|
Release
date:
|
March 8, 2019
|
|
Director:
|
T.V. Chandran
|
|
Cast:
Language:
|
Akshara Kishor,
Lal, Iniya, Narain, Renji Panicker, Priyanka Nair, Indrans
Malayalam
|
Back in those days,
Azhagan tells little Radha, we could not walk on the road.
The child asks:
Why?
Because our bodies
were filthy from the work we do, the old man replies.
She is unrelenting:
Could you not simply wash yourself and walk on the road?
No, he explains,
the dirt on our bodies was centuries old and not that easy to wash off.
This simple
question-answer session between a middle-class upper-caste girl and a poor old
Dalit man encapsulates the essence of Malayalam cinema stalwart T.V. Chandran’s
new film. Pengalila does not have the
depth, detailing and plotline intricacies of Kammatipaadam, Rajeev Ravi’s spectacular indictment of caste
structures released in 2016. Nor does it have the benefit of the almost
spiritual cinematography in Jayaraj’s Ottaal
and the resultant speaking silences that punctuated the impoverished Kuttapaayi’s
relationship with his grandfather in that film. What Pengalila does have are Radha’s beguiling innocence, Akshara Kishor’s
loveable presence and Lal.
The bonding between
Radha (Kishor) and Azhagan (Lal), she as yet untainted by caste
and class considerations, and the child protagonist’s enchanting artlessness
are what lend poignance and charm to this otherwise uneven tale of caste and
patriarchy in contemporary Kerala.
The story takes off
when Radha’s father (Narain) shifts from Mumbai to rural Kerala for work,
bringing with him his wife and children. Her mother (Iniya), a former NGO
worker, is feeling suffocated in this conservative, slow-paced environment
where the husband has persuaded/bullied her to confine
herself to the care of their home.
With more spare
time on her hands than she would like, and a spouse who taunts her for not
earning money even as he bars her from doing so, the young woman encourages
Radha to roam unfettered with her thoughts.
It is here that the
child befriends Azhagan, a sociable elderly chap who rakes muck in the fields
and on the roads to earn his living. Through her conversations with him, Radha
begins to understand casteism. Through her observations of her mother’s
frustrations and her parents’ troubled relationship, she begins to understand
patriarchy.
Considering that Pengalila comes to us from award-winning
director T.V. Chandran (Ponthan Mada,
Paadam Onnu: Oru Vilapam), its patchy
quality is surprising. The multiple flashbacks to Azhagan’s past that include
anti-establishment protests dating from the 1940s look like something out of an
average high-school stage production. They are superfluous anyway, and come
across as a pointed effort to convey an impression of scale. So does the
occasional self-indulgent shot that lingers longer than it needs to without
making a point.
Just as bad, all
the characters other than the main four, but most
especially Azhagan’s wife and a newly married woman in despair, are
superficially written. And it does not help that some satellite parts have been
given to disinterested extras, or that the great Indrans is wasted in a barely
there, awkwardly handled role.
Chandran even
resorts to an amateurish graphic to illustrate how Kerala’s Dalits greened this
land, which was then grabbed
from them.
That map of the
state may, at best, have worked in A
Child’s Introduction to Oppressive Social Systems in a junior school.
These disappointing
elements in Pengalila are an
exasperating distraction from what lies at its core: a very small child’s
emerging awareness of the harsh realities she was born into. It is, after all,
a joy to hear the girl’s guileless, unwittingly sharp questions to the
ever-patient Azhagan and to her dynamic, fiercely independent mother who is
straining at a leash forced on her by a regressive husband.
While the focus is on them, the film is a rewarding experience.
Akshara Kishor is aptly chosen to portray Radha’s wide-eyed innocence, while
Lal plays Azhagan with equal parts zest and grace. They are an endearing
twosome and make Pengalila, for all
its follies, a film worth watching.
Rating (out
of five stars): **1/2
|
CBFC Rating (India):
|
U
|
|
Running time:
|
111 minutes
|
This review has also been published on Firstpost:
Poster
courtesy:
No comments:
Post a Comment