REVIEW 779: VEEMBU

Release date:	April 8, 2020
Director:	Vivian Radhakrishnan
Cast:	Sujin Murali, Shanavas Sharaf, Rajalakshmi V.V., Rajeev D.H.
Language:	Malayalam

It is tough for an independent film without familiar faces to get public attention – even less so when it is not in theatres or on a prestigious streaming platform. Yet debutant director Vivian Radhakrishnan’s Veembu, now available on Youtube, has generated a fair amount of conversation this season. One reason is that actor Joju George unveiled the poster online. Another is that director Midhun Manuel Thomas promoted it on his Facebook page when it was released earlier this month.

Since these artistes are known for devotion to their craft, it is natural for expectations to be built solely on the strength of their support for Veembu. Thomas is just fresh from the stupendous critical success of the crime thriller Anjaam Pathiraa, so his patronage, if it can be called that, is particularly significant here because Veembu too is a thriller.

Now for the bad news. If Messrs George and Thomas meant to be kind, their kindness was misplaced – because Veembu does not deserve them.

At a basic level, the film’s concept is thought-provoking and seems exciting. Veembu means to offer an insight into how the truth is manipulated in the media to suit the powerful while maligning the weak. The journey from premise with promise to full-fledged film is rocky though. Veembu is pretentious, trying really hard to be cool and gives the appearance of being convinced that it has achieved that goal.

Veembu’s protagonists Kinavu and Abukutty are friends in remote rural Kerala. Kinavu is an autorickshaw driver taking care of his old mother who has been diagnosed with dementia. One day, desperate for a large sum of money, he agrees to commit a serious crime. Circumstances go out of his control largely as a result of his own inability to stay focused.

Veembu’s primary problem is that it is more preoccupied with form and structure than content. It starts with a man of small build being tortured by what appears to be a criminal gang. The fellow appeared in a selfie with someone he claims not to know. His captors think he is lying. One of them orders him to describe the circumstances that brought him to this pass as if he is narrating the script of a film. He agrees. That’s how it comes about that we get to hear the story of Kinavu and Abukutty.

The narrative device serves little purpose, the storytelling is over-stretched and the characterisation inconsistent. A man is rough with his elderly parent half way through the film but seems utterly devoted to her before and after that. Time is wasted on extraneous developments, such as Abukutty trying to have a fling with a married woman, that contribute nothing to the character development or the denouement. And by the time that neat twist comes around, involving two intruders and a heavy object, I was struggling to keep my eyes open and care for the people on screen.

DoP Vishnu Vijayarajan does deliver some eerie frames, well complemented by ominous background music. Particularly impressive is the shooting of a man held captive through Veembu. After a while though, these feel like embellishments masking weak writing. No amount of overhead shots of men weeping in a forest as seen through falling raindrops can camouflage the fact that the men are written as outlines without the colours filled in.

In its tone and tenor, from the beginning Veembu feels like a wannabe Angamaly Diaries, but again, no amount of stylisation, lookalikes in the cast and derivative music can give you the panache and heft of Lijo Jose Pellissery’s lovely 2017 film. After watching Veembu, I learnt from Google that Vivian Radhakrishnan assisted Pellissery on Jallikattu and has earned some praise for a recent making-of-Jallikattu video. Clearly, admiration for the boss does not necessarily translate into great art.

From among an inconsistent cast, several actors in Veembu stand out as naturals. Sujin Murali as Kinavu and Shanavas Sharaf as Abukutty are both easy before the camera, and will hopefully get better films in future. Sharaf reminded me of Tito Wilson, Angamaly Diaries’ U-Clamp Rajan, both in terms of looks and conviction. Another charismatic presence is Rajeev D.H. playing a man imprisoned for no fault of his – he is attractive and though his role is largely silent, manages to convey anguish with his intensity.

According to Radhakrishnan who wrote, directed and edited Veembu, the film has been in the cans for two years mostly due to censor troubles. If you can bear the tedium of its 2 hours and 20 minutes, in the end you will discover its troubling politics. Through a raucous monologue in the climax, in the guise of criticising the media – a worthy objective, no doubt – Veembu takes potshots at those who highlighted the communal angle in the rape of a Bakarwal child in Kathua in 2018 and other liberal causes.

In a better-made film, that finale – confused or intentionally illiberal? – would have merited a critique. Veembu is so vacuous and boring, it is not even worthy of anger.

Rating (out of 5 stars): 0.5

Running time:

140 minutes 57 seconds

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/veembu-movie-review-wannabe-angamaly-diaries-with-a-nice-concept-but-lacking-depth-coolth-and-the-smarts-8278571.html

Poster courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/veembu/

REVIEW 723: PORINJU MARIAM JOSE

Release date:	August 23, 2019
Director:	Joshiy
Cast: Language:	Joju George, Nyla Usha, Chemban Vinod Jose, Rahul Madhav, Vijayaraghavan, Sudhi Koppa, Malavika Menon Malayalam

Porinju Mariam Jose is based on the folklore surrounding three reportedly real-life friends – Kaattaalan Porinju, Alappatt Mariam and Puthanpally Jose – who were plagued by class snobbery and street violence in 1980s Kerala. Written by Abhilash N. Chandran (who was cleared earlier this year of plagiarism charges raised in court by another author), the film has been directed by veteran blockbuster machine Joshiy.

