‘Thangalaan’ Movie Ending Explained And Recap: Is Clement Dead Or Alive?

Pa. Ranjith has always been known for making caste-sensitive stories that question the status quo, especially from his home state of Tamil Nadu. Even though his last film Natchathiram Nagargiradhu did not grab as many eyeballs for its confusing narrative, his film before that, Sarpatta Parambarai, received critical and commercial acclaim. Pa. Ranjith is back with a historical drama starring Vikram and Parvathy, Thangalaan, which is a story of the men who were taken to Kolar Minefields to extract gold. Still, they face obstacles such as supernatural forces as they begin their work to extract the precious metal.

Spoilers Ahead

Who was Thangalaan?

Thangalaan was a hardworking father who, unlike others in his village, Veppur, owned a piece of land. His family consisted of him, his wife Gangamma, and their four children. Even though he owned land, Thangalaan spoke openly about the current landlords not being the real owners of the farmland, as they’d claimed it by snatching it away by the old kings many years ago. Thangalaan and the villagers were not treated equally, yet the women of his community hoped to live a lavish life by wearing sarees with blouses just like the zamindar’s wives. 

What was the story shared by Thangalaan with his children?

Thangalaan enjoyed retelling stories of his ancestors to his children. He retold the story of his great-grandfather Kadaiyaan, who was caught by the then king for extracting gold from the river. The Brahmin with the King noticed a large rock made of gold. Kaadaiyan claimed the King could not capture the land as it was protected by Aarthi, a fearful sorceress. The King and his men attempted to capture the land regardless, but to no avail, as Aarthi and her men threw every form of obstacle in their way, for eg; they attacked the King’s men by turning into snakes.

Kadaiyaan claimed he could defeat her but he asked for his ancestral land in return for capturing Aarthi. As his men got into a vicious battle with Aarthi and her men, Kadaiyaan eventually captured her with his might and skill. To his horror, the mound, which seemed to be made of gold, was turned into mud by Aarthi by using her powers. The Brahmins with the King decided to behead the statue of Lord Budhha, whom they referred to as a saint. The King’s entourage believed it to be a sorcerer, the reason behind Aarthi’s power and their inability to capture the land. An angry Aarthi let out a scream that killed everyone, even the King, but not Kadaiyaan. At the same time, Kadaiyaan killed her by slitting her abdomen open. As her blood gushed on the field, it turned the land into gold. 

Who ruined their crop?

As Thangalaan finished his story, in the middle of the night, his land was set on fire, presumably by the landlord and his hired men. Since he lost most of his crop to fire, he was unable to pay taxes to the landlord and was forced into bonded labor to repay the debt and taxes owed to the zamindar. This was the zamindar’s way of snatching the power Thangalaan had over the people of Veppur to put an end to his narrative of villagers as the landowners. 

Why did Thangalaan join Lord Clement?

Lord Clement, as shown in the beginning of the film, knew there were gold mines in the village of Kolar and the British needed to extract to fill their treasury with. He had learned from local kings about the area being unsafe for human occupation, as many people had disappeared. An adamant Lord Clement, along with his son and a devout Christian colleague, traveled to Veppur to get some men to locate the gold reserves, promising them food, shelter, and a percentage of the gold if any was found. 

Initially, the men and women of the village were not keen on taking up the job as they had heard about many supernatural occurrences in the area and deemed it to be surrounded by ghosts. Some men, along with Thangalaan and his son Asoka, decided to take the leap of faith and join Clement on his journey to seek gold. They hoped to be able to work and be treated with dignity, something Thangalaan assumed he would receive from the Britishers. 

What happened after crossing the forest?

Around eight people set off on a journey to cross the forest and move towards the gold reserves. Thangalaan began to hallucinate, as he started seeing sights of Aarthi everywhere around him, which led to several disruptions on their way to their final destination. Thangalaan almost drowned, but he was saved in time. On reaching a large savannah, the group found a water body in which Asoka found the head from the saint’s statue of Thangalaan’s story he had heard. His father helped him get the head out of the water, and in that process, he again had visions of Aarthi confronting him, from which Thangalaan had to be rescued again. The group kept digging on that land in search of gold but found nothing. The men from Thangalaan’s community had become restless as they felt there was something eerie and odd about the place. The devout Christian Britisher began to talk about the presence of evil around them. He started to blame Thangalaan for being a bad omen and referred to him as a demon. 

Did they meet Aarthi after crossing the Elephant Hills?

After having met many obstacles, including a panther that almost killed Lord Clement, the group finally crosses the Elephant Hills, the massive rock structure mentioned in Thangalaan’s story. This indicates that his story described real incidents that may have taken place in real time many years ago. Asoka was also obsessed with finding the body of the statue to attach the bust he had found.

