REVIEW 766: ANJAAM PATHIRAA

Release date:	Kerala: January 10, 2020 Delhi: January 24, 2020
Director:	Midhun Manuel Thomas
Cast: Language:	Kunchacko Boban, Sreenath Bhasi, Unnimaya Prasad, Jinu Joseph, Indrans, Remya Nambeesan, Jaffer Idukki, Sharaf U Dheen, Nikhila Vimal, Mathew Thomas, Nandhana Varma, Divya Gopinath Malayalam with Tamil

When the Kochi Police becomes the target of a shadowy serial killer, DCP Catherine Maria (Unnimaya Prasad) goes all guns blazing into the investigation. ACP Anil Madhavan (Jinu Joseph) persuades her to rope in the psychologist Anwar Hussain (Kunchacko Boban) who is pursuing a PhD on criminal minds. Anwar in turn bullies a young hacker called Andrew (Sreenath Bhasi) to help the team. Together they set off on the trail of a criminal with a modus operandi they have never before encountered. 

The murders in Anjaam Pathiraa (The Fifth Midnight) are intriguing. I found myself on the edge of my seat throughout, scared on behalf of every Kochi police person I spotted wandering down a lonely street or into a darkened room on screen. Writer-director Midhun Manuel Thomas (may I call you MMT, please?) keeps the twists constantly flowing, and even when weaknesses in the writing of the investigation rear their head, the consistent tone and tempo ensure that the narrative remains engaging.

Those weaknesses cannot be ignored, of course. Certain details are left unexplained or under-explained (I had to struggle to recall the reason why – no spoilers here – Anwar connected that toy to the serial killings), the title sounds nice but in retrospect feels contrived, some of the discussions among the police are banal, the English lines are often drab and at least one leap of the imagination is made during the probe with no logic to back it.

Some of the Kochi Police’s screw-ups in this film are highly believable, a reflection of the poor training, pathetic infrastructure, inefficiency and inherent apathy of police forces across India in real life (and are pointed out as such during conversations in the film). One mistake though seems to have gone unnoticed by the writer himself. Imagine tracking a serial killer and not immediately looking for a link between the victims. DCP Catherine and her colleagues do not, and no eyebrows are raised about it.

Frankly, Catherine seems to have been inserted into the script merely to pre-empt any criticism that Anjaam Pathiraa is an all-male scenario. She is there, and she is the boss, but she is pretty useless, spending much of her time helplessly asking the men around her what is going on. On the only occasion when she comes up with a plan, it is stupid on the face of it and not surprisingly leads to disaster. Another policewoman (played by Divya Gopinath) has been thrown in for good measure as a bit-part player, which would have been fine if Catherine had been better written. C’mon MMT, give us convincing, well-fleshed-out policewomen next time rather than tokenism.

Mostly what Catherine does by way of action is stand around issuing brisk instructions that make her seem busy and in charge, while Anwar and Andrew get the job done, serving as yet another reminder that even Mollywood’s otherwise-admirable parallel cinema movement is more comfortable telling stories of men. This is particularly ironic because the larger plot of Anjaam Pathiraa is driven by gender sensitivity.

It is a measure of MMT’s directorial skills that he succeeds in sustaining interest even through these uneven stretches. Besides, in other areas there is some smart writing on display here, including with the red herrings strewn around but not forgotten in the end. All complaints recede into the background anyway when the startling, heart-rending back story to the crimes is revealed.

It is frustrating that to avoid spoilers I cannot tell you exactly why this film is gutsy. Suffice it to say that MMT takes on an organisation that is powerful in Kerala and is justifiably shamed in Anjaam Pathiraa for its actions and inaction in response to alleged crimes by its functionaries.

Courage combined with MMT’s storytelling and a crew to match make Anjaam Pathiraa a winner. Cinematographer Shyju Khalid here does not employ a single one of the clichés that are staples in formulaic Indian thrillers: no jerks, no sudden movements around corners, no overt manipulation of the audience. His camerawork for this film, his low-lit frames and dreary gray-black-white palette with red and yellow appearing as ominous intrusions create an atmosphere of foreboding and ultimately, great sorrow. Khalid’s choices are a perfect fit for MMT’s own non-sensationalist, non-voyeuristic approach to the tragedies and extreme violence featured in the written material.

Sushin Shyam’s affecting music is put to good use by the director – it is there only when necessary, and then too not over-used. Considering that Anjaam Pathiraa comes to Delhi in the same week as the Mammootty starrer Shylock, it has soothed my troubled ears just recovering from that film’s deafening background score. Gratitude to Mr Shyam. Also to sound designers Vishnu Govind and Sree Shankar.

