REVIEW 746: PRANAYA MEENUKALUDE KADAL

Release date:	Kerala: October 4, 2019 Delhi: November 8, 2019
Director:	Kamal
Cast: Language:	Vinayakan, Padmavati Rao, Riddhi Kumar, Gabri Jose, Sreedhanya, Saiju Kurup, Dileesh Pothan Malayalam

A poetic title, the reins in the hands of a multiple  National Award and Kerala State Award winning director, Kammatipaadam’s Vinayakan among the leads and a divine setting... Can this film possibly go wrong? 

Yes, terribly so, as becomes evident with every unfolding moment of Pranaya Meenukalude Kadal (A Sea of Romantic Fish). Kamal directs this tale of a mainlander who comes to Lakshadweep and falls in love with a pretty local girl, much to the chagrin of her grandmother who is fiercely protective of the child. Riddhi Kumar plays Jasmine whose mother, Dr Sulfat Beevi (Sreedhanya), and her mother, Bibi Noorjehan (Padmavati Rao), belong to the Arakkal family who once held sway over the entire island. The current Arakkal matriarch has her reasons for keeping Jasmine away from outsiders.

Among those watching over the girl is Noorjehan’s loyal and unquestioning lieutenant Hyder, played by Vinayakan. Ajmal (Gabri Jose), who is smitten from the moment he sets eyes on her, is undeterred though by the intimidation tactics employed against him. 

It all sounds like a revisitation of a charming, romantic ancient folktale about the quintessential outsider who wins the heart of an innocent damsel and wins her hand against all odds. Except that there is nothing romantic or charming about Ajmal or his courtship of Jasmine. At first it seems like their love story is going down the clichéd path of boy and girl meeting, clashing, disliking each other and then falling in love, that has been recycled a zillion times by Indian cinema across languages. That line is silly, tired and over-used, but Pranaya Meenukalude Kadal is much worse.

Firstly, Ajmal is both arrogant and a troublemaker. He is an aspiring actor and Mohanlal devotee who has been forced by his family to come to Lakshadweep as part of a crew refurbishing an old boat. The local top cop Eldho Sebastian is determined to keep his island free of crime, but Ajmal and his friends seem bent on clashing with the peaceful islanders.

As soon as Ajmal spots Jasmine, he begins his pursuit of her, despite repeated rejections. He photographs her without her permission. When she objects he photographs her some more, stalks her, and in one of the film’s most disturbing scenes, molests her while she is out diving in the sea. His behaviour is not what is terrifying though, what is terrifying is that the screenplay, which Kamal has co-written with John Paul, does not portray this behaviour as assault at all. Instead, being forcibly kissed by a man underwater stirs up emotions in Jasmine, and soon, she is hopelessly in love with Ajmal. 

It is one thing for this kind of dangerous nonsense to come from directors like S.S. Rajamouli, Sandeep Reddy Vanga or one of the many filmmakers that Akshay Kumar and Salman Khan have worked with, but what is one to say of this casual legitimisation of sexual assault by a director who has publicly strongly supported the women’s rights movement in the Malayalam film industry?

If Pranaya Meenukalude Kadal’s problematic gender politics is one nail in its coffin, the other is its stilted storytelling. The first half has promise when it is unclear which way Jasmine and the story will go. The second half is made cringe-worthy not only by her decision to back a sexual predator and the sexist portrayal of her grandmother, but by a director who seems awkward around the theme of love. This awkwardness is exemplified by the portrayal of a senior gentleman who has been pining for the woman he loves and ends up coming across as pathetic. It is epitomised though by a scene in which the young couple are shown singing on a boat, a scene that seems to be aiming for cuteness but comes across as totally silly instead.

It does not help Kamal’s cause that Gabri Jose has no screen presence and has even less chemistry with Riddhi Kumar. She, on the other hand, seems like someone who could be moulded into a worthy actor.

Frankly Kumar’s potential does not matter in the larger context though, nor does Padmavati Rao’s arresting personality, Sreedhanya’s engaging screen presence or Saiju Kurup’s reliability as an actor. It does not matter that Vinayakan is formidable on screen despite playing an under-written character, Lakshwadeep is breathtaking, Vishnu Panicker shoots this pristine location beautifully and that final confrontation in the sea is chilling. 

