Tamil Film Portraying Prabha’s Son As A Hero Creates Controversy

A Tamil film Pulipaarvai, believed to portray slain LTTE leader V Prabhakaran’s son Balachandran as a hero handling weapons with ease has met with stiff resistance from supporters of the Tigers.

The film’s trailer shows Balachandran in LTTE uniform with a pistol in hand, receiving combat training.

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Pro-Tamil outfits say it could be an attempt to depict the child as a heroic fighter, amidst the heat of war and the child character depicted as a heroic individual will certainly get subjected to controversy.   

The Tamil Diaspora has condemned the movie through social media and through their website saying that the plot of the movie is offensive.

“Showing Balachandran as an LTTE fighter would only lend credibility to the Lankan government’s defence that Balachandran was killed since he was an armed fighter of the LTTE, they argue”, they said.

The trailer also has scenes which show Balachandran in LTTE fatigue when surrounded by the military which too is factually incorrect, assert the Tamil outfits.

The director should understand the seriousness of the issue that he is dealing with and avoid deviations from reality, even for the purpose of glorifying or adding superhuman qualities which were not possessed by Balachandran, another critic said.

Clarifying about the trailer, director Pravin Gandhi said “the scenes under question are part of a song at the end of the movie, after Balachandran’s death. The narrative of the film does not show the child as an LTTE fighter. There are no scenes showing him as receiving training and holding arms within the sequence of the film. The song with ‘imaginary visuals’ has been added at the end of the movie to bring out the child’s courage. He was not afraid or weeping before he was shot and this brave face of his character has been picturised in the song”. (With inputs from The New Indian Express)