Drishyam 2: Guilt, as a threat to self

Bhuvanesh Chandar

(Spoilers alert)

Drishyam 2 is the second half of a testament that states that “humans are selfish by nature”. While Drishyam explored the idea of a family, as a world, for which a man will go to any extent to protect, Drishyam 2 states that a man can be so self-centered – again the ‘self’ being his world – that anything beyond that world doesn’t matter, until it poses a threat.

In Drishyam, George’s guilt, which can be seen at the scene in the end with Geetha and Prabhakar, grounds him to that of a human and completes the film. In Drishyam 2, this guilt itself is the threat to self. Drishyam 2 is the inward journey of that guilt, which manifests itself on the outside, and even on the world that he cares so much about. Though the world of George has expanded, a little in breadth and a lot in depth, it still carries a burden in its veins. George’s growth as a movie theatre owner and as an aspiring movie producer is not fueled out of pure passion, but also of fear and insecurity that the guilt within him has created. When Prabhakar approaches him at this theatre with a request, as much as George empathises with him, Prabhakar is a human manifestation of guilt. Hence, though George knows the impracticality with helping Prabhakar, he also sees him as a living reminder of his guilt that he desperately tries to run away from. Hence the dialogue, “Please don’t come to meet me again. Don’t take us back to the memories that we are trying to forget.”

As much as the incident has shattered Geetha and Prabhakar, it has now left an unforgettable mark on George’s family as well. George’s awareness in being vigilant against threats has affected his relationship with the exterior world and the humans in it. In the course of preparing for the future, not only does George risk forfeiting his future in cinema, if that’s what he truly desires, he even goes on to establish friendships with Rajan, a security guard at Kottayam Medical College’s Forensic Medicine block, and Pathrose, a gravedigger. It’s not that George’s friendships with them are superficial, but they stem out of George’s insecurity with his world. It is not that he never has empathy for them, but again, when his world is posed against a threat, he doesn’t think twice before using these people.

It’s not just his relationship with the outer world, George’s vigilance even affects his relationship with Rani. With George shuttling between his theatre, Vinayachandran, and Rajan, he doesn’t spend enough time with Rani, or even pauses to understand how she feels. Perhaps, it is possible that all of that becomes a second life, or a second world, to George, who sees them as an escape from his own guilt. Perhaps, his own world is a remembrance of the trauma that he wants to escape from. George chooses to hide in his daily routine and alcohol, all the while comforting himself that he is doing all this to prepare for the future and protect his world.

In a way, the events of Drishyam 2 might be liberating for George, for now he has to hunt for another way to protect the self – in that hunt he aspires to escape the trauma. No matter how much he grows financially, George’s guilt will fuel this vigilance as his true purpose in life. To George, his guilt is the real threat to self. May cinema heal his soul.