Manjummel Boys: Thinly written, inconsistent but ultimately rewarding survival drama (Review 797)

Release date:	February 22, 2024
Director:	Chidambaram
Cast:	Soubin Shahir, Sreenath Bhasi, Deepak Parambol, Chandu Salimkumar, Khalidh Rahman, Ganapathi S. Poduval, Balu Varghese, Abhiram Radhakrishnan, Arun Kurian, Lal Jr, Vishnu Reghu
Language:	Malayalam with Tamil

 

“Jeevithathil stuck aayitulla paara.” That’s how one of the key players in the new Malayalam film Manjummel Boys, describes a precariously poised, giant boulder that he sees while wandering around Kodaikanal in Tamil Nadu with a gaggle of man-children. His words are appropriately poetic and thoughtful for the setting, in a departure from the gang’s unruliness and loudness until then. The contrast is emblematic of the effect that nature can have on even the most restless of humans, and offers an insight into what Manjummel Boys might have been if it had lived up to the potential of its premise all the way. As things stand, this survival thriller cum coming-of-age saga is outstanding in part yet thinly written and inconsistently toned for the most part. 

 

Manjummel Boys features an ensemble of boisterous buddies – all of them men, all barring one of them young, all of them old enough to be deemed terribly immature for their age – in a decade before cellphones and social media had flooded our world. Manjummel is the name of a locality in Kochi with which the ‘boys’ christen themselves. Their wayward existence is disrupted by a tragic turn of events during their hill station sojourn that tests their spirit and their relationships. 

 

The film is written and directed by Chidambaram who notched up a hit with his directorial debut Jan-E-Man. The latter smoothly and effectively combined a sense of humour with grim themes such as depression, separation and death. Manjummel Boys aims at a drastic shift in mood from light-heartedness at first to utter gloom tempered by hope, but without the same finesse.

 

The narrative kicks off by introducing us to the rambunctiousness and camaraderie of these men-who-are-still-boys. The friends are captured making merry at a wedding, engaged in fun and games including a bout of tug of war, hanging out, planning an out-station trip, and at last, actually making that trip. This goes on for what feels like an endless stretch replete with clichés that are rampant in Malayalam male bonding chronicles. In these passages, they shout at rather than speak to each other, noise is used as a substitute for substance and storytelling verve, and precious length that could have been spent on character development is squandered away. 

 

For the record, it is not essential for survival flicks to create character arcs before the high drama of the central plot takes over. The point here is that Chidambaram does spend a lot of time with the ‘boys’ before disaster strikes, but does not make effective use of that period. Later, it becomes clear that their activities in that portion foreshadowed their actions in the second half, and showcasing their layaboutery early on was a way of stressing their strength of character later on. Too bad that this was done through repetitive, formulaic scenes shorn of depth. 

 

There are lots of familiar faces and names in this crowd: Sreenath Bhasi, Soubin Shahir (who is also one of the producers), Deepak Parambol, Ganapathi S. Poduval, Arun Kurian, Balu Varghese and Abhiram Radhakrishnan among them. Half these characters would have been indistinguishable from each other if they weren’t played by recognisable actors.  

 

After much yelling and posing around at scenic spots, towards the end of their stay in Kodaikanal the group decide on a last-minute stop before heading home. Their destination is Devil’s Kitchen a.k.a. Guna Cave, nicknamed after the Tamil cult classic Gunaa (1991) starring Kamal Haasan and Roshni that was shot there. The men continue to act idiotically, but now Chidambaram thankfully also finds space for calm as Shyju Khalid’s camera roams around in awe of the mountains, running its eye over and between rock faces, deep into caves and high above the land, examining the dramatic arrangements of trees and rocks engineered by natural forces. 

 

The tiresome scenes that preceded Manjummel Boys’ arrival at Guna Cave become a distant memory when an accident caused by the men’s irresponsible conduct turns their holiday into a nightmare. The shock of that turning point, the suspense and technical accomplishments of the film from then on – intelligent sound design by Shijin Hutton and Abhishek Nair, and intelligent use of Sushin Shyam’s music complementing the cinematographer’s imaginative exploration of the location – compensate for the continuing limitations in the writing. 

