Methagu II: Reclaiming Tamil Eelam History in the Film Industry
In the film industry, since 2009, there have been many narratives about Tamil Eelam and the Eelam Tamil’s freedom struggle. Most of them are anti-Tamil due to primarily India’s foreign policy. Since Tamil Nadu and Tamil Eelam are geographically, ethnically, and historically close, India used the Eelam Tamil struggle as a pressure tactic against Sri Lanka to limit the United States' influence. In addition, India didn’t want Tamils to be free from Sri Lanka’s genocide because they feared such action may cause Tamil Nadu to claim independence from India. The Methagu II film put it straight and tried to explain the complexity and the determination of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Due to the existing ban on LTTE in India, it became extremely difficult for Tamil films to talk about such topics. Methagu II tells the story of how the LTTE lived to the next generation. This low-budget film makes an impact on the Tamil film industry because it breaks all barriers and removes the fear of many film producers.
The term Methagu means ‘his excellency’, and it refers to the great Tamil leader Hon. Prabhakaran. Tamils didn’t see a leader with that determination of creating a State in the last thousand years of Tamil history. Before that, it was Cholas. The Tiger flag relates to both eras of history. The Chola empire ruled a vast area of South Asia. Methagu emerged as a leader for the Tamil population to defend themselves from Sri Lanka’s genocide against their land, Tamil Eelam. By comparison, Methagu had lots of obstacles including opposition from multiple modern powers, but still, he was able to create a military, navy, and airforce, and a complete government structure for Tamil Eelam.
A Series of films, Methagu-1, which covers the early age of leader Prabhakaran, was released a year ago, and Methagu-2, which covers the early history of LTTE and leader Prabhakaran emerge as the leader of LTTE with military capability. The history of Methagu II is approximately from 1976 to 1987.
Unlike Methagu-1, which had extremely hard censorships and many hurdles to get the movie distributed, Methagu-2 screened in over 70 theaters worldwide on August 20 - 21, 2022. This includes over 17 theaters in the USA. The film will also be released via online pay-per-view platforms later in August. Despite the film's success, it still faces restrictions in Tamil Nadu and Tamil Eelam. However, anti-Tamil films get promoted in both Tamil Nadu and Tamil Eelam by authorities such as the Indian government.
Tamil history goes back 5000 years or even more. The recent archeology evidence from Tamil Nadu proved that it is at least 2700 years old. Ponniyin Selvan (PS-1), a film describing the dynasty of the 10th-century Tamil empire Cholan comes to the screen at the end of this year. Even though the Tamil Nadu film industry is over a hundred years old, they have been struggling to make large budget history-based films. Finally, the Tamil Nadu film industry plan to release a film based on the Chola dynasty with a budget of 62 Million USD. By comparison, Methagu-1 & 2 have a combined budget lower than USD 400 thousand. Budget-wise, making a film about Methagu Prabhakaran, may need more than the PS-1 budget. Since the existence of hours of real footage and images, reenacting those scenes with accuracy is extremely difficult. However, the purpose of the LTTE ban by India in fact is to remove the real footage and replace it with fabricated movies. The Methagu-1 and Methagu-2 movies and the upcoming Methagu-3 will succeed in the task of displaying Tamil Eelam's true history instead of the story that the Indian authorities are rewriting.
Similar to Methagu-1, Methagu-2 also has technical limitations due to the budget. Trying to condense a decade of complex history into 2 hours also has its own challenges. With all these limitations, Methagu-2 brings the history of Methagu Prabhakan to the screen very nicely. The lead actor Gowri Shankar, playing leader Prabhakaran, does a great job. The conversation between Indian foreign ministry personnel, Tamil Nadu leader MGR and Indian Prime minister Indra Gandhi, displays the geo-political complexity and the determination of Methagu. Comparing the existing real footage, and the reenacted training camp, attacks on occupying military convey or police stations lack visual attraction due to the budget. The camera is very vivid in Methagu II compared to Methagu I. The dialogs were a bit long, but to tell the story, it was needed. Overall, Methagu-2 accomplished the task of breaking the barriers and telling the true story in the film medium. Combining Methagu 1 &2 and the upcoming PS-1, there will likely be a change in the way the film industry’s lens looks at the Tamil freedom struggle.
The Tamil diaspora needs to play an important role in supporting the Methagu film team so that they can continue to produce Methagu-III which will be technically more challenging than the previous two series. Since the Methagu series of movies showed that it is possible to work around the restrictions put in place by the Indian authorities, the rest of the Tamil film industry can now start to produce films that bring the 3 decades of Tamil Eelam history into a film. Similar to how Jews bring their historical movies every year, Tamil Diaspora also can support those efforts worldwide.
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