Thangalaan and the group finally found the body of the statue behind Elephant Hills and attached the head to it. They also found the gold reserve, which was around the body of the statue. Soon they were attacked by the same Nagar community to which Aarthi belonged, using guerilla tactics. Thangalaan again had visions of the past that messed with his ability to fight. 

A bloody fight between Thangalaan’s group and the Nagar community led to the death of Clement’s son. Thangalaan eventually shoots the female leader of the group with the gun. However, his visions from the past kept coming back, which involved Aarthi confronting him just like she did to his grandfather. With the Nagar community having retreated with their injured leader, Clement was in misery, having lost his son. He offered Thangalaan to be the leader of the group and gave him proper pants and shirts along with a gun to make him look like one of the Britishers. They had found sight of the gold reserve, and Thangalaan was given the job of bringing people to work at the reserve to retrieve gold. 

Did Thangalaan free his family from bonded labor?

Thangalaan reached Veppur village in the clothes given by Clement, and the whole village was happy to see him in a new get-up, except for the zamindar and his henchmen. As per the contract, he got his family off the bonded labor contract by giving back the money he owed as taxes to the zamindar. He had to do this while pointing a gun at everyone, including the zamindar, so that they didn’t pull off a mischief to keep the family indebted to them forever. 

What was his plan for his villagers?

Just like Thangalaan got his land back from the zamindar, he convinced the villagers to take up work at the gold mine based on the experience he had working with Clement. Since he was offered money, food, shelter, and respect for the time spent working on the reserve, he convinced his villagers to live off the money they earned instead of wasting their lives in the village, where they would never be treated with respect or dignity. The villagers were not convinced initially, but the transformation that Thangalaan went through and the confidence with which he spoke about Clement made them decide to make a move toward the gold reserve to live the rest of their lives with dignity and make money off the work they do.

Thangalaan also gifted his wife many saree blouses, which was a huge deal for the women of that community, who used to wear nothing beneath the saree they draped. The blouse was a symbol of power, as Gangamma and other women had only seen the zamindar’s wife and other upper-caste women wear one. To be able to cover their body was not a right they were granted. Since Thangalaan had money, he now had the means to give anything to his wife that she desired. This was the classic power struggle between the two castes, and Thangalaan believed he could raise his people above the zamindars and other upper castes by offering them jobs that paid for the work they did instead of them having to resort to bonded labor. 

Were the villagers treated as slaves in the gold mine?

The zamindar was horrified to find the villagers leaving Veppur to head to the gold reserve for work. They could not stop them, as Thangalaan had the decree of the British Government stamped by Clement to bring people to work in the gold mine. On reaching Kolar, Thangalaan learned of a tragedy that had struck them and the Nagar community protecting the reserve. Clement had attacked the community and kidnapped one of the elderly gentlemen, who had been screaming ever since he was taken captive. Asoka, Thangalaan’s son, was disturbed by the sound of the scream. In a state of possession, he attacked one of Clement’s men, which led to his injury and captivity.

Clement made it back in time to resolve the matter, and Asoka was freed shortly thereafter. He offered the villagers a life of dignity, as he planned to share the profits of the gold that was found. Since he made the speech in English, the well-read Brahmin man, who was disgusted at the sight of Thangalaan wearing English clothes, translated Clement’s words to make it look like the people were here to work as slaves with little to nothing to be expected. Thangalaan cut him off and translated the exact words of Clement, indicating that he was smart enough to pick up English quickly, and that the Brahmin man cannot fool him or his people anymore. 

What were the obstacles at the site of the mine?

At sight of the gold mine, Thangalaan kept seeing visions of Aarthi all the time, which began to affect his relationship with his wife. As the mining continued, just like in Thangalaan’s story, many snakes showed up around the gold mine. Even though the villagers could kill most of them, Thangalaan and his wife could not save their daughter from a snake bite. This mayhem was caused by Aarthi, and only Thangalaan could see her. As the mining was leading them nowhere, the villagers could find every kind of metal except for gold. There was a shortage of food as well, which led to Thangalaan killing a bull, which was Aarthi’s ride, and the villagers ended up eating the meat of it. 

How did they find gold?