 

In short, Manjummel Boys is an uneven experience. On the one hand, the shooting of the Guna Cave area and the treatment of the twist are impeccable. On the other hand, the scripting continues to be patchy and unsophisticated. The first flashback to the characters’ childhood leading into their  behaviour in desperate circumstances in Kodaikanal is well done. But it gets predictable when it happens again, and then again when their seemingly purposeless shenanigans before the interval come of use in rescue operations. 

 

The last half hour is packed with nail-biting tension despite this. 

 

Manjummel Boys is challenging for another reason. Malayalam and Tamil are fitted naturally into the script, but there were no subtitles played in the hall in Delhi where I watched it. While this could have been the multiplex management’s mess-up (even when producers subtitle their films, theatres in Delhi very often don’t bother to play the subs), a question remains for the makers themselves: since Manjummel Boys’ primary language is Malayalam, why are Malayalam subtitles not embedded in the print itself throughout the Tamil dialogues (in the way they are in one portion depicting characters in Tamil Nadu regaling the visitors from Kerala with lore surrounding Guna Cave, its recent history and mythology)? In its present shape, the film is inaccessible not only to non-Malayalam speakers in that particular hall, it is tough even for Malayalam speakers who do not know Tamil.

 

The Malayalam film industry does not often visit the survival genre, and on those rare outings it has a mixed tracked record. Helen (2019) and Malayankunju (2018) are recent examples that got it right. Like these two, most survival films tend to be intense studies of human nature. They need not be. Manjummel Boys’ problem is that it is not satisfied with action and suspense alone. It wants to be profound but can only partially pull it off. For one, the tribute to Gunaa has not been thought through. If the iconic Tamil film was merely the motivation that spurs the ‘boys’ of Manjummel to visit Guna Cave it would have made sense. However, pointed references are made to Gunaa through song and dialogue that gradually draws a parallel between the pivotal relationship in the earlier film and the willingness of the ‘boys’ here to give up their lives for each other in the end. But Gunaa was not about a healthy love or friendship, it was about unhealthy obsession and delusion. Kamal’s character in that film was mentally unwell, he abducted a woman with whom he believed he had a divine connection, and ultimately preferred death over life without her. To evoke nostalgia for the lovely music of that film is all very well, but the concerted mindless effort to evoke nostalgia for the ‘love’ and ‘sacrifice’ in Gunaa makes Manjummel Boys both intellectually pretentious and intellectually lightweight.

 

Text on screen post-climax reveals that Manjummel Boys is based on the true story of a bravery award winner called Siju David. Knowing that what happened at Guna Cave in Manjummel Boys actually happened in real life adds a layer of chills to the better half of this flawed, partly rewarding film. 

 

Rating (out of 5 stars): 2.5   

 

Running time:

135 minutes

 

Visual courtesy: IMDB  

REVIEW 773: TRANCE

Release date:	Kerala: February 20, 2020 Delhi: February 28, 2020
Director:	Anwar Rasheed
Cast: Language:	Fahadh Faasil, Sreenath Bhasi, Soubin Shahir, Nazriya Nazim Fahadh, Gautham Vasudev Menon, Chemban Vinod Jose, Dileesh Pothan, Vinayakan, Arjun Ashokan Malayalam with some Tamil and English

How can a film descend so dramatically from being profound, poignant and quirky pre-interval to shallow, stretched, sterile and repetitive thereafter?

Director Anwar Rasheed’s Trance takes off brilliantly. Fahadh Faasil plays Viju Prasad, an aspiring motivational speaker talent-spotted by a large corporation and transformed into a religious preacher. The early scenes of Viju in Kanyakumari trying to establish himself in his profession even while struggling to financially and emotionally support his mentally unwell brother are moving. They are also an uncommon blend of quiet yet wacko.

Fahadh dazzles throughout the film, but in the first half he gets to sink his ravenous actor’s teeth into a meaty script. Those manic eyes camouflaged from the world reveal themselves only when he is alone. In his avatar as a pastor, he explodes on stage with a matching manic energy. Those scenes in front of a mirror teeter on the edge of resembling his character Shammi’s signature scene in Kumbalangi Nights, but Fahadh has a distinctive touch that turns them into a tribute and a nod to that iconic 2019 film instead of a copy.