In an era of gang wars and disco fever, the butcher Porinju (Joju George) is unswervingly loyal to his elderly patron/friend, the wealthy Iype (Vijayaraghavan). The older man seems class blind in his affection for the tempestuous yet golden-hearted youngster. The only relationships rivalling this one in Porinju’s life are his unbreakable bond with Jose (played by Chemban Vinod Jose) and his long-time romance with their common friend Mariam (Nyla Usha) who, like Iype, is well above their socio-economic station. The misbehaviour of a satellite character (Rahul Madhav) sets off a chain of vendetta that threatens to consume them all.

Porinju, Mariam and Jose’s basic story is interesting, and there is a lot this film could have been. Among other things, it could have been an indictment of benevolent members of dominant social groups who do great harm with their unwillingness to openly battle injustice, a theme especially relevant in today’s India where silent liberals are being held to account for their cowardice and/or apathy. Porinju Mariam Jose could have been a comment on how class often trumps friendship, but also often does not. It could have been a reminder of how human civilisation would be caught in an endless cycle of violence if history had not been punctuated by individuals who said “stop” at crucial moments. In fact, this film is all the above to a limited extent, but these points are conveyed feebly by a script that fails to explore its primary players with depth.

We get to know what the three protagonists do, we barely get to know them. Every effort is made to build them up as the stuff of local legend, especially with the awe-struck tone of their introduction, but at all times it feels like Chandran does not have ringside access to their innermost thoughts, feelings or motivations. With such weak writing of its leads, it is unsurprising that Porinju Mariam Jose fails to be an involved, emotionally engrossing narrative.

Porinju is the archetypal superhero of conventional commercial Indian cinema, invincible in physical combat. His prefixed nickname “Kaattaalan” literally means “forest-dweller” or “hunter” in Malayalam, but here of course is a figurative allusion to his wild nature. Despite the stereotypical larger-than-life character, the talented Joju George manages to convey Porinju’s love and longing for Mariam without coming across as a creepy stalker.

Nyla Usha looks regal and is convincing as the moneylender Mariam, a fiery woman living largely on her own terms – and on her own – in a conservative society. Mariam is different from heroines of most Malayalam action films: she is not a meek creature waiting to be saved by a man, as we see early on when she startles a molester with a fierce, instant and public retaliation. Her sense of independence is at odds, however, with her conservative reason for not marrying her beloved Porinju. It is also irritating that the writer’s notion of an independent woman includes these clichés – she smokes and drinks, the only woman in the entire community who seems to do so.

Chemban Vinod Jose is on point as the disco-loving Jose whose penchant for violence is such a contrast – a believable contrast – to his seemingly happy-go-lucky nature.

It must be said though that he and Nyla fall short in a scene in which we learn the truth about what is keeping Mariam and Porinju apart. Or perhaps it is not the actors’ fault, since the treatment of that passage – the direction and editing – exemplifies this film’s lack of tautness: Mariam and Jose are recounting a tragedy, yet the scene lacks intensity.

Another scene, this one featuring the three leads, also exemplifies Malayalam cinema’s casualness towards domestic violence and the manner in which this film industry normalises a boyfriend/husband raising his hand to hit a woman.

Much of the violence in the film happens parallel to or during church festivals. Extreme though the bloodshed is, Ajay David Kachappilly’s camera work is not exploitative. The juxtaposition of violence and faith brings to mind Lijo Jose Pellissery’s iconic Angamaly Diaries (2017) in which religious feasts and processions formed an ironic backdrop to the unrelenting bloodletting on screen. Joshiy’s characters are as trigger-happy as Pellissery’s gangs, but inhabit a visual setting far less naturalistic and a narrative far less gripping than Angamaly Diaries (which, coincidentally, was written by Chemban Vinod Jose).

Porinju Mariam Jose is replete with cultural references from the 1980s and thereabouts. The many mentions of the decade’s popular cinema and songs are fun due to their high recall value, but like much else in the film, they lack depth: they serve solely as markers of the time but beyond that tell us little about the characters.

The story at the heart of Porinju Mariam Jose has promise. The film itself is not without merit – it is, for instance, unusual for a Malayalam venture to feature a woman as a title character these days, and not easy for any film to succeed in giving equal importance to three leads. For the most part though, Porinju Mariam Jose is just a could-have-been.

