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Release
date:
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June 7,
2019
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Director:
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Aashiq Abu
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Cast:
Language:
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Parvathy,
Kunchacko Boban, Tovino Thomas, Rima Kallingal, Sreenath Bhasi, Revathy, Joju
George, Indrajith Sukumaran, Asif Ali, Indrans, Sharafudheen, Soubin Shahir,
Dileesh Pothan, Rahman, Madonna Sebastian, Sajitha Madathil, Leona Lishoy,
Darshana Rajendran, Remya Nambeesan
Malayalam
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The last time
Aashiq Abu released a film, it left in its wake a beautiful pain that is yet to
subside and a heartache that may never go away. One and half years after Mayaanadhi came to theatres, Abu is out
with his next. Virus is a medical
thriller cum medical/government/bureaucratic procedural featuring a constellation
of some of Malayalam cinema’s biggest stars coming together to recount the
successful containment of the dreaded Nipah virus in Kerala last year.
It is a measure of
the high esteem in which Abu is held in the Malayalam film industry that
he was able to gather so many stars for a single project though each one gets
limited screen time, no character in particular is projected as a protagonist
and though the star-studded ensemble film is not common in Mollywood.
Virus firms up the director’s reputation for
prioritising theme over stars, by not being a Garry Marshall-style, Valentine’s Day-type venture in which
the casting was a gimmick and the result an unremarkable game of
spot-the-famous-face. Here in Virus,
Abu’s deployment of these big-screen luminaries guarantees
memorability for each character. It also serves to underline the
points that in the giant battle against Nipah even the seemingly smallest
player’s actions could have meant the difference between life and death, no cog
in the wheel was/is minor, and the state’s quietly diligent politicians,
bureaucrats, healthcare professionals, ordinary citizens and all others
involved are/were superstars no less than the glitzy artistes playing
fictionalised versions of them in this film.
The investment in
casting then is a tribute to these real-life heroines and heroes including
Nipah’s victims, many of whom contracted the disease through an act of
kindness.
The closest
companion to Virus I can think of
among the films I have watched is Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion (2011) starring Kate Winslet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt Damon,
Laurence Fishburne and several other Western cinema
heavyweights, and set in the midst of a worldwide epidemic. The underlying
socio-political themes in Contagion
were very different though. Besides, that film was fictional and dealt in
hypotheticals, Virus actually
happened. Just recently. In our own country. And we have failed to recognise
how those of us living just a couple of state borders away from Kerala came
within a whisper of being affected by what could have ended up being a
nationwide tragedy.
Virus takes us through those tension-ridden days in the
summer of 2018 when the deadly Nipah surfaced in Kozhikode and
Malappuram districts. As the potentially fatal infection begins to spread, the
state’s health minister (Kerala’s K.K. Shailaja, named C.K. Prameela here and played by Revathy) gathers a team of officials,
medicos and volunteers to investigate its origins and stem its spread.
With clinical
efficiency reflective of the methodical manner in which disease control must
perforce be conducted if it is to be effective, Virus goes about its business of painstakingly chronicling their
painstaking work. The wonderment of seeing so many big names in successive
frames and often together wears off within minutes, as it becomes clear
that there is nothing flashy about this film and that its story is
supreme.
The news media has
reported that Kerala earned kudos from domestic and international quarters for
its handling of Nipah last year. What Virus
does is inspire a sense of awe at the realisation of how much must have gone on
behind the scenes and how much
else could have gone wrong if any individual in the entire exercise had
set one toe wrong.
In some senses it
plays out like a suspense drama, although we know that the outbreak did not
ultimately turn into an epidemic. The tenterhooks emanate from a question,
investigated meticulously by Parvathy’s character – how did the first victim in
this episode get infected? – and because of the pushes and pulls between the
state and Central governments in Abu’s take on what transpired away from the
media spotlight.
(Minor spoiler alert for this paragraph)
Virus is particularly intriguing because of what it
states and implies about the Centre-state tussle. What were the sources from
whom the film’s writers got their information? If this account is indeed accurate or even if creative
licence is at work here then, among other things, Virus is a chilling reminder of the
pandemic of prejudice spreading across today’s world, as lethal perhaps as any
known microbe.