The first half of Trance is also enriched by the presence of Sreenath Bhasi in a brief role as Viju’s troubled sibling Kunjan. Bhasi is less celebrated than Fahadh in Mollywood but he is, without question, one of this industry’s most gifted actors. In the little time he gets on screen, he makes Kunjan an understated mix of fearful and fearsome, fond of Viju yet possibly resentful towards him because he is conscious – without ever having been taunted – of being a burden on his protective, devoted elder brother. What lies beneath that boyish facade one cannot quite tell, and Bhasi makes the character intriguing.

It is heartening that for a second year in a row, Malayalam cinema has made the effort to dwell on mental health, a theme that Indian cinema at large neglects.

The time spent on Viju and Kunjan’s relationship is the best written, best directed part of Trance.

The other is the electric interaction between Viju and a journalist called Mathews (Soubin Shahir) in a TV studio. The latter is in top form as a man pretending to be what he is not, quite like Viju.

Vincent Vadakkan’s screenplay excels too in its initial depictions of the machinations and manipulations at play when a wolf in preacher’s clothing stands on a stage working a frenzied mob of the faithful. Those passages are enthralling and oftentimes hilarious. After the interval though, similar scenes are repeatedly rolled out with little that is new being added to what has already been shown and said. By then the downhill slide is well and truly underway.

This is when it becomes noticeable that apart from Viju and Kunjan, there is absolutely no detailing in the writing of the rest of the players in Trance. Among others, Gautham Vasudev Menon, Chemban Vinod Jose and Dileesh Pothan are victims of one-note characterisation. The first two are evil representatives of a corporate giant, the latter is their amoral lackey – that is it, there is nothing more to them.

The low point of Trance though is the token female presence provided by Nazriya Nazim Fahadh.

(Some readers may deem certain parts of this paragraph spoilers) Nazriya’s decidedly marginal character, Esther Lopez, is brought in by the villains to be Viju a.k.a. Pastor Joshua Carlton’s secretary, to get close to him and unearth certain information about him. Obviously a regular professional would not serve their purpose. The recruiter is asked to shed light on Esther’s murky background, and she offers this cryptic explanation: “the usual – boyfriend scene.” OMG, she had a – you do not want your children hearing this – b.o.y.f.r.i.e.n.d.? When the lady explains herself, we learn that by “boyfriend scene” she meant that Esther fell in love, was ditched, took to alcohol and drugs, and perhaps has a child. (Spoiler alert ends)

The film is straining at this point to appear cool, but unwittingly betrays the writer’s biases – biases, it must be said, that are not unknown to commercial Malayalam cinema. This is a world in which sweet, young, innocent-looking women look sad immediately after sex. Because to a conservative mind, sorrow is a woman’s natural reaction to sex, even when consensual? Insert eye-roll emoji here. There is nothing to indicate that Esther Lopez is an assumed name, so it must also be asked why she could not have been a Marykutty Jose, Parvathy Rajendran or Shazia Mohammed. Was this a sub-conscious choice? What point was being conveyed by writing this alcohol-swilling drug addict as a woman with a decidedly Anglo-Indian sounding name who lives in Mumbai and has a Hindi line from a song playing in the background in her introductory scene?

Boss, all the slickness in the world – production design: Ajayan Chalissery, music: Sushin Shyam and Jackson Vijayan, camerawork: Amal Neerad – cannot camouflage your innate prejudice and traditionalism or the fact that in the second half you have allowed style to trump depth.

There is so much promise in the first half of Trance in its depiction of religion as an opioid. The second half though, completely fails to take that substantial beginning forward. A sub-plot involving Vinayakan has potential but its soul is overshadowed by production polish.

More important, if the goal was to probe corruption in religion and the exploitation of gullible devotees, then by zeroing in on a niche Christian group rather than mainstream Christianity or for that matter Hinduism or Islam, Rasheed and Vadakkan have taken a comparatively less risky path. As far as the writing challenge goes, ridiculing an overtly madcap religious sect that flails its arms about while screaming “Hallelujah” and “Praise the Lord” is relatively easy. Investigating such a group, since it is off-mainstream, is also politically safer than delving into the mind games, questionable finances and regressiveness of a more widely recognised sect from any one of the major world religions with a presence in Kerala.

