Thadavu (The Sentence) Memories of 28th International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK)

One may wonder much water has flowed under the bridge since 28^th IFFK (fourteen months to be precise), so why I am putting such an effort writing about it now? My answer would be “out of sheer excitement” because Thadavu will be in the theatres near you today and I wish that at least a few people reading this make a beeline for the ticket counter.

 

“Have you seen Majboor?” was the first question I asked Fazil Razak (the director) after the first screening (in hindsight I feel that I just wanted to flaunt my encyclopaedic knowledge of Amitabh Bachchan/Salim-Javed films in front of a new kid on the block), very well knowing that the poor fellow may not have even heard of it. But, the germ of the story in both the films is similar. I refrained from making any more comments and promised Fazil that I will be there for the second screening too as I am grappling with a few things and hope they will be cleared in the second viewing.

 

The young filmmaker shows uncanny audacity by placing a middle-aged woman at the centre of his story and she is flawed to hilt with very few redemptive qualities. We as an audience are conditioned to see women of certain age having motherly pieties. But here she is petulant and simmering like a volcano that can erupt anytime. And, she being an Anganwadi teacher amplifies her stress manifolds.

 

Beena R Chandran getting the Kerala State Best Actress Award for this role gives a sweet culmination to the effort. Again, she sharing this Award with Urvashi (for Ullozhukku) feels dichotomous (taking nothing away from the doyennes) as her film has lots of crowd-pleasing elements.

 

Now, coming to the director, he was first referred to me by a mutual North Indian friend who had followed Thadavu in couple of festivals before IFFK, he kept using his first name and the English title of the film. Seeing the confused expression on my face he asked “haven’t you heard of him?” I said “please give me real title of his film”. Now it was his turn to be confused; he consulted his partner and few other people surrounding him and came out with “Thaaa-Daaa-Vooo” at that moment my speech went away and I feared that I’ll remain speech-impaired for the rest of my life but somehow, I conveyed to him that I’ve grown up watching Fazil’s movies but never have come across such a title in his filmography. I don’t remember how the clouds of confusion between us were dispersed in the end. But today the mention of multiple-award winning director Fazil who made Thadavu won’t create such a confusion as the youngster has carved out a space for himself in the annals of Malayalam films.

 

So, please throng the theatres playing Thadavu so as not to miss the birth of an acclaimed filmmaker of the future.  

Athiru, one of the short film directed by Fazil Razak...

 

 Here is why I remember Majboor so vividly.

Kayo Kayo Colour by Shahrukhkhan Chavada - getting to the crux of matter

The Indian Film Industry is going through tumultuous times as of now; at the one end we are basking in the glory of Oscars for our song and dance routine that we assumed was the cause of ridicule amongst the western audience, and at the other end we have the highest grossing film that survived the threat of ban from the right wing groups on flimsy reasons as the colour of bikini worn by the leading lady. But, the real reason for the commotion was to cut the Muslim superstar around whom the movie was mounted to size.

In India our output of films goes into thousands per annum and the number of films that fly below the media radar is huge.

Kayo Kayo Colour? (Which Colour?), a Hindi - Gujarati film shot in Kalupur, Ahmedabad, in guerilla style with a lavish crew of two members and a humble Sony 7 S3 camera and a couple of camera phones for equipment. This film too was flying under the radar until the International Film Festival of Rotterdam happened. 

The film directed by 28 year old Shahrukhkhan Chavada tells the story of a lower middle class Muslim household staying in a predominantly Muslim Basti. The sole breadwinner of the family Razzak (Imtiyaz Shaikh), has left his daily wages job and wants to buy a second-hand autorickshaw to enhance his earnings. His wife Raziya (Samina Shaikh) is sceptical about the prospect as they don’t have savings to even survive for a few days.

 The young director seems to know the inner workings of a family leading an hand to mouth existence, where the man maybe considered the provider where the cash is concerned, but it is the lady of the house who is responsible for putting the food on the table no matter if the man has given her the resources for doing that or no.

