KUMBALANGI NIGHTS, VIRUS,
UNDA AND MORE IN PERHAPS THE BEST
YEAR EVER FOR GOD’S OWN CINEMA
Ever since I began compiling an annual list of Best Malayalam/Mollywood
Films earlier this decade, I have received feedback from at least a couple of
readers each year asking me to avoid the term “Mollywood”. I
have addressed their recurring critique in a footnote to this list of
best films in what has been
a fabulous year for the film industry headquartered in Kerala.
BEST MOLLYWOOD
FILMS:
1: Kumbalangi Nights
Patriarchy is self-destructive insanity in director Madhu C. Narayanan’s magical Kumbalangi Nights written by Syam Pushkaran. The story of four brothers who make peace with each other despite long-standing differences is the most entertaining sociology lesson on Kerala that you could ask for.
If you put a gun to my head, I still could not tell you what I love most
about this film: the incredible cast or its incredible humour, the romance of
Bonny and Nylah playing in the kavaru (sea sparkle) one night, Fahadh Faasil
yelling out the self-affirming line, “Shammy hero aada! Hero!” or sweet, curly-haired Anna Ben as Babymol fantasising
about Bobby with this sentence spoken in
her sing-song accent accompanied by a signature Malayali head tilt,
“Bobby and Baby – those names would look so good on a wedding card, would they
not?” But wait, there is also the sensitivity with which mental health and
therapy are portrayed, Sushin Shyam’s music, Shyju Khalid’s cinematography and...
And... And…
This genre-defying film rightfully earned a pan-India audience in
theatres, surmounting all the hurdles placed in the path of non-Hindi cinema by
the exhibition sector’s biases and inefficiencies. Kumbalangi Nights is not just the best Malayalam film of 2019,
it ranks among the best Indian films ever made.
2: Virus
Aashiq
Abu’s Virus painstakingly chronicles
Kerala’s encounter with the deadly Nipah last year. The successful containment
of the outbreak had earned the state government accolades from global experts,
but Abu does not confine his tribute to politicians and bureaucrats. Virus is a hosanna and a salaam to every
seemingly minor cog in the wheel, every healthcare worker and ordinary citizen
who stepped up in an emergency, every individual whose humanity helped curtail
a tragedy.
Abu redefined the adjective “star-studded" when he
convinced Parvathy, Revathy, Tovino Thomas, Kunchacko Boban,
Rima Kallingal, Asif Ali, Joju George, Indrajith Sukumaran, Soubin Shahir and
Sreenath Bhasi among others to join his film without a care for the size of
their respective roles. The constellation of famous faces in big, small and even tiny parts in Virus serves to underline the
crucialness of the numerous known and unknown soldiers in this real-life battle
against a killer disease. As much a thrilling procedural as a life-affirming
socio-political commentary, the film even finds time to subtly skewer
Islamophobia and a troublemaking Central government.
Virus is like nothing
we have seen before in Malayalam cinema or for that matter Indian cinema at
large.
3: Jallikattu
If
“unique” did not have synonyms, it would be repeated throughout this write-up,
because uniqueness is what Mollywood turned out month after month in 2019. In Jallikattu, the beast within men
surfaced as an entire village gave chase to a buffalo gone berserk. Director Lijo
Jose Pellissery blended the pounding of the animal’s hooves with the
bloodcurdling yells of its human predators and every breath taken by every
individual in the film to create an unprecedented percussion ensemble in one of
the most striking cinematic indictments of patriarchy you could possibly (not)
imagine.
4: Unda
If you grew up admiring Mammootty’s acting genius and then despaired as
he began to favour a brand of loud, misogynistic, cliché-ridden Malayalam
cinema, 2019 is a salve for your wounds. After a stunning performance in the
heart-rending Tamil film Peranbu,
acclaim for his work in Yatra (Telugu)
and an endearing goofiness in the
not-quite-as-bad-as-most-of-his-comedies-these-days Madhuraraja (Malayalam), Mammukka gave us Unda. In this Malayalam-Hindi film, he plays a senior policeman who
is at sea when he is tasked with heading a Kerala Police squad on election
duty in violence-torn regions of north India.