Pranaya Meenukalude Kadal’s positives and even its other negatives fade into insignificance in the face of the position it takes that the way to a woman’s heart is to physically attack her and violate her consent. To rub salt into the wounds already inflicted by this stand, Ajmal dares to equate their relationship with Karuthamma and Pareekutty in Chemmeen in a scene that is evidently shot as an ode to that great classic. That hurts.

Kamal’s last film Aami was bogged down by its hesitation to go all out in its critique of the sensitive topics it had chosen to take up, but this one travels in the opposite direction: it is an all-out insensitive film. 

Rating (out of five stars): 0.75

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

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/pranaya-meenukalude-kadal-movie-review-kamal-dives-underwater-to-romanticise-molestation-7635561.html

Visuals courtesy:

(1)    https://www.facebook.com/ActorAsifAli/

(2)    https://www.facebook.com/SamyukthaMenonActor/  

REVIEW 570: AAMI

Release date:	February 9, 2018
Director:	Kamal
Cast: Language:	Manju Warrier, Aangelina Abraham, Neelanjana, Tovino Thomas, Murali Gopy, Anoop Menon, Vinaya Prasad, Indrans, Renji Panicker, Lakshmi Priya, Rahul Madhav Malayalam

Aami’s opening scene shows a woman on a hospital bed in 1971, Bombay. Kamala Das, star of the Indian literary firmament, iconoclast and thinker, is lost in musings that will persist through this 155-minutes-long film.

We go back in time with her, to 1939 and her ancestral home at Punnayurkulam in Kerala’s Thrissur district. The film reminds us that little Kamala – Aami to her relatives – is from a literary family. Her mother, for one, is the renowned writer Nalapat Balamani Amma. She asks a lot of questions, this girl who might have been silenced elsewhere, but not in this home frequented by cultural stalwarts, where questioning minds and progressive thoughts co-exist with several gender, caste and class status quos.

The guilelessness and quiet rebellion reflected in what Aami asks remain an intrinsic part of her personality into her adulthood, as it is presented to us by award-winning writer-director Kamal. Through his eyes, we follow Aami from Punnayurkulam to Calcutta where her Anglophile father works, to her husband’s home in Bombay, on her travels with him, Thiruvananthapuram after his retirement and her death in a Pune hospital in 2009 – all factually accurate. We follow Aami when, at 15, soon after India wins Independence, she is married to Madhav Das, 20 years her senior, and becomes Kamala Das. Later, she assumes the pseudonym Madhavikutty for her Malayalam works. In her twilight years, when she converts to Islam, she calls herself Kamala Surayya.

Her many names mirror the multiple personalities dwelling in this one intriguing woman. There was the feisty nonconformist of her autobiography Ente Katha (My Story), which has captured the imagination of generations of Malayali readers and which, media reports tell us, she later confessed was as much myth as bio. There was the columnist who spoke frankly of a woman’s sexuality even back then. Both are a far cry from the restive creature – sometimes mouldable yet usually firm in her convictions, decisive yet wracked by confusion, sensible yet at times whimsical – that dominates Aami even while it brings us those other facets of her persona too.

(Spoilers ahead, if you choose to consider them so)

A person may well convey an impression of strength while struggling with herself. Aami’s flaw is that while it effectively captures Kamala’s restlessness and constant unease, it does not take us closer to understanding why that spirited child grew into this troubled woman. Was it mental illness and/or the trauma of having a sexually aggressive husband who hired a prostitute to train his teenaged bride to please him and callously flaunted his male lover before her?

A doctor is consulted in passing. Aami’s primary failing at this point is the mixed-up characterisation of Madhav Das who, after the initial cruelty, is shown displaying extreme kindness towards his delicate wife and supporting her career. Without a transition from one stage to the next, it feels as if we are seeing two men instead of one who evolved into a better person.

Still, the woolly writing of the husband apart, it is possible to buy into Kamal’s conception of Kamala as tough yet conflicted, although a reason is not proffered or justified – it is possible if you heed his reminders that Aami is just an interpretation of this very public woman.

The reminders come mostly through the medium of the ageless Lord Krishna (played by Tovino Thomas) from whom she seeks solace and answers when she is most disturbed.

These are the scenes in which Kamal indicates that his Aami is a portrayal not just of the Kamala Das/Surayya extensively covered by the news media and revealed in her interviews, but also of the fantasy of herself that existed in Kamala’s head as Kamal envisioned her.

