After watching Malayalam director Anuraj Manohar’s incendiary meditation on the law of the land, the land of the law, and the monstrous injustices therein, I was once again left wondering why Kerala remains the only place in India where original important films are being made. In comparison, Hindi cinema, in one word, sucks.

Narivetta is not a perfect film, far from it. The storytelling about landless tribals in Kerala locked in a savage standoff with the cops brims over with a righteous indignation against the injustices meted out to the disempowered. That the remarkable film is based on a true-life incident in 2003, where police fired and killed Adivasis in the Muthanga village of Wayanad district, Kerala, exacerbates our feeling of unease. That the film is set in the past is no comfort.

We read and hear of police brutality all the time. But what we see in Narivetta is so stark, vivid and brutal that we are left wondering, not for the first time: is there any justice for the disempowered?

Narivetta asks this question with asphyxiating rectitude; as though this wake-up call is of more consequence than anything our conscience might have experienced in the past. The tribals are shown as simple, passionate, emotional and honest. The cops are sneering embodiments of brutality. Specially so is DIG Raghuram Keshavadas (Cheran, remarkably convincing in his barbarity), who issues extra-constitutional orders to crush the (noble) tribals like a mobster in Khakee (which he is).

Of course, there are the good cops. Our hero Varghese (Tovino Thomas in a tailor-made rise-to-righteousness role to kill for) takes his time to get there. His initial days of carefree abundance in his quaint village, when he is shown shamelessly sponging on his girlfriend Nancy (Priyamvada Krishnan) while his harried mother (Rini Udayakumar) toils away on the sewing machine, seems like a bit of a conscious buildup to the conscience.

I am not too sure that Varghese, who a while ago was kicking a dog, could actually rustle up so much guts and integrity. Having gotten over these screenplay hurdles, I found myself buying unconditionally into the film’s ferocious philosophy: the only remedy to societal justice is the weapon.

Admirably, writer Abin Joseph and director Anuraj Manohar favour the thriller format without reducing the tragedy of inequality to a formula. The stark savagery of the police force is captured in furious depictions of mob violence. Women and children are not spared. The camera (Vijay) looks on with a detachment that is the opposite of indifference.

This is a film that is not willing to shrug off its responsibilities. It takes a long hard look at the politics of sectarian violence, not willing to let the lawmakers off the hook. Narivetta is an important treatise of our times, spotlighting the violence that underlines the pillars of a civil society. The characters played by Tovino Thomas, Suraj Venjaramoodu (as a kind constable), Pranav Teophine (as an intrepid tribal), Cheran and Arya Salim (based on a real-life activist) are so cogently written, only the most incompetent actors would ruin them. Which these actors are not.