Clement was found injured by Thangalaan after the man lost hope in his mission to find gold. Thangalaan had a vision of Aarthi standing on a large stone. This made him conclude that stone was the one that would lead them to the gold mine. Him and the villagers surrounded it with sticks to set it on fire with the hope of finding gold eventually. Thangalaan was as restless as Clement, because he wanted to fulfill the promise he had made to the villagers, who were relying on getting their hands on the gold for survival. The villagers and Thangalaan finally found a deep ditch as they kept digging. As they fell into the pit, along with Clement, they found the mine that was used by the Chola Kings and Tipu Sultan. All of them walked deeper into the mine and found gold in the form of a large stone. 

Did Lord Clement cheat all of them?

The villagers, one by one, tried to take their share away from the mine as promised by Lord Clement. To their horror, one couple was killed right in front of them by Clement, who showed his real face. He claimed the mine was his and the villagers would now work for him as per his orders, and that they were to give the gold back to him. Thangalaan was also horrified, as he did not intend to subject the villagers to slavery again. Clement, however, realized the stone they found in the pit was made of mud. Thangalaan was quick to deduce that Aarthi used her powers to change gold into mud. This was a deja vu moment for Thangalaan from the stories he had told of his great-grandfather. 

Clement was the old king from the story, while the Brahmin personality had not changed in both timelines. Thangalaan and his great-grandfather were trying to make sense of the turn of events unfolding. The only common factor was the priestess Aarthi, who had never stopped protecting her people, the land, and its resources. 

What was the history of Thangalaan and Aarthi?

As Thangalaan was fighting against Clement and his people, the Nagar community attacked again; this was followed by thunder, lightning, and rain. It was after coming face to face with Aarthi that Thangalaan had a flashback moment where he remembered the purpose of his life through the centuries. As the scene moved to the past, Aarthi and Aaran were married to each other. It was understood that Aaran was the Thangalaan’s ancestor who was given the power to protect the borders of the land that held the gold. It was Aarthi who was given the task of protecting the gold reserve. As the story goes, Aaran could not protect the borders and was defeated by the rival kings. In his subsequent births, he was born into oppressed communities who were forced to live a certain way as per the diktats laid down by kings and other people from the upper castes, which included Thangalaan’s great-grandfather Kadaiyaan in his story.

From the flashback, he learned that in every birth he was supposed to protect the borders, the people, and the land from outsiders. The whole idea was to make sure the upper caste men, women, and foreigners were not to take advantage of them and their resources. The land belonged to the people of Kolar alone, and not the oppressors. The whole idea behind this flashback was to remind people that Thangalaan and Aarthi’s communities had been exploited and oppressed for centuries. Since the gold was found on their land, the upper caste men would use any power in their search to get hold of it and continue forcing people of the caste beneath them to work on it without any compensation, stating the social norms do not allow them any reward for the work they do. They were born to do bonded labor, and everyone from their community across centuries and generations was destined to nothing greater. To break away from the cycle of oppression, the Nagar community refused to part with the gold reserves, which would uplift them and their people. They needed it to educate their children, while the oppressors wanted it to fill their coffers and become rich. 

Did Aarthi help Thangalaan find the gold?

Thangalaan, as he woke up, changed his allegiance as the visions of the past gave him a perspective of who was the villain and who was the hero. Aarthi was only protecting her people, and she was appearing as a vision to Thangalaan to remind him of his duty to protect the borders to push the invaders away. As the fight between Clement and Thangalaan began, the Britisher slashed open Aarthi’s belly as per the old story, in the hope her blood would turn the land into gold. This would be his way of getting his hands on the precious metal for the government treasury and eventually forcing the villagers into slavery to get every last drop of gold. 

Clement was the villain here, an incarnation of the king from the Thangalaan’s story. He’d never intended to share the profits with the Thangalaan and his people, because his job was to bring money to the British Government. hangalaan eventually took up the sword against his employer for cheating him and his community. He was done with the number of atrocities he and his community were put through, and of being taken advantage of. His confidence to take up arms came from revolting against the Zamindar and walking out on the village that did not serve him, his family, and the entire village. Thangalaan finally killed Clement, and this time his village was saved by Aarthi as he finally came to terms with his destiny. With Clement dead, Thangalaan was given access to the pit they had fallen into a while back to get the gold. This time there was no magic done by Aarthi as Thangalaan finally got to touch the real gold beneath the ground. As he came up covered in gold, he realized the precious metal was meant only for him and his community. They needed it more than anybody else. Aarthi was content to watch Thangalaan coming to his senses about his power.

The movie ended with Thangalaan being acknowledged by his family and the village for saving them from doom. A while later, as the British troops arrived to gain access to the mine, the villagers stood up against them and revolted to stop them from taking over the mine. It indicates the villagers planned to use the gold for their upliftment and refused to share any part of it with oppressors anymore. They refused to accept defeat, and they would fight for their land till the end.