Cold, brutal, and honest, Visaranai (2015) is a no-holds-barred film by Vetrimaaran. There are 'no coincidences' in this Kafkaesque story, inspired by a real event.

Everything, from the cloistered interrogation room where a privileged culprit is lodged, to the scene-crashing window air-conditioning unit, serves as a claustrophobic ode to the system.

The names, the taunts, the dollops of sympathy, the cinematic standoffs—everything in Visaranai is deliberate and intricate; and everyone in Visaranai is a pawn of the system.

One moment, a person is a hero, and in the next, they are fighting humiliation. The narrative is straight, piercing, and often willing to forego cinematic doubling-down for urgency.

This gripping documentary-style film opens with Pandi, a poor migrant Tamil labourer rushing to open the provision store where he is employed. Pandi and his two friends are in Andhra Pradesh, one of the neighbouring states of Tamil Nadu, and they don’t speak the local language yet.

They sleep in the public park, bribing the security guard because they cannot afford a rented room.

Pandi, the most good-looking among them, is not looking for trouble; in fact, the only trouble he has caused so far is developing romantic feelings for a Telugu-speaking housemaid who lives close to his shop.

On that fateful morning, Pandi is nabbed by a cop and taken to the local police station along with his friends. Pandi doesn’t know why they were arrested, but he soon realizes that they have been plunged into a Kafkaesque nightmare, and it is not easy to get out of it alive.

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