God's Own Cinema?

When I was growing up Malayalam cinema was something that inspired awe among cineastes from other parts of the country. Not just because we had an Adoor and an Aravindan, but because the standard of popular cinema was abnormally high and the Malayalam audience were quite discerning. The actors and technicians were slaves to their craft and mindless cinema didn’t quite exist. (There was also another Malayalam cinema that was the toast of teenagers with raging hormones across the country. But this is not about that!)

Then things changed. A breed of lazy, misogynist filmmakers decided that aging actors shouting bombastic one-liners and aping Rajni’s fight sequences was the new mantra to success. It lasted more years than it should have. I moved away almost completely from Malayalam cinema. My rare visits to the home town would always include a visit to DVD shops, but that was to check if any new CDs had come out, of cinema created by MT and Padmarajan.

Recently, however, the youth are striking back. Bless them! There is a tsunami of young fearless filmmakers all out to tell their stories in their own way.  They favour a realistic style as opposed to the theatrical. They are eager to try new faces and they want actors and not stars. A decade later people will start talking about this as the Malayalam New Wave.  I was aware of this, but too immersed in the Golden Age of Television. My loss, as I am discovering.

With a New Year and a resolution I am quite hell-bent on keeping, I asked a filmmaker friend for a list, got most of them and started watching one a day. Here’s my first set.


Anuragha Karikkin Vellam (Director: Khalid Rahman)

There are two love stories in Vellam. The first is that of Abhi (Asif Ali) and Eli (Rajisha Vijayan). The two are already a couple when the movie starts and gradually you see a falling-out-of-love story. The other is that of Raghu (Biju Menon) and his Suma (Asha Sharath). The two have been married for many years and have a ho hum existence, barely acknowledging each other. And their falling-back-into-love story is one of the most mature portrayals of adult love I have seen in a long time, despite (or, maybe, because of) director Khalid not spending too much screen time on them.

Abhi is a struggling architect who works with a white boss (Tom Alter in a Laurie Baker homage) designing low-cost housing for the poor. He dreams of moving to the big league, but this is life and not movies. He has a long-time girlfriend Eli who he feels is too clingy but he can’t summon the nerve to break up with her. His dad, Raghu, is a grumpy cop who has his heart in the right place. 

One day Raghu catches a glimpse of Anuradha (his former flame). He tries to get in touch with her. In the thinnest of cinematic conceits Raghu calls up a phone belonging to Eli and she pretends to be Anuradha. Now the scene is set for a hot extramarital affair. Except that Khalid has no intention of going down that road. Raghu’s telephonic conversations make him alive. Egged on by Nandini aka Eli’s suggestion he shares details of these conversations with his wife and their relationship slowly sparks again. Meanwhile, Abhi and Eli are on their way out.

This might be Biju Menon’s most nuanced performance. Though enacting the role of a hothead, the restraint he shows in the other scenes is remarkable. This might be as good a time as any for name-dropping! During my childhood I have played cricket quite a few times with Biju Menon. We used to make fun of his blink-and-you-miss scenes in TV serials, but now he has become irreplaceable in Malayalam movies. 

Asha Sharath has a brief and thankless role, but she executes it perfectly. Asif Ali has a meaty role, but is not able to shake off the feeling that it is just a prop for the Biju Menon show. Debutante Rajisha Vijayan is a real find. It is going to take a series of unfortunate events to prevent her from being much sought-after in the near future.

Writer Naveen Bhaskar and director Khalid intersperse the dramatic elements with dollops of clean comedy. The movie passes by at a fair clip while keeping the viewer really hooked. Without resorting to gimmicks they slowly subvert expectations. So slowly, in fact, that you realize how many unexpected turns the movie took only later. The producer roll-call includes Santhosh Sivan and Prithviraj, showing that despite being a debutante Khalid Rahman was able to impress veterans with his story.


Kismath (Director: Shanavas K Bavutty)

How far will you go for love? What obstacles will you overcome? And at the end do you know what fate has in store for you?