The ensemble cast is a reliable lot. Kunchacko Boban as Anwar brings his trademark sincerity to the role of an unhero-like hero who must keep his head on his shoulders during his first full-fledged murder investigation and grapple with his emotions on discovering unnerving truths. Sreenath Bhasi as an unscrupulous nerd lends just the right touch of youthful mischief to his character. Unnimaya Prasad is saddled with the one badly written role in the script, but saves Catherine from the brink with her earnestness.

Remya Nambeesan and Divya Gopinath are the only actors who are completely wasted in Anjaam Pathiraa. The casting director’s triumph lies in the careful selection of known and brilliant artistes for significant roles in the second half that give them barely a few seconds or minutes of screen time but must (and do) remain memorable all the same.

MMT’s filmography so far has been marked by light-hearted entertainers with a point to make. There is nothing light-hearted about Anjaam Pathiraa. Nothing conventional either. In fact, the first half seems intentionally designed to lull viewers into assuming that it is just a suspenseful whodunnit, its wacko antagonist teasing the police with a signature – clever but done before in different ways. It left me completely unprepared for that second half, drenched in a beautiful sadness, brave and deeply disturbing.

Anjaam Pathiraa may not be perfect, but oh my goodness, it is special.

Rating (out of 5 stars): 3.5

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	144 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/anjaam-pathiraa-movie-review-a-brave-sensitive-thriller-with-a-startling-heart-rending-back-story-7960611.html

Posters courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/MidhunManuelThomas/          

REVIEW 753: KETTIYOLLAANU ENTE MAALAKHA

Release date:	Kerala: November 22, 2019 Delhi: November 29, 2019
Director:	Nisam Basheer
Cast: Language:	Asif Ali, Veena Nandhakumar, Manohari Joy, Basil Joseph, Jaffer Idukki, Raveendran Malayalam

Commercial Malayalam cinema has for a while now been dominated by an ugly, toxic masculinity, with storytelling that normalises domestic violence, packs casual misogyny into comedies, portrays men as omniscient, omnipotent beings and glorifies male aggression. Kamal’s Aami in 2018 was a rare mainstream film that expressed discomfort with a man’s selfishness in his marital bed, but it avoided outrightly condemning him. In a less mainstream space, last year’s direct-to-online release Ottamuri Velicham (The Light In A Single Room) had no such qualms – while telling the story of a woman being brutalised by her husband, director Rahul Riji Nair made no bones about his belief that his hero’s sense of sexual entitlement towards his wife amounted to rape.

Kettiyollaanu Ente Maalakha (My Wife Is My Angel) examines another aspect of this social malaise. When a male child is brought up to treat women as lesser beings, it is not hard to imagine how his mindset will be shaped by an India where sex education still remains largely taboo, where very few families have open discussions on sex, and where many boys get their earliest lessons on the subject from other (twisted or equally ignorant?) boys and/or the exaggerations of pornography. Kettiyollaanu Ente Maalakha is about the effect our society has on another kind of man: a fellow who has been raised to respect women but whose interactions have been limited almost entirely to the mother and four sisters he loves.

Asif Ali plays that young man, Sleevachan, a busy 35-year-old farmer in a mountain village in Kerala who has long avoided marriage. When he decides to get himself a wife one fine day, it is not for himself at all but because he does not want his ageing mother to be alone at home while he is out at work. Sleeva is a hard-working chap and well-liked in the community. He soon finds a bride and thence arises his trauma. Having volunteered to walk down the aisle with Rincy (Veena Nandhakumar), he panics because he is clueless about physical intimacy with a woman and overcome by a debilitating shyness.

When Sleeva confides in a priest, he is told that once he and Rincy get close he will instinctively know what to do. Errm, but what about the...uh...mechanics of intercourse? This conservative rural community follows a don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy on sex. The crude misinformation from Sleeva’s misogynistic drinking companion serves no educational purpose though it is the most graphic that anyone gets with him.

In many ways, Kettiyollaanu Ente Maalakha is pathbreaking. It deals with a grave theme but has a light touch, features a mainstream male star and does not disguise its mainstream commercial aspirations. In a country where most people have warped ideas about consent even between strangers, and the general assumption is that marriage grants a man a life-long licence for sex with his wife whenever, wherever and in whichever way he wants it, her wishes be damned, director Nisam Basheer and writer Aji Peter Thankam have the vision to deal with the issue of a woman’s consent within marriage.

