Release date:
|
April 14, 2018
|
Director:
|
Rathish Ambat
|
Cast:
Language:
|
Dileep, Siddharth, Namitha Pramod, Murali Gopy, Andy Von Eich,
Divya Prabha, Bobby Simha, Shweta Menon, Indrans, Vijayaraghavan, Vinay
Forrt, Siddique, Baiju, Sudheer Karamana, Simarjeet Singh Nagra
Malayalam
|
A
film within this film falsely lionises a politician and ends up boosting his
party’s electoral fortunes.
At
a conceptual level, writer Murali
Gopy’s Kammara Sambhavam directed by
Rathish Ambat, is apt for our troubled times.
The saga of a contemporary neta/party
untruthfully claiming to have played a pivotal role in the Indian Independence
movement rings a bell loud and clear. Napoleon Bonaparte’s words flashing on
screen right at the end – “History is a set of lies agreed upon” – perfectly
encapsulate the point made by the storyline until then, about a victor peddling
his version of the past to the hapless masses.
The
value of a message is greatly dependent on the sincerity of those delivering it
though. And by slipping its own insensitive insinuation into a conversation in
its closing moments, Kammara Sambhavam vastly
dilutes its worth.
In
that crucial scene, Kammaran Vishwambaran Nambiar (Dileep) – a traitor who has
just recently been hero-ised on the big screen – tells his cohorts that they
can quietly work on their agenda if they distract the public by getting a woman
to accuse a high-profile man of sexual violence. The throwaway remark sans
qualifiers would have been distasteful in any context, considering how the
bogey of false cases has long been used to muddy the waters for millions of
victims of rape, molestation and harassment. It is particularly disgusting in
this specific context because of the real-life case in which Dileep is
currently embroiled, in which he is charged with orchestrating an attack on a
female colleague.
Dileep
makes it tough for viewers to separate the artist from his art when he
blatantly sneaks a potshot at his accuser into a fictional film.
Now
make of that what you will.
Kammara Sambhavam
is divided into two distinct halves. Pre-interval, in the present day, the
members of the Indian Liberation Party, ILP (played by Vijayaraghavan, Sudheer
Karamana, Baiju and Vinay Forrt) approach the hit Tamil director Pulikesi
(Bobby Simha) to make a film on their ageing party patriarch Kammaran. ILP was
a small armed force set up by Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose to fight the British
colonisers, but it is now a political party.
(Possible spoilers ahead)
In
this portion, Kammaran recalls his story during World War II, complete with his
lies and machinations among the people of his village, his obsequiousness
towards the British, his extreme caste prejudice, his longing for the beautiful
Bhanumathi (Namitha Pramod) who does not reciprocate his feelings and his
raging, all-consuming, well-disguised simmering jealousy towards the man she
loves, ILP leader Othenan Nambiar (Siddharth) who is the son of another man
Kammaran hates, the cruel and exploitative Kelu Nambiar (played by Gopy
himself).
Despite
the grim proceedings, this part is often amusing and sometimes outright
hilarious as the protagonist’s ignorance, biases and manipulations are
gradually revealed. It is also made evident here that Kammaran has zero
interest in India’s freedom.
Post-interval,
we sit with an audience in a hall viewing Pulikesi’s propaganda biopic on the
man. The filmmaker paints a portrait of Kammaran that even Kammaran cannot
recognise. Since those who know the truth are either dead or complicit in the
lie, the public is successfully deceived.
(Spoiler alert ends)
Overall,
Kammara Sambhavam is a reasonably
entertaining film, not the least because Ambat more or less controls Dileep’s
hammy tendencies and manages to use the actor’s naturally bland personality
well. Dileep is therefore convincing as the slimy Kammaran of the first half.
And when called upon to play the glamorous Kammaran of the second, he is given
a thick beard, dark glasses, an attention-getting quirk and swish attire to
build him up to being someone the actor and the character are not.
The
rest of the cast needs no such crutches. Namitha Pramod is both striking to
look at and a subtle performer. Gopy is convincing as an evil fellow you cannot
even briefly sympathise with despite the ugly villainy of his bête noir. In a
comparatively tiny role, Indrans displays his acting chops when he steals a
scene in which the casting of Kammaran’s biopic is being discussed.
Tamil-Telugu
star Siddharth, making his Malayalam debut here, is a pleasantly polished
contrast to Dileep. His Malayalam diction needs improvement, but the fact that he dubbed for himself is worth commending since it shows a willingness to take
risks and a desire to evolve. Besides, Siddharth is always easy on the eye.
There
is an interesting tonal split in Kammara
Sambhavam between fact and its distorted, fictionalised depiction. The film
within the film is intentionally farcical, energetic and spiced up, and every
actor featured in it (Dileep, Siddharth, Shweta Menon) is required to be over
the top. Outside that celluloid take on events, the tone is more understated.
However,
that romantic song and dance interlude with Bhanu in Kammaran’s imagination
jars when it is forced into the first half. If Ambat’s goal is to laugh at
commercial cinema even while participating in it himself, he cannot expect to
be excused for resorting to one of the country’s most worn-out cinematic
clichés. Besides, the director does not manage to entirely pull off the effort
at relative understatement before the interval. To make matters worse, the
sub-par European actor playing the British officer stationed in Kammaran’s
village (his name is Andy Von Eich) robs the narrative of finesse whenever he
is around, which is a lot.
The
production design too is inexplicably inconsistent. On the one hand, we get
some sophisticated battle scenes shot in low light, including a neatly done
sequence where a bunch of men are seen in silhouette in the night fighting each
other against a backdrop of a blue-back sky. On the other hand, the village
settlement looks too glaringly set-like and artificial, which takes the punch
out of an important passage where the paths of the story’s multiple players –
the locals, the ILP, the British and Kelu Nambiar – intersect during an
uncontrollable blaze.
Kammara Sambhavan
remains fairly engaging despite these weak patches, which could perhaps have
been forgiven in favour of its purportedly hard-hitting theme. It is impossible
though to ignore the film’s lack of commitment to its own cause. Let us spell
it out for Rathish Ambat and Murali Gopy: you cannot mock propaganda while
being a vehicle for it yourself.
Rating (out of five stars): *1/2
CBFC
Rating (India):
|
U
|
Running
time:
|
182
minutes
|
This review has also been
published on Firstpost:
No comments:
Post a Comment