Based on a real story, Kismath follows 23-year-old Irfan (Shine Nigam) and 28-year-old Anitha (Sruthi Menon) as they try to get police protection from their relatives who are, naturally, opposed to their union.  Irfan, an Engineering student who spends his time customising superbikes, is from a well-to-do Muslim family, while Anitha is a research scholar who comes from a poor Hindu background. 

Most of the action happens over the course of a few hours in the police station in the town of Ponnani. There are a few flashbacks and flash-forwards, but the heart of the movie is in the cop-house. While awaiting their turn to meet the Sub-Inspector (a very solid Vinay Fortt, moving away from being the poor man’s Jayasuriya) the couple see the life happening in a police station, including a motor accident involving an Assamese (Mollywood recognised its minorities much before Hollywood!) a corruption case involving a senior cop and a chair that needed repairing! 

Kismath’s USP is its stark realism. While many such movies tend to move towards art-film category, debutant director Bhavakutty ensures this is not the case here by cutting across sequences rapidly. The most intensive action that happens may be two people shouting, but still he is able to keep the movie constantly in motion. The cinematography by Suresh Rajan is a revelation. 

The acting is uniformly excellent. Shine Nigam may not have typical leading man’s presence, but he is born to this role. He does not speak much here, but his face takes us through all the emotions a vulnerable young man who finds himself at the crossroads of his life. Sruthi Menon is an able foil. She subtly portrays a woman who is in a relationship with a much younger boy and, at times, need to take the lead.  There are very few familiar faces and this brings an intimacy to the film. 

The only grouse I have is a sort of post-script after the first end credit appears. It serves no other purpose, other than to, maybe, convince us that this was based on a true story and this is what happened afterwards. It detracts from a very satisfying conclusion and rubs off some of the sheen of an excellent movie. 


Ann Mariya Kalippilanu (Director: Midhun Manuel Thomas)

When was the last time you saw a children’s movie that appealed to adult sensibilities? One that left you smiling and not cringing? If you can’t recall, I suggest you go check out Ann Mariya. 

Ann Mariya (the extremely expressive Sara Arjun) is the offspring of two doctors Roy (Saiju Kurup) and Treesa (Leona Lishoy). Roy is working with the Red Cross in Syria, while Treesa brings up Ann alone. Ann is a budding athlete who wants to excel in long jump. 

One day Ann overhears a conversation between David, the Physical Education teacher, and her English teacher. Though too young to understand all that was said, the spunky girl went and told this to the principal. David found out who was responsible and disqualified Ann in long jump. Hell hath seen no fury like a schoolgirl scorned. And what do you do when you are angry with someone? Hire a goonda to beat them up. Enter lazy no-gooder Poombatta Gireesh (Sunny Wayne) and his sidekick Ambrose (Aju Varghese). They take Ann’s payment – an iPhone 6 – and scram. Little did they know who they were dealing with.

Ann and Gireesh begin an unlikely friendship which leads to him turning over a new leaf and the two of them exacting their revenge on David. All’s well that ends well. There is also a small case of an angel, but I am no spoiler!

Ann Mariya succeeds by making us care for the characters, but doesn’t descend into sentimentality. The humour is fresh and lively and the scenes do blend into the next. Sara Arjun is the heart of the movie and it is extremely hard to believe that she is not the nice Malayali girl that Ann is. She and Sunny make for one of the unlikeliest screen pairs in recent times. John Kaippallil does a PG version of Keerikkadan Jose as David, the bad guy. Some of his scenes with the schoolgirls actually points towards a much darker role than what you expect from a kids’ movie. The scene-stealer is, however, veteran Siddique who is brilliant as Perumkudy Baby, a local businessman who plays a big part in Gireesh’s transformation.

The movie works on the assumption we buy into a mother allowing her young daughter to have a friendship with an adult male just because the maid says that he has become a good guy. But if we can believe kuttichathans exist then this is not an issue at all!


Kammattipaadam (Director: Rajeev Ravi)

Real estate. The one commodity that will grow in value and become rarer as time goes by. In Malayalam, ‘earth ’ and ‘blood’ seem to gel well in sentences. And not without reason. There is usually blood involved in getting earth, and not just the ‘blood and tears’ variety. More ‘blood being spilt’. Kammattipaadam tells a small part of the blood that went into making Kochi the place it is now. 

