Virumaandi

“An ode to humanity”

In Madras Central Prison, the advocate Dr. Angela Kaathamuthu (Rohini) arrives to interview inmates for a documentary on the death penalty. Two of them, Virumaandi Thevar (Kamal Haasan) and Kothaala Thevar (Pasupathy), are held over the killing of 24 people in a clash between feuding villages. Kamal Haasan lets each man tell it his own way while Angela listens, and the two accounts sit on the table between them like two statements that cannot both be true.