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Release
date:
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Kerala: June 21,
2019
Delhi: June 28, 2019
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Director:
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Salim Ahamed
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Cast:
Language:
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Tovino Thomas,
Anu Sithara, Salim Kumar, Sreenivasan, Lal, Siddique, Nikki Hulowski,
Vijayaraghavan, Mala Parvathy, Appani Sarath, Resul Pookutty, Zarina Wahab
Malayalam with
some (subtitled) English
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“It takes a village
to raise a child,” goes the old saying. In Salim Ahamed’s And The Oskar Goes To we get to see how sometimes it takes a
village to make one man’s dream come true. The National Award winning
writer-director’s new film seems to roughly at least mirror his own journey as
a young filmmaker whose debut venture, Adaminte
Makan Abu, won the National Award for Best Feature and was India’s entry
for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 2011. In this fictional account,
Tovino Thomas plays Issak Ebrahem who quits work as a TV writer and dives into
the world of cinema, which is where he has always wanted to be.
With no connections
in the industry, Issak struggles to scrape together every last paisa needed for
his first production, putting all his savings on the line while also relying on
loans, the kindness of relatives, friends and even strangers. Money is in
short supply but many of the artists and technicians who come on board to work
on his Minnaminungukalude Aakasham
(Sky of the Fireflies) are drawn to his sincerity and driven by his quality
script.
This part of And The Oskar Goes To strikes an
emotional chord because of the detailing – and even occasional unexpected
humour – in its bird’s eye take on a talented man’s back-breaking odyssey,
which has the potential to crush the spirit of lesser mortals. The action in
the first half moves along in such a credible fashion that it almost feels like
a reality show about the making of Sky of
the Fireflies. Besides, the cinematography by Madhu Ambat brings out the
gorgeousness of Kerala’s mountainous countryside and one breathtaking night-time aerial shot of a bus
moving up a winding forest road is tattooed into my memory forever.
The tribulations of
film people have often been fodder for film scripts, and Issak’s story is
without question worthy material. His conviction and monumental determination
are palpable across the barrier of the screen. And Thomas is just stunning as
the protagonist. There is no other word for it.
It would not be a
spoiler to reveal that Sky of the
Fireflies is a smashing success with critics and awards juries, and ends up
being India’s entry for the Academy Awards that year. This is where And The Oskar Goes To loses its footing.
The storyline gets scant, songs are needlessly bunged into the narrative, shots
linger longer than required without saying anything, and the storytelling
becomes exasperatingly literal. If the hero has a meeting with the real-life
Resul Pookkutty, do you absolutely have to show him waiting for the meeting,
then sweep your camera over to Pookkutty descending a long flight of stairs,
cut to the acclaimed sound professional’s Oscar acceptance speech, and only
then settle on their meeting? This happens often enough after Sky of the Fireflies is released for And The Oskar Goes To to feel stretched,
making its barely 2 hours of running time feel like too much.
No doubt the
humiliation Issak faces in Los Angeles reflects reality. Remember just last
year, National Award winning director Rima Das let it be known that she did not
have the funds to promote her Village
Rockstars in LA when it was sent as India’s entry to the Oscars. Equally
believable is the characterisation of Issak’s aggressive American PR agent
Mariya (Nikki Hulowski) and the helpful NRI named Prince (Siddique). On a
separate note, it is nice to see Malayalam subs embedded in the print for
the abundance of English dialogues in the US segment. None of this is enough
though because the tone of the film has changed by now and it has become
another film altogether. From the intimate feel of the pre-interval portion and
its believable intricacies, And The Oskar
Goes To at this point has jumped to broad brushstrokes and wasted
stretches.
This portion if
compacted could perhaps have
been a telling comment on the pain behind those PR-driven photographs in the
glam business, the truths we hide away from our Facebook status updates and
Instagram pictures, or how sometimes the end of one struggle in life just leads
to the beginning of another. If these points get lost here, it is
because this part of the film is just too elongated
and too generic.
Thomas is
surrounded by able supporting actors who fill out their respective roles well.
It comes as a relief that Hulowski in particular turns out to be competent, a
relief because many Indian film makers shooting on foreign shores tend to cut
costs by hiring really terrible supporting actors abroad.
The writing of
Chithra comes as a disappointment though, because at first she looks like
someone who will be important in the film but soon fades into the background
only to make occasional brief appearances. If nothing else, a fine actor like
Anu Sithara deserves better than that.
What is most
off-putting though is the treatment meted out by the screenplay to a character
called Moidukka (Salim Kumar). His initial response to the discovery that his
experiences inspired Sky of the Fireflies
is portrayed as an opportunistic attempt to leech off Issak’s maiden success,
when in fact the latter should have been shown up for what he was: a selfish,
callous artist who did not think it fit to even inform an old man and his
family about a script based on their life.
Issak’s very late attempt
to spend time with Moidukka, his wife and children is incorporated into And The Oskar Goes To to make a larger
philosophical point about the difference between art and real life, but his
apologetic demeanour on learning their truth does not acknowledge the extent of
his wrongdoing. That he cashed in on someone else’s misfortunes without even a
by your leave is inconsistent with the decency and humanity that he is shown to
have from the start. That he did not think it fit to persuade the actor Aravindan
(Sreenivasan), who plays Moidukka in Sky
of the Fireflies, to meet his real-life counterpart as preparation for the
role, is inconsistent with the extreme commitment to his craft that he
otherwise displays. This uneven treatment of the central character is the worst
part of this film, and its problematic casualness towards Issak’s problematic
casualness set me wondering whether it unwittingly betrays Salim Ahamed’s own worldview.
Through all this,
Tovino Thomas stands sturdy as a rock. That diffidence and look of hunger on
his face in one scene, the fatigue right from the beginning in contrast with
his fresh, neatly turned out appearance in most of his films, the earnestness
and humility that survive the national spotlight, those moments when he is teetering
on the precipice of a breakdown are all heart-wrenching to behold.
The actor has been
good to excellent in all his performances so far, but I confess that when I saw
two films starring him in this week’s theatre schedules for the National
Capital Region, I expected to feel somewhat fatigued by an overdose of him.
However, his role and performance in And
The Oskar Goes To is chalk to Luca’s
cheese. As a viewer, I still wish he would rethink his signing spree and get us
to miss him just a little bit, but as things stand, if there is an actor one
must OD on I guess I would prefer him to most. Even the most pretentious parts
of this film fail to overshadow his exquisite performance, and its tedious
second half notwithstanding, And The
Oskar Goes To is a tale of genuine anguish that deserved to be told. If only it had been told
better...
Rating (out
of five stars): **1/2
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CBFC Rating (India):
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UA
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Running time:
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151 minutes
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This review has also been published on Firstpost:
Photographs courtesy:
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