There are few greater pleasures in life than watching a superstar
cede his star persona to a role. Khalidh Rahman’s Unda returned our old Mammukka to us, an artiste willing to be
vulnerable on screen, reminding us of the best that he has been and still can
be. It is also a beautiful film.
5: Thanneermathan Dinangal
If Kumbalangi Nights had been the only
positive thing that happened to him in 2019, this would still have been a
wonderful year for debutant Mathew Thomas who played Kumbalangi’s little Franky. But young Mr Thomas learnt that when it
rains great roles it often pours as he followed that up with Jaison from Thanneermathan Dinangal (Watermelon
Days). Girish A.D.’s omana coming-of-age
teen saga also featured Udaharanam
Sujatha’s Anaswara Rajan as the friendly schoolmate Keerthy who Jaison
falls for.
Beyond its innocent charm, Thanneermathan
Dinangal is a telling comment on how, despite extreme gender
segregation, a decent boy might rise above his social conditioning and
behave around a girl he likes. With the song Jaathikkathottam (Nutmeg Groves) picturised on the two leads, the film
also gets the distinction of finally giving the world a worthy rival to the
wooing skills of strawberries and roses.
6: Uyare
Despite
being a centre of great cinema, Mollywood continues to have very few leading
roles for women. Manu Ashokan’s Uyare
gave Parvathy an opportunity to seal her position as one of this industry’s finest while playing an acid-attack survivor who does
not succumb to depression and despair. Tovino Thomas gets to be the heroine’s
loveable ally in this film, while Asif Ali turns out a career-defining
performance as a man venting his insecurities on his girlfriend. Together they
weave a story of optimism snatched from the jaws of tragedy.
7: Thamaasha
Vinay
Forrt offers a masterclass in acting while playing a Malayalam professor with a
complex about his premature baldness in Thamaasha.
When Forrt’s Sreenivasan meets an overweight young woman called Chinnu (played
by newcomer Chinnu Chandni) he discovers true friendship along with his own
deep-seated prejudices. Director Ashraf Hamza makes no bones about the message
he means to send out, but he does so through a film so pleasant and understated
that you may not even notice.
8: Helen
What Thanneermathan Dinangal is to Mathew
Thomas, Helen is to Anna Ben: a
fantastic second film for a youngster having an already fantastic year as a
debutant from Kumbalangi Nights. Director Mathukutty Xavier’s Helen
belongs to the survival thriller genre, and uses the tension in its frames to
highlight multiple social prejudices. When a woman goes missing,
how should the police react? Now guess how they react when she happens to be
our heroine, a Christian woman with a Muslim boyfriend, a working woman with an
irregular schedule that keeps her out of the house at hours that are deemed
unacceptable by conservatives.
The big
surprise of Helen is Aju Varghese
playing a creepy policeman, a role and spot-on performance that are a sharp
contrast to his track record as a comedian in both funny and crass films. Anna Ben, of course, is spotless as the titular heroine, and
ends 2019 etched in the public consciousness as the admirable Helen we worry
for as much as the equally admirable, fiery Babymol from Kumbalangi.
9: Android Kunjappan Version 5.25
Kollywood,
Tollywood and Bollywood operate with a fraction of the budgets available to
Hollywood filmmakers. Mollywood has even less money than India’s Big Three, yet
somehow this industry comes up with some of the best cinematography the country
has to offer and in the case of Android Kunjappan Version 5.25, an impressive looking little robot. The
machine is the Kunjappan of the title, a companion that a son builds for his
father when circumstances force him to seek a job in another country leaving
the old man behind in their home village.
The
robot maybe the USP of Ratheesh Balakrishnan Poduval’s film, but is never a
distraction from its core concerns about children who are committed to their
parents but want a life of their own too and the challenges involved in
care-giving for the elderly in India. Android Kunjappan Version 5.25 does something unusual for Indian cinema and the
popular public discourse: it does not romanticise the parent-child
relationship, it portrays a selfish parent, and it does not demonise a child for
resenting that selfishness. Yet it gets us to like both men.
Topping the film’s many positives are solid performances by Suraj
Venjaramoodu and Soubin Shahir as the Dad and son, along with the ever
reliable Saiju Kurup and Arunachali newcomer Zirdo.
