REVIEW 611: NJAN MARYKKUTTY

Release date:	Kerala: June 15, Delhi: June 22, 2018
Director:	Ranjith Sankar
Cast: Language:	Jayasurya, Jewel Mary, Innocent, Aju Varghese, Joju George, Shobha Mohan, Suraj Venjaramoodu, Malavika Menon, Siddhartha Siva, Kochu Preman, Jins Baskar, Advaith Jayasurya Malayalam

Mathukkutty has been torn by internal conflict since his childhood. Though born with the external appearance of a boy, he has always identified as a girl, and grows into adulthood feeling like a woman trapped in a man’s body. Realising that this inner turmoil will haunt him forever if he does not become who he believes he was meant to be, he quits his high-flying corporate job in Chennai, undergoes gender reassignment surgery to begin the physical transformation to a woman and returns to Kerala for this arduous journey.

Writer-director Ranjith Sankar’s latest film is the story of Marykkutty nee Mathukkutty – not necessarily told in the order followed by that opening paragraph – and the many battles she must fight in a society that not merely rejects her but reacts viciously and even with physical violence towards this new challenge to the patriarchal status quo.

Men molest, humiliate and defame her. A female government official snarls at her for giving up the huge social advantages of being a man. Shunned by some, ridiculed or assaulted by others, she also finds kindness in unexpected places.

The most notable aspect of Njan Marykkutty is the normalisation of a character who, across Indian film industries, would usually be a source of humour. When Marykkutty is lampooned, the lampooning comes from people in the film, not the tone of the film itself.

This is significant because mainstream Mollywood in particular is unapologetically patriarchal and frighteningly misogynistic too often. Ranjith Sankar himself has revealed disturbing gender politics in earlier works: his supernatural flick Pretham (2016), for instance, among other things featured an ugly rape joke by Jayasurya’s character. 

Njan Marykkutty appears to emerge from conviction, so hopefully he has evolved. If his writing of this transitioning woman can be faulted at all, it is for its inability to see any faults in her. A member of a marginalised community does not have to be a saint to deserve equal rights, and this sanitisation is another form of othering to guard against.

That Sankar needs to evolve further becomes evident in a scene in which a Collector (Suraj Venjaramoodu) snubs a man for his transphobia by insinuating that he is a eunuch. Err, if you see eunuch as a pejorative, then you are part of the problem, no?

In another scene, Sankar seems to imply that reservations are for untalented individuals through a conversation between Marykkutty and the Collector, which fails to grasp the social complexities that give rise to the need for affirmative action.

In its own way Njan Marykkutty buys into prejudice again in an unthinking scene in which Marykkutty is asked by her teacher, “Are you a feminist?” and she feels the need to issue a clichéd denial. “No, I am a humanist,” she says. Umm, you are not a feminist, Marykkutty? So you are against gender equality? Duh.

The screenplay also needed greater clarity in a conversation in which Marykkutty states: “I am not a transgender, I’m transsexual.” Since transgender is an umbrella term that covers transsexual, it is unclear whether Marykkutty is not aware of this or whether she objects to being labelled with a general rather than specific term. Yeah yeah, I know what some of you are saying – this is not a documentary. But when you choose to make a film on a theme about which there is such widespread ignorance, you need to find ways to disseminate correct information without sounding like a PhD thesis.

These questionable portions in Njan Marykkutty do not, however, eclipse its over-arching inspirational spirit. The fulcrum of the film is Jayasurya’s interpretation of Marykkutty shorn of all tropes that have been seen as a compulsory aspect of LGBT+ individuals by most Indian filmmakers and actors, with a few exceptions. Don’t come looking for a limp wrist, over-the-top camp mannerisms, swivelling hips and a high-pitched voice here – this is not to say that trans persons with such characteristics do not exist, but that there are different kinds of trans persons and Indian cinema has rarely acknowledged that fact.