 In a video chat after watching the film and noting the behind the scenes details from the director, you can’t hold back your curiosity any further and you ask him about the peculiarity of his name. Did he change it because he wishes to be ‘the King…’? “No, no I’ve no such ambition”, says the director whose shoulder length hair is tied in a ponytail with the help of an elastic band and a well trimmed beard giving him uncanny resemblance to Pathan. It was his mother and Mama (maternal uncle), who’d selected this name for him. “In 1995, the year of my birth SRK was a Chadta Suraj (rising sun), they were his ardent fans. So, that is the only explanation I can give''. At this point his partner Wafa Refai butts into the conversation “I even suggested to change his name before making this film public otherwise Google will be confused about which Shahrukh people are asking for, the superstar or the Ahmedabadi director. But, obviously my advice fell on deaf ears”.

 As for the subject of the film, it evolved in slow simmer for the director who is formally trained in Animation and VFX. “I was toying with the idea of making a short film using one of the threads that became a part of this film”, says the young director who used to freelance his expertise in filmmaking to other directors in VFX, animation and even as a cameraman. “Then CAA - NRC happened. That was a kind of political awakening for me. I began to understand how the decisions taken by our political masters impact common people and things like fascism and all that. This was followed by the lockdown, which gave me an opportunity to see Internati  onal Cinema, especially Iranian and European films. The simplicity of their storytelling and tackling intense subjects without going overboard. I also went through a few open source filmmaking courses online”.

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I'd written this in the first quarter of 2023 with a hope that it would be published in some news portal, but stopped midway as I thought it was meandering and lacking focus. Actually, I felt that thing I wanted to say about it wasn’t coming out the way I wanted. So, what happened now to post a write up that is almost a year old? The simple answer is that that I have found a video easily does the thing I strove and failed to do, it puts the film into contemporary context. It is created by the Nous Network.

And, here is a sensitive review of the film by my friend Aswathy Gopalakrishnan.

Viral Sebi - Not A Review

We rarely see Road Movies, where real-time long distance travelling is shown unravelling a story with the characters placed in the confines of a moving vehicle.

 

This is what Viral Sebi directed by Vidhu Vincent is all about. Brilliantly written by Sajitha Madathil and my friend Anand Haridas (we both started our journalistic career at the same time more than two decades back), this film uses ‘a day in the life of a cabbie’ form of narration to tackle a subject that is very topical and pertinent to be discussed in depth.

 

Sudeep Koshy plays the title role of Sebi aka Sebastian, the cabbie or the taxi driver. Apart from being in a hectic profession, he is an avid vlogger (Sudeep is a vlogger in real life too, here it is) with a liking for Rafi songs and the narcissistic urge of modern human beings to share on social media, every incident happening to them or the experience they have (for example my friend Manu Remakant, I’m sure he can come out with a decent book every six months with the content he shares on FB).

 

First half of the film is dedicated to the mundane to extraordinary things that can happen in a driver’s life starting from a violent students’ protest, where he has to take a detour because a student is seriously injured and needs to be taken to hospital, which makes him late for the airport pickup. There are other passengers getting in and out of the car, some with idiosyncrasies and of peculiar nature. A corporate honcho with perpetual petulance, a film star, a couple from the academic background, who we soon realise are having an extra-marital affair etc. The think tank behind this movie uses these cameos to add layers to Sebi’s character. So, when we reach the crux of the story we are comfortable with him.

 

I didn’t know much about Sudeep before watching this film; I thought he is an actor with theatre background and got Bhikhu Mhatre (Manoj Bajpayee in Satya) kind of entry into the film industry. He was with an unkempt beard and used street lingo peppered with cuss words. But, seeing his YouTube channel left me in utter shock; here he is suave and urban talking about luxury cars dropping automotive jargon at will.

 I’d asked Anand if he was inducted in the team to get the street lingo and the cuss words right... I better keep his reply to myself.

Now coming back to the crux of the story; Sebi gets a trip to Bengaluru with a foreign lady as the passenger. She has to reach the destination at the earliest to catch a flight. At first their relationship is confrontational; she is very anxious and angry. As we move forward we get to know that she is a Palestinian refugee in Jordan Afra (Meera Hamed). She is here on scholarship pursuing her post graduation in English. She too gets embroiled in the agitation and one of her friends is arrested. She is on the run because if she is arrested she will be deported and will not be allowed to return and complete her education.