Even within the space occupied by smaller, corporatised churches, Trance ends up being superficial. For a more insightful take on such organisations, check out the admittedly soapish but nevertheless insightful American series Greenleaf on Netflix.

In the end, in any case Trance seems less pre-occupied with depth and more concerned about impressing the audience with its cool camera angles. When a man kills another, I was too distracted by the blood drops falling in slow motion into a transparent drink to be disturbed by his motivations. And the film’s epilogue-like closing in which a gallant dude rescues a woman who was making no effort to rescue herself (because what else can a paavam girl do but wait around for Lochinvar on his white horse?) seems to have been thrown in only as an excuse to take the story to foreign lands.

I cannot believe that Trance was made by the director of one of my all-time favourite Malayalam films, Ustad Hotel. Next time cook that script some more, please.

  

Rating (out of 5 stars): 2.5

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	170 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/trance-movie-review-fahadh-faasils-manic-energy-lends-an-edge-to-an-initially-promising-ultimately-undeserving-script-8100991.html

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

REVIEW 749: ANDROID KUNJAPPAN VERSION 5.25

Release date:	Kerala: November 8, 2019 Delhi: November 15, 2019
Director:	Ratheesh Balakrishnan Poduval
Cast: Language:	Soubin Shahir, Suraj Venjaramoodu, Kendy Zirdo, Saiju Kurup, Parvathi T, Megha Mathew, Rajesh Madhavan, Sivadas Kannur, Unni Raja Malayalam with some English

A buffalo on a rampage, teenaged  human beings and a robot in addition, of course, to adult humans – these have been the protagonists of Malayalam films in 2019 so far. Not that serious Indian cinephiles are unaware of this, but if anyone does ask, here is proof that this is a time of experimentation for one of India’s most respected film industries.

Writer-director Ratheesh Balakrishnan Poduval’s contribution to what has been a magnificent year for Malayalam cinema so far is Android Kunjappan Version 5.25, a darling film about a mechanical engineer struggling to take care of his grouchy ageing father while also building a career for himself. 

Subrahmanian, played by Soubin Shahir, dearly loves his exasperating Dad. Over the years he has quit several big-city jobs, at each instance to return to his village in Kerala because good care-givers are hard to come by and even the halfway decent ones find this rigid old man intolerable. Bhaskaran Poduval (Suraj Venjaramoodu) remains ungrateful and unmoved by his son’s evident affection. He has always wanted Subrahmanian to find a job in the vicinity of their home so that he can be available at all times. Do it not out of a sense of duty, he keeps insisting though, do it out of love. 

Now in his mid-30s, desperate for a job and a life of his own, Subrahmanian ropes in a robot to be Bhaskaran’s companion and domestic help while he is away. 

Android Kunjappan Version 5.25 raises a question that is increasingly occupying filmmakers worldwide. Can even the smartest machines experience love and fulfill the human need for it? American director Spike Jonze’s moving Oscar-nominated 2013 film Her had a lonely man (Joaquin Phoenix) falling for a virtual assistant (Scarlett Johansson’s voice). The equally moving British film Ex Machina starred Alicia Vikander as a humanoid robot being tested to see if she can match human intelligence. The far less tech-driven yet just as visually impressive Android Kunjappan explores the relationship that develops between a crotchety elderly human and a robot who never feels insulted. 

Film budgets in India are a microscopic fraction of what the West can afford. Poduval has told the press that financial constraints prompted the team to actually physically build a robot instead of conjuring one up with VFX. The result is arguably better than any illusion that could have been constructed on a computer screen. The boyish-looking machine Along with Kerala’s lush greenery and Bhaskaran’s decaying house as shot by cinematographer Sanu John Varughese make for an interesting and unique visual combination in this endearing, thoughtful story.

The people of Bhaskaran’s village nickname the robot Kunjappan. He is a loveable little fellow, but Poduval does not let the narrative get cutesy around him. The film is packed with snapshots of life in rural Kerala, its colourful characters ranging from the merely curious to the painfully intrusive, from gossips to unimaginably supportive folk. Android Kunjappan is unrelentingly funny, yet it is at all times profoundly philosophical.