Rating (out of five stars): *3/4

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	150 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/porinju-mariam-jose-movie-review-love-in-the-time-of-class-bias-an-independent-heroine-and-average-writing-7218221.html

Visuals courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/Nyla4u/

REVIEW 678: JUNE

Release date:	Kerala: February 15, 2019 Delhi: March 8, 2019
Director:	Ahammed Khabeer
Cast: Language:	Rajisha Vijayan, Aswathi Menon, Joju George, Sarjano Khalid, Arjun Ashokan Malayalam

There is no genre better suited to the widely celebrated New Age slice-of-life Malayalam cinema than the coming-of-age film. Writer-director Ahammed Khabeer facilitates a well-suited match between the two in June, the story of a young woman from Kottayam called June Sara Joy.

Khabeer’s film, which he has co-written with Libin Varghese and Jeevan Baby Mathew, travels with the girl from her teens to her 20s, from her first day in Class 11 to approximately a decade later, accompanying her through adolescent crushes and adult romance, her relationships with parents and friends, encounters with misogyny and patriarchy, and her pursuit of her dreams.

June makes for an interesting choice of heroine, because there is absolutely nothing remarkable about her or uncommon about her experiences. In fact, this is how she introduces herself to her class on Day 1, as someone with no special talents unlike the rest of them.

In the time we spend with her as viewers, nothing happens that would seem dramatic to the average observer, no tragedy, no great achievement. Yet in her own eyes, of course, her life is packed with drama as we see her shed buckets of tears through a major confrontation with her normal-as-hell parents and other situations.

This perhaps is the point being made by the writers: that what seems routine to the outside world can be trying, stressful, joyful, exhilarating and/or depressing by turns to the person going through what we are just watching. That “normal” and “ordinary” are often a matter of interpretation.

Khabeer’s storytelling style is easygoing, naturalistic and a good fit here. While June could have done with a paring down of the number of songs fitted into the narrative, Lijo Paul’s editing works well for it. We are occasionally taken back and forth in time through the many passages in the protagonist’s life, with Paul making smooth jumps that usually illustrate how she got to a particular point or how she has changed.

Rajisha Vijayan, who debuted to critical acclaim in 2016 with Anuraga Karikkin Vellam, has the task of portraying this blossoming youth. She is most convincing in June’s teenage years when she captures the child-woman’s sprightly demeanour, affectionate nature, immaturity and innate decency in equal measure without over-cutesifying her, and again in the transitional phase during which she confronts gender prejudice with undiluted spirit. Not so convincing is the writing and acting of the oldest June we get to see in the film when she is well into her 20s. This is a young woman who was shown to have matured in preceding scenes, yet her body language remains unchanged and her artificially energetic, child-like behaviour comes across as contrived during her first meeting with a new beau, when she seems like a bit of a regurgitation of the old Manic Pixie Dream Girl cliché.

Her physique and styling too seem unaltered. I have read that Vijayan lost considerable weight to play the teenaged June. The problem is that she looks exactly like the teenaged June right up to the last scene. I do not understand why anyone thought this actor needs help to look younger. The fact is her appearance is so youthful, that she could have done with better makeup and an intelligent stylist to look older for the 20-something June.

This is also a concern with at least two of the actors playing her classmates who look too baby-faced to be women well on their way to 30 in the end. The boys are much more believable as men and, in truth, some of them are less believable as schoolkids.

By this point in the film though, much water has passed under the bridge, and Ms Vijayan under Mr Khabeer’s guidance has drawn us so inexorably into June’s existence, that I, for one, as a viewer, found myself in an indulgent mood.

The Dad quietly pouring her her first drink while the mother is not watching, her first kiss, her first open battle with patriarchy are all handled perfectly naturally without creating a big shindig around them as other contemporary commercial filmmakers do. However, the one folly – and a big folly it is – is the inconsistency in the definition of June’s dream. (Some readers may consider the rest of this paragraph a spoiler) In one crucial, well-executed portion, she is shown avidly fighting for a woman’s right to be more than just a stay-at-home mother whose decisions are made by a dictatorial husband. Not long after, an important character asks her what precisely her own dreams are for herself. She has no answer then, and by the finale, both she and the writers seem to have either lost interest in finding one or have completely forgotten about it. (Spoiler alert ends)

This forgetfulness implies a lack of commitment. Along with the schmaltzy, over-stretched climax that extends way beyond the nostalgia it intends to convey, it subtracts from the overall impact of June.

Still, there is plenty to like in this teens-to-20s saga, not the least reasons being its gentle tone, Rajisha Vijayan’s likeable screen presence, and her comfortable chemistry with her co-stars, especially the lovely Joju George playing her liberal-yet-conservative Dad and Sarjano Khalid who is cast as her first boyfriend.

I would gladly re-watch June just for the joy of revisiting the warmth in the leading lady’s scenes with her indulgent father.

Rating (out of five stars): **1/2

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	141 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/june-movie-review-slice-of-life-malayalam-cinema-meets-the-coming-of-age-genre-to-gentle-effect-6228151.html

Poster courtesy:

https://www.facebook.com/JuneMovieOfficial/