Krishnan’s family moves into Kammattipaadam village in the late 70s. He grows up with his friend Ganga. They both look up to Balan, Ganga’s elder brother, who is a small-time hoodlum. As time passes by, they become entwined in the criminal way of life that is around them. Krishnan is also enamoured with Anitha, Ganga’s cousin. They become enforcers for the real estate mafia.

In the present day, Krishnan (Dulquer Salman), who is working as a security guy in Mumbai, receives a call from Ganga (Vinayakan). A call that convinces him to journey back to Kammattipaadam. Between flashbacks and present day we see the story unfold.

There is a lot of caste politics in the movie, which I leave to the better informed to talk about. I am more concerned about the story, and it is riveting. There are no excuses offered for anyone’s actions and no attempts to whitewash the criminal past or glorify it. We are all slaves to our environment and that is what will define us. 

Vinayakan has been around for many years in bit roles. But, as Ganga, he goes all for broke. It will be the role he will be remembered for and one he is unlikely to get a chance to repeat. As the unread, uncouth, unthinking Ganga he makes us care for someone who does not deserve it. Manikandan shines as Balanchettan, whose actions and choices are what drive the story forward. 

There are excellent supporting performances from Alencier Ley Lopez and Suraj Venjarammoodu, including a rare serious cameo by the omnipresent Soubin Shahir, which initially seems unnecessary, but actually plays a big part in establishing the myth of Balanchettan.

Dulquer is fine. He happily plays foil to the more showy performances and actually convinces us in his 40-year-old avatar. But whatever he does, his looks prove his undoing. We cannot shake the feeling that he is a movie star. One who cannot be part of that milieu. When everyone looks the part, he alone strikes a false note.

We know with whom Rajeev Ravi’s heart lies, but he makes it a point not to add rose petals when the thorns need to stay out. By using flashback and treating the story primarily as a whodunit, he immerses us into unfamiliar surroundings. Kammattipaadam shows us a people who we, the privileged middle class, rather not know about. But they are there. And their story needs to be told.    

PS: If you buy the DVD, please do not read the synopsis at the back. It spoils the whole story by revealing everything including what happens in the last scenes. 


Guppy (Director: Johnpaul George)

In cricket you often hear – mostly about the New Zealand team – about the whole being greater than the sum of their parts. (Google tells me Aristotle said it first.) It stands for a team effort that proves to be much more than what each individual could achieve alone. Guppy made me think of the opposite – the whole being less than its parts.

Guppy stands for the small fish that is mostly seen in aquarium. In this movie Guppy (Chethan Jayalal) is also the main protagonist. He is a young boy from an impoverished home taking care of his invalid mother and making a living breeding guppy, which is in demand because it eats mosquito larvae. Into their small village comes an engineer, Thejas Varkey (Tovino Thomas), who is going to build a railway overbridge. The two start off on the wrong foot and things go south from there. 

There is a lot to praise about Guppy. The performances, for starters. Chethan is understatedly brilliant as Guppy. He brings a raw intensity into his entire performance, be it the loving scenes with his mother, the angry ones with the engineer, the laidback times with his friends or even waiting open-mouthed for the veiled Aamina (Nandana Varma). Tovino Thomas, the most desirable man in Kerala, according to a recent poll, is quite efficient. He makes the audience see-saw between the decent guy he is and also the antagonist he has to be. There is a strong supporting cast including the peerless Srinivasan, Sudheer Karamana, Rohini and Alencier Ley Lopez. 

The humour is very evident, but never seems forced. We feel like the we are in the vicinity over-hearing the conversation between friends, rather than watching a stand-up saying funny lines. The actors and their lines bring the sense of realism that is now becoming compulsory in Malayalam cinema. 

But one cannot shake of a feeling of being underwhelmed. We don’t quite buy into why the main characters are at loggerheads. The sub-story of Sreenivasan’s railway gate operator does not quite have the impact it should. And, while we are nitpicking, I don’t understand how a government engineer could choose his projects and also how long he goes travelling!

Thinking back, I realise there is a lot to be admired, a lot to like. But those are the individual things. As a whole, we expect much more.