Soubin Shahir is pitch perfect here as a son torn between a parent he loves and his desire for an existence beyond his village. At 43, Suraj Venjaramoodu is not the natural choice to play a 70/80-year-old. Since older men are not denied opportunities in the way women are, this is a point not related to principle as much as to the artistic challenges involved. As it happens, Venjaramoodu’s makeup and his impression of a fiery but frail old man are astonishingly good. The actor does not allow this to become the overriding aspect of his turn as Bhaskaran though – truth be told, his gait and posture are so consistent throughout, that early in the film I forgot the character is about double the age of the actor. All that is visible on screen is his sensitive performance.

Bhaskaran’s considerate nephew Prasannan is played by the gifted character artiste Saiju Kurup. It is a well-written part, and as always Kurup does full justice to it.

The other key individual in Android Kunjappan is Hitomi, Subrahmanian’s colleague of Japanese-Malayali descent played by debutant Kendy Zirdo. Hitomi is unusual for Malayalam cinema – a foreigner who is not exoticised or given sketchy characterisation. Beautiful though Sudani from Nigeria was, Samuel/Sudu in that film always remained an outsider being observed by the storyteller, always “the other”, whereas it is clear that once he dispenses with Hitomi’s explanation for her knowledge of Malayalam, Poduval gets down to viewing her as a person rather than a Japanese-Malayali person.

That said, unless you have never met an Indian from east of the Orissa-Bengal belt, you have to just hear Hitomi speak a few words of English to know that Zirdo is not Japanese. Sure enough a Google search reveals that she is from Arunachal Pradesh. Perfectionism would have called for coaching the young actor to sound Japanese. That should be the next step in Mollywood’s evolution. In the present context though, it is a pleasure to see Malayalam cinema looking beyond Malayalis and beyond even Indians for its stories, and writing a foreigner as a credible character with empathy. Zirdo is a sprightly ball of energy, she makes Hitomi charming and her Malayalam is a joy to hear.

The smaller satellite roles in Android Kunjappan are played by artistes who look and sound so real, it is as if they have been recruited from the local populace.

Android Kunjappan’s all-round adorability overshadows its flaws and moments of hesitation. The strand involving Saudamini, played by Parvathi T, for one, does not quite come together. (Some readers may consider the next two sentences spoilers) In a scene where we discover that Subrahmanian has been secretly observing his father in the house through a camera, the tone of the narrative suggests  that Poduval has not considered issues of privacy in the context of the elderly. And in the end, when Subrahmanian tailors his plans once again around his father, thus allowing Bhaskaran to get away with not budging from the status quo, it does seem like the script opted for a path it deemed comparatively safe in a society that tends to romanticise parenthood and demand that we deify parents irrespective of their failings. (Spoiler alert ends)

I suppose what makes Android Kunjappan special anyway is that it takes courage to even acknowledge on the Indian screen that a parent could be selfish and not a saint. What gives it nuance is the way it makes the hero’s love for his difficult father believable, and how it works to endear Bhaskaran to the audience even as we accept that he is a jerk.

This is what makes Android Kunjappan a pathbreaking film steeped in commentary about age, caste, class, religious bigotry, social and familial pressures. When Bhaskaran and Kunjappan discuss the former’s attraction for a woman in the neighbourhood, Kunjappan points out that in Japan if you love a person you openly tell them so. “That is not how it is here (in India/Kerala),” Bhaskaran replies. “Here you either rape her or pour petrol on her and set her on fire.” The scene is not designed as a joke – thankfully, Poduval is no Omar Lulu – so its matter-of-factness makes his observation a tighter slap on the face of Indian/Malayali society than any character delivering a speech on the subject of consent.

The use of technology in this film is impressive precisely because it does not overtly seek to impress with its futurism. Kunjappan is cute and looks slick, but it is clear that the story and its humanity are of paramount importance to Poduval.  It is no wonder then that despite its overall light-heartedness, Android Kunjappan Version 5.25 paints a poignant portrait of loneliness and potential human-machine equations enriched by the writer’s deep comprehension of the incomprehensibility of human love.

 

Rating (out of 5 stars): 3.5

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	140 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/android-kunjappan-version-5-25-movie-review-a-crotchety-old-man-bonds-with-a-robot-in-kerala-7668821.html

Visuals courtesy IMDB