(Spoiler alert ends)
With its
multi-strand, non-linear narrative style, hyperlinking back and forth from one
thread to another then back to an earlier one, the director – aided by Muhsin
Parari, Sharfu and Suhas’ say-it-like-it-is, no-frills-attached writing and
Saiju Sreedharan’s masterful editing – has the film trotting along at an
unrelenting yet simultaneously miraculously unrushed pace.
Abu does not resort
to artificial highlights to stress the urgency of the job at hand but does not
in any way underplay it either. It is what it is – the viewer is not so stupid
as to need a loud background score, drumrolls and dramatic camera movements to
recognise an emergency. Sushin Shyam’s minimal music, for one, is used
sparingly and, as a consequence, to striking effect. Rajeev Ravi’s
cinematography supplemented by Shyju Khalid captures in no-nonsense documentary
style the goings-on in Virus. With
such extraordinary collaborators at hand, Abu manages to infuse the film with a
sedateness that mirrors the calm Prameela/Shailaja and her associates seek to
instil in the fearful populace.
A word here about
the subtitling by Rajeev Ramachandran. Most subtitled Indian films treat subs
merely as translations for the benefit of those who do not know the language in
which the film has been made. Virus heads
down a path that some outside India have already taken, by caring about the
hearing impaired too. There is little awareness in India about this, which is
why you often see even
well-meaning people grumbling about how subs are distracting (for instance, “why
does an English film need English subtitles?”) – I confess I had not given this
matter much thought until one of my students lost her hearing a few years back
and I was compelled to think in this direction. The couple of spelling mistakes
in Virus’ subs and repeated use of
the ungrammatical “tensed” (it should be “I am tense”,
please) feel minor in comparison with its consideration towards a largely
neglected community. So if you find yourself getting irritated because Virus’ subtitles describe ambient
sounds, the tone of the background music and so on in addition to explaining
dialogues, do keep this in mind. 
Virus’ dissection of Kerala’s response to Nipah in 2018
offers an ocean of insights into the interconnectedness of our species with the
entire animal kingdom, how crisis can bring out the best and worst in human
beings, how trigger-happy governments could turn even a health issue into a
communal conflagration, how humankind is forever teetering on the edge of
inhumanity and held back by the best among us, and much more. What would have
made it complete would have been an examination of human interference with
nature that is triggering calamities earlier rare or unheard of.
The film is
determined not to villainise scared citizens, but it does not pedestalise
anyone either. Parvathy’s Dr Annu, for instance, is admirable for her
beaver-like diligence but in a scene in which she interrogates a man who may be
dying, we see her dedication to her job overriding – perhaps unintentionally
– the need for extreme gentleness in such circumstances.
In C.K. Prameela
and Kozhikode Collector Paul Abraham (Tovino Thomas) we see a lesson in how
great leadership is about constantly putting out small fires. And through the
Manipal Institute of Virology’s Dr Suresh Rajan (Kunchacko Boban) we are forced
to also see that preparing yourself for the worst while hoping for the best
does not necessarily mean you are a bad person or even a cynic, it could be
that you are simply realistic.
Wittingly or
unwittingly, especially while linking the stories of the policeman Prakash
(Dileesh Pothan) and the no-hoper Unnikrishnan (Soubin Shahir), Virus also throws light on what Hindi bhaashis call a chalta-hai (casual) attitude in Indian society and systems that
begs for disasters to happen.
Aashiq Abu has been
at the forefront of the new parallel cinema movement that has blossomed in
Mollywood in the past decade, but Virus
– which he has co-produced with Rima Kallingal – is a whole new level of
achievement. In an India of thin skins and combustible sensitivities, it is
also courageous in the way it risks something that most of this country’s
quality filmmakers avoid: it recounts recent history. This is a minutely
observant, unobtrusively educative and moving ode to unsung stars, the triumph
of the team and the strength of the human spirit.
Rating (out
of five stars): ****1/2
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CBFC Rating (India):
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U
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Running time:
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152 minutes
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This review has also been published on Firstpost:
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