The director’s intent is encapsulated in this line spoken by Malayala Nadu magazine’s editor: “Ente Katha. Madhavikutty. Is this all true or are they this woman’s imaginings?” The same can be asked of Aami: is this all true or are they this man Kamal’s imaginings?

Aami’s appeal for you then depends on whether you are willing to buy into those imaginings.

The film worked in large parts for me because in recounting Aami/Kamala’s life, Kamal has adopted a poetic, ruminative tone that I found compelling. He is aided greatly in this by Bijibal’s mellow background score, M. Jayachandran’s tuneful songs and especially Shreya Ghosal’s beautiful singing of them (for the nth time, hats off to her for her Malayalam diction), and the atmospherics conjured up by Madhu Neelakandan’s cinematography.

When the narrative does occasionally become leaden, Krishna returns and lifts the film as much as he lifts Kamala’s mood. This is in no small measure due to Tovino Thomas’ likeable screen presence and the writing of the dialogues here to sound like conversations between real people instead of ponderous metaphysical reflections. Aami’s Krishna is a delightfully non-judgmental and secular being who addresses the protagonist as a friend, not as a deity on a pedestal.

An array of well-known character actors appear in minuscule roles. Each leaves an impression though Renji Panicker as the Malayala Nadu editor benefits from the best writing of the lot. Through that one character – disparaging Kamala before others, lascivious when alone with her – Kamal’s screenplay captures the hypocrisy of a deeply patriarchal, sexually repressed society that was equal parts shocked and fascinated by a woman’s remarkable openness about concerns usually swept under the carpet. Murali Gopy is good as Madhav Das despite the writing.

The casting of the lead could have been better. If you can tolerate the distractingly thick and dry, odd-coloured make-up Manju Warrier is saddled with (it ages her too much when Aami/Kamala is in her 20s, then not enough until the final shots), you might be drawn into her world as I was.

The star delivers an involved portrayal of the adult Kamala, and is well matched by the sprightly Aangelina Abraham playing her as a child. The deadpan Neelanjana is a poor choice though for a teen Aami. She weighs down crucial scenes with the girl’s first crush (a truly handsome Muslim art teacher) and in her husband’s bedroom. I was relieved when the segment with her was over.

The political hot potato in Kamala’s story is her conversion to Islam in 1999. It is the film’s most interesting and simultaneously disappointing portion. Kamal does a good job of depicting the controversy that erupted when Kamala Surayya first emerged on the scene, and in reminding us that her decision was none of anyone’s business but her own. Among Aami’s most gripping passages is a scene that has Kamala confronting Hindu fundamentalists who try to obstruct her return to Punnayurkulam. Another shows Muslim conservatives dictating life choices to her.

One version of events is that Kamala embraced Islam under the influence of a younger man she fell in love with. She herself told the press she was drawn to Islam when she studied it to teach two Muslim children she had adopted 27 years earlier (her family has confirmed the adoption). Aami opts for the former, possibly because it allows the screenplay to steer clear of the highly critical comments Kamala made about Hinduism that infuriated Hindu extremists at the time.

The film also plays safe with Muslim extremists by offering platitudes about Islam’s respect for women without a countering voice. The late writer had a right to change her religion, but it would not have been anti-freedom for Aami to critique her more ridiculous pronouncements about Islamic culture in interviews, including a romanticisation of the purdah and what at least some readers must surely have seen as a betrayal by a woman who once abhorred fetters, when she said, “I’ve had enough freedom… Restrictions bring their own happiness.”

Kamal sticks his neck out by dwelling at length on Kamala’s conversion, but sadly does not go far enough. Similarly, in the matter of Kamala’s friendships with men, except in the case of Akbar Ali played by Anoop Menon, it avoids revealing how often her fantasies translated into an amorous reality. While Kamal may argue that he genuinely believed they did not, the tacky handling of an interlude with an impactless male Italian pen friend indicates some awkwardness on the part of the director on this front.

This hesitation encapsulates the pluses and minuses of a film that takes on a controversial subject, offers a commentary on social mores in Kamala Das/Surayya’s lifetime, but holds back beyond a point. Aami’s thoughtful tone is engaging but it is too risk-averse to be as captivating as the woman whose story it tells.

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

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	155 minutes

This review was also published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/aami-movie-review-manju-warrier-holds-attention-in-an-often-engaging-but-too-often-risk-averse-biopic-4346001.html

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