It is here that we begin to see how topically relevant and universal this film is. The first thing that came to mind was of the story of the Afghani students in North India, they weren’t sure if they were lucky or unlucky to be far away from their homeland when the US troops left it overnight in the hands of Taliban. The other thing that struck me is the fact that it is a warning for fence-sitters like Sebi (he considers the students protest as a nuisance as it disrupts his effort to earn his daily bread) that he may suffer the same fate in the near future by remaining passive when there is an upheaval around.

You can watch Viral Sebi here.

Wonder Women & Zachariayude Garbhinikal

I had posted this a few days back after watching Wonder Women, Anjali Menon's very short opus (just around 80 mins long) about prenatal care, pep talk for expectant mothers who go through a lot of physical and mental discomfort during the nine months of pregnancy or to put it more esoterically in the process of bringing a new life into this world and everything imaginable in between.

This is not a review of the film. I will just say that this film is utterly disappointing as to say in cricketing parlance; a batter gets a Free Hit but she just blocks the delivery. Same way, Anjali squanders the opportunity of having a stellar cast and a subject with a depth that could be dwelled up on for many seasons as a web series.

Here is a full-blooded review of Wonder Women by Aswathy Gopalakrishnan that fluently echoes my thoughts about the film.

And, watch Zachariayude Garbhinikal online here for free.

Given below is my nearly a decade old review of this excavated from an old hard drive (haven't corrected the typos and other errors).

Zachariayude Garbhinikal

Paresh C Palicha

Pregnancy is the flavour of the season in Malayalam Cinema, as it has released two films related to pregnancy in the gap of few weeks. First, there was Kalimannu, the much hyped film featuring a pregnant Swetha Menon, now there is Zachariayude Garbhinikal a film by Aneesh Anwar telling the story of a gynaecologist named Zacharia and most of them are complicated.

There are five of them that he is dealing with now. One of them is a middle age woman and and a former nun played by Geetha, who after getting out of the seminary wishes to be a mother so she gets impregnated medically by our doctor. Sister Jasmine Jennifer (Geetha) gets lot of attention from the media for her decision.

Then there is Anuradha (Sandra Thomas) who has got pregnant in an extramarital affair. Her husband played by Joy Matthew is on the deathbed after a car accident. So, Anuradha is undecided whether to terminate the pregnancy or to keep it as it will be something to live for after her husband's death.

Saira (Sanusha) is a bold teenager who comes to Dr. Zacharia pregnant and wants his help to deliver the baby safely and give it for adoption. But, on the condition that she will not reveal the identity of the person responsible for her condition.

Fathima (Rima Kallingal), who works as a nurse in Dr. Zacharia's hospital fakes pregnancy to win the sympathy of her employer who is otherwise very harsh on indisciplined employees.

With the plot laid out like this with Indrajith's voice-over. He also informs us that the typical irony of fate that Dr. Zacharia is still childless in spite of being happily married to Susan (Asha Sharreth) for a long time. And, as we expect the couple decide to adopt Saira's baby on delivery.

Sister Jasmine is the first to deliver and it is in the most dramatic way, she herself drives the car to the hospital at the height of labour pain as one of her brothers refuses to help her.

As we move ahead in the story we see Saira being taken care by the future parents of her baby. We see her change from a rebellious youngster to a responsible expectant mother.

Zacharia is a person with morals, with 'no abortion, no caesarian' values. He gives a lecture to Anuradha against abortion that too when she is carrying twins. But, his character do not go beyond this. One question lingers in our head much after the film is over as to why he did not opt for a medical solution for his childless life despite of being a gifted professional in this field. This is one of the most controlled and silent performance of Lal in his acting career.

The other characters who demand our attention are Saira done by Sanusha, where the young actress has to be switching gears swiftly from being jovial one moment to being angry or vulnerable in the next, which she does impressively well. Fathima is another one where Rima has to spread mirth using a peculiar slang that seems to be coming naturally to her. Aju Varghese playing Ajmal, a colleague of Fathima who is besotted by her is a surprise package. Here he does a role of a conventional hero, yet he leaves his humorous stamp on it.

These are the people who keep this uneven project afloat when it hits the rough whether a few times.

Zachariayude Garbhinikal is complicated in some places and overly simplified in others leaving the viewer confused by the end.

2 1⁄2 stars.