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Release
date:
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Kerala: January 12, 2018
Delhi: February 2, 2018
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Director:
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Dijo Jose Antony
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Cast:
Language:
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Saniya Iyappan,
Eldho Mathew, Dhruvan, Vijayaraghavan, Salim Kumar, Sreejith Ravi, Leona Lishoy
Malayalam
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This is not a review, this is a
protest against whoever allowed this kindergarten-grade project to come to
mainstream movie halls.
On most days, I would not have
bothered to write about a non-descript film of such abysmal quality. Queen, however, must be discussed
because its arrival is a symptom of what continues to ail India’s distribution
and exhibition sectors where so many good films – including some that have
earned awards and critical acclaim at festivals – struggle to get a theatrical
release for various reasons including, either that they are not big-banner,
star-dominated ventures, or their producers do not have the clout or conviction
to persuade theatre owners to give them shows.
I had read about this Malayalam
film before I watched it this weekend. The Times of India, in a report dated January 31, 2017, thought it fit to
devote a whole article to Queen
although it has no particular credentials to recommend it for such space. This
was even before the casting, a time when indies by unknowns never get written
about in the serious film press because critics are, rightly, waiting for the
film to speak for itself. Yet TOI
helpfully informed readers an entire year before Queen was out that it “is inspired from a real-life photograph
which was floating around the internet once, of a girl in a sari walking the
street before an entire group of her boy classmates. The director, Dijo Jose
Antony, says that he himself is an engineer and he visited the college in the
photo to learn more about their lives.” (sic)
What inspired The Times to expend so many words on Queen? Had they read the script and been
convinced of its potential? If yes, could they tell us who on their staff
displayed such godawful lack of discernment in not dismissing the script as the
worthless potpourri it was/is. The nation – to borrow a line from one of this
media group’s most famous ex-employees – wants to know.
A day after the TOI report appeared, there came one in The New Indian Express (TNIE) dated February 1, 2017, with more
details of the project. TNIE went so
far as to call Queen “a fun-filled
college movie” although it was, as mentioned in the same sentence, yet to be
made.
Now that I have seen Queen, I can assure you it is no fun at
all. The story begins in a setting now familiar in Malayalam films: a college
campus where male students fight with each other, harass women students and
behave as if female homo sapiens are rarer than Yeti and the Loch Ness monster.
This obnoxious scenario where over-wrought masculinity plays out was most
visible in last year’s Chunkzz. That
film was deeply offensive, but had a better cast and production values. Queen looks shabby and washed out in
addition to being creepy.
The writing team’s focus is the
college’s Mechanical Engineering course where the men break out into a
testosterone-induced frenzy when they hear that a woman is joining their class.
This leads to further disturbing scenes of stalking and harassment projected as
comedy. I am not bothering to spare you from spoilers here, because this film
does not deserve that effort.
So anyway, next the woman wins
the men over with her sunshine smile. Once they stop misbehaving with her, they
fight with others who do. Once they are done with that they discover she has
cancer. Once the film is done with that episode, she heads straight out of the
hospital and on to the college campus to dance in a bright red sari surrounded
by hordes of her male collegemates and – for some reason I did not bother to
wrack my brains over – an elephant. Next she is raped and killed. Next her
character is assassinated in court, in the press and on the streets. Next, her
classmates fight for justice for her. Next, they win. Next, the film ends.
The tragedy is that in the
courtroom scenes, a lawyer (played by veteran Salim Kumar) does make a couple
of pertinent points about the victim shaming flying around. Those questions do
not matter though because for this film, rape is not an issue of grave concern
as much as it is yet another masala item to throw into the mix to spice up a
screenplay.
Come to think of it, calling Queen a film is a compliment. An
uncharismatic lead cast and some established character artistes have come
together in this non-film to act out an amateurish screenplay on sets that
might not pass muster with the drama team of a respected school.
What is infuriating is not just
that Queen was made but that it
somehow travelled to theatres in Kerala and from there has even travelled
outside the state. This is no mean feat.
One of the films on my list of
Best Mollywood Films of 2017 published on this website last month was Dr Biju’s
Kaadu Pookunna Neram (When The Woods
Bloom), a gripping tale of the troubled equation between oppressed tribal
communities and the state as represented by the police. It starred Rima
Kallingal and Indrajith Sukumaran (both marquee names), it boasted of
world-class cinematography, it was intelligent, politically courageous and
entertaining. Biju is a multiple National Award winner. Kallingal has won
several prestigious awards. None of this was enough to recommend Kaadu Pookunna Neram to distributors and
theatres outside Kerala. Even getting to a theatre within Kerala was tough.
There are so many great films
that audiences are deprived of seeing because their producers do not push them
enough, and when they do, India’s distribution companies and theatres do not
want to risk backing them, if not because they lack star value then because of
their unconventional themes. In a scenario where the likes of Kaadu Pookunna Neram struggle to get to
us, it is almost criminal that Queen
has come so far.
Rating
(out of five stars): None (I refuse to rate
this film)
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CBFC Rating (India):
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UA
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Running time:
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157 minutes
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This review was also published on Firstpost:
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