The only overt changes Sankar and Jayasurya make involve a visible touch of makeup, a switch to saris and blossoming breasts – the rest is barely discernible. Arun Manohar and Saritha Jayasurya are credited for the film’s costumes, and Saritha reportedly designed the endless array of gorgeous cotton saris that Marykkutty wears. Her wardrobe too defies Indian cinema’s stereotypes of trans persons.

Jayasurya’s sensitive portrayal of Marykkutty sans caricature is on a par with Sanchari Vijay’s National Award-winning turn in 2015’s Kannada release Naanu Avanalla…Avalu (I Am Not He, I Am She). As he did with the relatively ordinary Captain recently, here too he has shown his determination to be an actor rather than a star in his roles.

The most credible aspect of Sankar’s powerful screenplay is the equation between a transphobic policeman (Joju George) and Marykkutty. The defining passage in Njan Marykkutty comes when that cop takes sides in a fight between the heroine and some hooligans. The manner in which he, his colleagues and those goons manufacture a series of believable lies playing on prevalent biases against transsexuals and women is chilling.

It is interesting that through her struggles Marykkutty seeks refuge with a woman friend (Jewel Mary) who herself is widely reviled for her non-conformist life. Although the characterisation of a friendly RJ (Aju Varghese) is briefly confusing – creep or nice guy? – and Siddhartha Siva’s acting when his character flirts with Marykkutty borders on comedy that is incongruous in the kind of film this one clearly wants to be, it is interesting too that Sankar does not see a romantic relationship with a man as essential to complete a trans woman. Self-realisation and the acceptance of the self are far more important than the approval of others, even our loved ones, Njan Marykkutty tells us.

Barring Siva and Venjaramoodu, who does not quite pull off his nice-guy act here, the rest of the supporting cast do a good job of their roles, big and small.

Though the film’s background score gets mushy and over-emphatic at times, the camera’s relaxed gaze on Jayasurya is crucial to viewing Marykkutty as a regular person. Not once does DoP Vishnu Narayanan objectify or exoticise this unconventional lead.

This then is Ranjith Sankar’s great achievement here: that he sees Marykkutty not just as a trans person, but as a person. Jayasurya’s unaffected performance in Njan Marykkutty is a landmark not just for his career or Malayalam cinema, but for Indian cinema at large.

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

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	126 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/njan-marykkutty-movie-review-jayasuryas-unaffected-performance-as-trans-woman-is-landmark-for-indian-cinema-4577361.html

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

NAANU AVANALLA…AVALU, TRANSGENDERS IN FILMS & MAINSTREAM SOCIETY / COLUMN PUBLISHED IN THE HINDU BUSINESSLINE

SHE, HE, THEM AND US

Sanchari Vijay’s sensitive performance as a transgender in the uplifting Naanu Avanalla...Avalu ought to be seen by mainstream audiences outside Karnataka

By Anna MM Vetticad

The audience breaks into applause as the central figure on screen snubs a self-righteous stranger on a train.

The actor in question is Vijay, but not that Vijay whose face is plastered all over Tamil Nadu. The character in question is the film’s lead, yet not the now-cinematically-cliched Angry Young Man for whom such wolf-whistle-worthy dialogues are usually written in India. As she dispenses her lines to an antagonistic fellow though, viewers cheer the way they usually do for mega-starrers filled with song ‘n’ dance, melodrama and bombast.

I look around me, pleasantly surprised by this reception for the Kannada film Naanu Avanalla…Avalu (I Am Not He…She) in a large hall at the International Film Festival of Kerala in Thiruvananthapuram. Although festival crowds are often more open-minded than most, I was expecting some degree of conservatism and discomfort in response to this film about a transgender called Madesha/Vidya. Quite to the contrary, the audience here reacts with positivity and plaudits.

Director B.S. Lingadevaru’s Naanu Avanalla…Avalu is the story of Madesha, born a boy in rural Karnataka. He is a bright student but his peers are too busy mocking his effeminate demeanour to appreciate his classroom acumen. As he grows older and becomes more aware of himself, he begins to feel like a woman trapped in a man’s body. In a journey that takes him from his village to Bengaluru, Pune and Cuddappah, Madesha earns an MA degree and joins the hijra community living on the shadowy margins of society, ultimately asserting a female identity complete with women’s clothes, the name Vidya and castration (termed “nirvana” in her circles). She then experiences discrimination in her quest for a mainstream profession.