10: Driving Licence
Hell
hath no fury like a fan scorned, as Prithviraj Sukumaran’s Hareendran discovers
when he antagonises his die-hard devotee Kuruvilla played by Suraj
Venjaramoodu. Hareendran is a superstar who
wants a new driver’s licence, Kuruvilla is a motor vehicle inspector, and from
their clash follows a rollercoaster ride through fan and media frenzy, star
arrogance and a common person’s bruised ego. Both leading men never set a foot
wrong in Lal Jr’s unexpectedly rewarding film that is part thriller, part
social saga and all parts lots of fun.
Because 10 is too
small a limit in such a fabulous year:
11: Chola
14: Luca
FOOTNOTE ABOUT THE
TERM MOLLYWOOD:
Over
the years, some readers have urged me to not use the word Mollywood for the Kerala-based
primarily Malayalam language industry. I would like to discuss why I persist
with it.
To
those who say Mollywood is a derivative term subordinating the Malayalam film
industry to Bollywood, I must point out that Mollywood is not derived from
Bollywood. All the nicknames used by the press and public for India’s film
industries – Mollywood, Bollywood,
Kollywood, Tollywood, Sandalwood and so on – are drawn from
Hollywood. A reader once told me she has no problem with “Bollywood” but
objects to “Mollywood”. This I cannot understand. Either you object to all
these derivative labels or none at all. If you object to all, I completely get
where you are coming from, but do note my reasons for continuing to use them at
least for now.
First, “Bollywood” has served as great national and international branding for the Indian film industry headquartered in Mumbai that makes films mostly in Hindi, with very very occasional forays into Haryanvi, English and other languages. Whenever I speak to my counterparts in the foreign press, I find a majority of them are not even aware that India makes films other than the ones coming from Shah Rukh Khan’s city. While this is primarily due to the extreme pro-Hindi, pro-Bollywood bias of India’s own supposedly ‘national’ newspapers and TV channels based in Delhi and Mumbai that amplify Bollywood’s works while largely ignoring India’s other film industries, another factor is branding. The term “Bollywood” is catchy. As long as the ‘national’ media’s bias remains, my personal choice is to do everything in my power as an individual to give high visibility to films from India’s other industries, because like most cinephiles, I am keen that the films I love get as wide a national and global audience as possible.
Second,
as Indian cinema evolves, these terms have become useful in another way. Unlike
Bollywood cinema whose characters almost invariably speak Hindi and at a
stretch, English but no other Indian language irrespective of which part of
India or the world they are situated in, Mollywood has been adventurous with
language. Increasingly, I am afraid, a
certain section of Mollywood has also been treating Hindi as a signifier of
coolth and using it even where it is not necessary or relevant – in the way
English was once viewed by Bollywood – but that is a separate discussion. Back
to the subject at hand, the 2017 film Tiyaan, which revolved around a community of Malayalis living in
Uttar Pradesh, was – as it would be in real life – equal parts Malayalam and
Hindi with even some Sanskrit dialogues included in the mix. In this year’s lovely
Mammootty-starrer Unda, when a posse from the Kerala Police travelled on
election duty to Hindi belt states, what we were given was a natural mix of
Malayalam, Hindi and a few other tongues. To describe either of these as “Malayalam
films” would be inaccurate. Mollywood therefore
is also an expedient term. (This applies to Bollywood too on the
rare occasions when the quest for authenticity has spurred a director to
favour a language other than Hindi.)
With no
disrespect then to those who disagree, I intend to use “Mollywood” as long
as there is a far bigger worry than a derivative term, that worry being the ‘national’
media barely acknowledging this industry. But the day Mohanlal and Manju Warrier,
Parvathy and Fahadh Faasil become household names across India the way the
Khans, Kapoors, Kaifs and Chopras of Bollywood are, I plan to invest time and energy in coining an
alternative term. I promise.
A VERSION OF THIS ARTICLE IS ALSO ON
FIRSTPOST:
ALSO READ:
Mollywood Awards 2019: A selection of the year’s best in acting, music, cinematography, direction and more
Photographs courtesy:
Helen poster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_(2019_film)
Driving Licence poster: https://www.facebook.com/DrivingLicenceMovie/
No comments:
Post a Comment