(Spoiler alert for this paragraph) Kettiyollaanu Ente Maalakha goes a step further and underlines the point that consent must be given at every instance – just because a wife is well disposed to her husband and has initiated physical contact with him on previous occasions, does not at all mean that he is allowed to force himself on her. When such force is shown to be used in the film, it is clearly called “rape”. (Spoiler alert ends)

When it starts out, Kettiyollaanu Ente Maalakha does not offer any indication that it will take such a serious turn. It is at first gently amusing and endearingly real as Basheer establishes the close bond Sleeva shares with his large extended family and the bonhomie among the villagers. When the going gets grim, the director ensures that the narrative does not trivialise the issues at hand. The reins do slip from his hands a couple of times – both instances involve a comically nosy old woman: such people of course exist in real life and such circumstances are likely to arise, but the point is the presentation itself in both cases is jarring in comparison with the sensitive tonal balance maintained in the rest of the film. That said, these shifts in tone pass off in seconds and it is clear they are not intentional.

The significance of Kettiyollaanu Ente Maalakha lies in its position on prevalent social notions of consent in perpetuity in the matter of sexual relations, the acknowledgement that marital rape is common in our society and the sight, however improbable it may be, of almost an entire community being opposed to it. Improbable the latter certainly is, but not impossible, and I will take a suspension of disbelief any day over the poisonous misogyny that big-budget men-centric Malayalam cinema has thrust on us for too long now. Remember that just weeks back the repeated impregnation of an unwilling wife by her husband in Aadya Rathri was brushed aside jokingly as a mark of his love for her rather than what it is: marital rape.

Sleevachan’s innocence does take some time to sink in because even if his friends were unusually reticent, it requires a stretch of the imagination to believe that the couple of jerks who he also hangs out with never volunteered details of their sexual encounters. Improbable, but again not impossible. There is more ignorance out there than we realise. Look around your own social circle and ask how many seemingly knowledgeable, sexually active men are aware that condoms and birth control pills are not 100 per cent effective, ask how many couples think having unprotected sex “just once” cannot result in a pregnancy. It happens even in more sexually permissive societies than ours. A Sleevachan could, therefore, exist.

(Spoiler alert for this paragraph) The episode that requires some consideration is the one in which Sleeva behaves uncharacteristically with Rincy. Is such a dramatic momentary lapse possible? Yes, if you take into account the “manaprayasam” he spoke of to his priest, the combined weight of social expectations, peer pressure and wrong guidance. (Spoiler alert ends)

Kettiyollaanu Ente Maalakha is not perfect. At one point there is talk of counselling for Sleevachan, but no sessions are shown and the screenplay seems to take the line that human instincts ultimately were indeed all that was needed. Given the circumstances, the film also opts for the safest possible ending. And it is important to point out that though its choice of theme is commendable, Kettiyollaanu too is a man-centric take on what is intrinsically a man-woman issue. The woman here is not marginalised, but she is certainly secondary. Nothing illustrates this better than the scene in which Sleevachan sits before Rincy finally confiding in her about his confusions, and the camera focuses on him while showing her from only the forearms down. Really? Expected better from you, Team Kettiyollaanu.

Despite this, the film remains pathbreaking because it takes a stand against behaviour that Indian cinema at large and Malayalam in particular usually ignores or trivialises. Kettiyollaanu Ente Maalakha’s courage and humanity are what recommend it most, though its naturalism, bird’s eye view of local customs and top-notch acting come close.

Asif Ali is off the charts with his interpretation of a rustic, romantically awkward youngster. After Uyare, this is his career best performance. What an exceptional year for an actor who too often has wasted himself on generic, largely uninspiring films.

Veena Nandhakumar is phenomenal too as a new wife whose confusion over her husband’s initial oddness belies a quiet confidence.

My pick of the credible supporting cast is the beautifully dignified Manohari Joy who plays Sleevachan’s mother.

William Francis’ music is a bonus, smoothly kneaded as it is into the narrative. That folksy number about Sleevachan’s marriage is lovely.

DoP Abilash Sankar, whose neglect of a woman in one scene I just mentioned, plays a crucial role elsewhere in the delicate, non-exploitative handling of sexual violence. This is why Kettiyollaanu Ente Maalakha is so important – because male behaviour that is considered commonplace in our society is treated here as exactly what it is: a crime. In doing so, Nisam Basheer and Aji Peter Thankam have contributed to an essential conversation in a non-esoteric fashion, however debatable certain aspects of their storyline maybe.

 

Rating (out of 5 stars): 3.25

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	135 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/kettiyollaanu-ente-maalakha-movie-review-asif-ali-is-terrific-in-a-largely-path-breaking-partly-debatable-rape-saga-7723211.html

Visuals courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/ActorAsifAli/