Venice 2024 (Settimana Internazionale della Critica): Little Jaffna | Review
Flamboyance and elegance shatter the screen as the closing film of the 2024 Settimana Internazionale della Critica in Lawrence Valin’s feature debut action film, drizzled with a tribute to motherland.
There is a district in Paris in the tenth arrondissement between the metros Gare du Nord and La Chapelle that has a different vibe from its regular, French-cultured territories. The smell of fresh flower garlands, incense sticks, and vibrant-colored fabrics hanging over shops with tailor-made traditional Indian garments permeates the area. It’s also called Little Jaffna, primarily filled with Sri Lankan communities that have preserved their traditions along the streets. Director and actor Lawrence Valin pins it to the spot and delivers a film that speaks about the harmonious colors and the dedicated atmosphere, along with the painful stains and bruises that are hidden from our sight.
The film spotlights Michael (Lawrence Valin), a young man from the Sri Lankan community, who is seen meandering through Little Jaffna, trying to assimilate into the infamous Killiz gang. The group’s leader is known as Aya (Vela Ramamoorthy), whose main objective is to help the Tamil community back in Sri Lanka through financial assistance and political support. Here’s the disclaimer: Sri Lankan natives have been fleeing their country since the onset of the Civil War, resulting in the deaths of thousands of people along the way. The Tamils went into exile and found asylum in multiple countries across the world, including France. Thus, the group is very much involved in money laundering as part of accomplishing Aya’s vision. However, Michael wants to be involved with them and enter their regime for a treacherous yet crucial reason—to infiltrate the whole movement as he’s a French policeman on an undercover mission.
Lawrence has consistently explored the concepts of gangsterism and authoritative structures in his filmography, a theme evident in his previous 2017 short film of the same name and the 2020 short The Loyal Man that won the Best Actor Award at the 2020 Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival. He usually zooms into the study of loyalty and how it affects the protagonist’s relationship with the rest, which leads to a tough decision. His directorial enthusiasm is contagious here as he gives the film a new lease on life by extending it with the core of South Indian cinema set in a French milieu. The film is taken to a new degree of modernism and flexibility by using Tamil and French as the main languages of communication among the characters, which adds an air of flamboyance. Considering the run-and-chase scenes, which incorporate a subtle touch of commercialism with Maxence Dussère’s exceptional score, the film feels deeply rooted in the culture, igniting a spark of Indian cinema that explodes with fury. Further, the Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino inspiration moves all over the screenplay, showing Lawrence’s respect and love for these auteurs.
Lawrence portrays, from an insider’s view, the inner conflict of a Sri Lankan-born French nationalist who must reconcile his ancestral values with the imperative to defend his country against a terrorist organization. Lawrence instills Michael with a dilemma, where he faces moral quandaries as he begins to grasp the organization’s vision and the gravity of his mission. However, the game changer that transforms the situation is Michael’s meticulous approach to gaining the trust of Aya and its members, including Puvi, Aya’s henchman, who admires Michael for his empathy and tolerance. I wouldn’t perceive it as a sly maneuver; rather, his genuine intention is to help these individuals while still pursuing his noble purpose. Michael is portrayed more like an observant sponge, absorbing every form of knowledge and comprehension that stimulates humanity within him. Popular South Indian actor Vela Ramamoorthy exudes the same commanding aura as actor Anthonythasan Jesuthasan (a frequent collaborator in Lawrence Valin’s previous films), particularly in the scene where Aya advises Michael to be more vigilant during a wedding ceremony along the spiral staircase. In this jaw-dropping segment, Vela Ramamoorthy’s performance gleams as he projects an engaging masculinity with his devious gaze and intimidations, assuming the role of a dictator and using it against Michael. Celebrated veteran actress Raadhika Sarathkumar, portraying Michael’s grandmother in a naturalistic manner, embodies a mediator and a silent pacifist, fully aware and confident in Lawrence’s mission and the process despite her personal knowledge of the Tamil separatist movement.
Little Jaffna is a contemporary portrait of individuals searching for an identity and a call for justice. While Little Jaffna may not follow the cinematic path of Jacques Audiard’s Dheepan, it nevertheless elevates with panache and grace, offering us the opportunity to contemplate and reflect on the extreme lengths one would go to in order to reclaim their motherland. As Aya says, “Our land needs our prayers,” the sufferings beneath the phrase remain a call for cognizance. As for Michael Beaulieu, all he wants is to be appreciated as a citizen of his birth country, which delicately elevates the magnitude of patriotism.
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