The film is about Vidya’s refusal to let this social bigotry force her into a life of begging and sex work. It is about her determination not to allow the chauvinism of others to dictate her life choices. Except for one difficult sequence dealing with the unhygienic conditions in which castrations are conducted underground, this is a truly uplifting film. What makes it even more so is the realisation, in its closing moments, that Naanu Avanalla…Avalu is drawn from a true story, the autobiographical I Am Vidya: A Transgender’s Journey by Chennai-based NGO worker and theatre activist Vidya a.k.a. Living Smile Vidya.

Naanu Avanalla…Avalu earned two National Awards this summer: Best Actor for Kannada theatre artiste Sanchari Vijay’s restrained performance as Madesha/Vidya, far removed from the caricaturish portrayals of transgenders in Indian mainstream cinema; and Best Make-up. The film has also been screened at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne in August and the International Film Festival of India, Goa, in November. It got a limited theatrical release in Karnataka on September 25. It ought to be seen by mainstream Indian audiences outside Karnataka too.

The public tends to assume that films with such subjects would be boring, heavy and/or hard to watch. In truth, the lasting memory from Naanu Avanalla…Avalu is of Madesha’s smile when he realises for the first time that there are others like him out there, and of Vidya’s compassion, spirit and fire.

Such as the scene mentioned in the opening paragraph, that flash of controlled temper she displays on a train during her brief tryst with mendicancy, when a passenger dismisses her as being uneducated and too lazy to work hard for a living like everyone else. Vidya openly challenges him, pointing out that she is, in fact, a postgraduate who society is unwilling to employ.

These are scenes so commonplace in parts of India that we barely notice — hijras seeking alms, hijras barging into weddings to sing, dance and demand money, hijras blessing newly-weds and new-borns. Yet, transgenders are a rare sight in the mainstream. Shabnam Mausi being elected to the Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly for 1998-2003, dancer-actor-activist Laxmi Narayan Tripathi appearing on the reality show Sacch Ka Saamna in 2009 to dispel myths about hijras, and the Supreme Court’s landmark 2014 ruling recognising transgenders as the “third gender” have all been uncommon developments.

Over the years, mainstream cinema has lampooned anyone who does not conform to traditionally accepted notions of gender or at best has treated such persons as a source of comedy and little else. Films like Mahesh Bhatt’s Tamanna (1997), with actor Paresh Rawal playing a pivotal character who is a hijra, have been unusual.

Vijay’s National Award for Naanu Avanalla…Avalu has come in a year in which the media has reported other significant milestones: Madhu Kinnar was elected India’s first transgender mayor in Chhattisgarh’s Raigarh Municipal Corporation this January, and last month, the Madras High Court paved the way for K. Prithika Yashini to become the country’s first transgender police sub-inspector.

For the most part though, India’s transgenders remain an object of ridicule, contempt, discrimination or, at the very least, apathy.

Even the well-intentioned among us usually sweep away such issues into rarely visited nooks and crannies of our minds where they are unlikely to give us a pang of conscience or an attack of basic human decency. Naanu Avanalla…Avalu drags every discomfiting question out of those dark corners into the light, compelling us to confront them and our own role in perpetuating prejudice by, if nothing else, turning a blind eye to it.

(Anna M.M. Vetticad is the author of The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic. Twitter: @annavetticad)

(This column was first published in The Hindu Businessline newspaper on December 19, 2015)

Original link:

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/watch/she-he-them-and-us/article8000655.ece

Photo caption: Sanchari Vijay as Madesha/Vidya in scenes from Naanu Avanalla…Avalu

Photographs courtesy: MD Niche Media Consultants

Previous instalment of Film Fatale: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/watch/chemmeen-marks-a-golden-milestone/article7899728.ece