theatres on June 25, the same day as Andharan, another release its makers say is pulled from a real case.