22 Female Kottayam: Fighting the 'man'

Kerala film industry was once known for dolling out soft porn films that made money. Surprisingly, the trend is changing. For the last couple of years, a number of interesting films with contemporary and very relevant themes are being made in Kerala. And most of these films are low-budgeted, but they are making more than double in terms of profit. Some of the interesting films that have come out in the recent past in Malayalam include, ‘Chappa Kurish’, ‘Ee Adutha Kalath’ ‘Indian Rupee’, ‘Salt and Pepper’ and ’22 Female Kottayam’. Each of these films has been well-crafted.

’22 Female Kottayam’ is a female-oriented film that portrays how a woman can fight male exploitation through which she all but loses her self esteem and confidence. While man thinks that woman is essentially at his service, here woman proves him wrong and makes him learn a lesson or two on what woman is and can be capable of.

Director: Aashiq Abu

Film Clip

The film revolves around Tessa, a nurse who aspires to go to Gulf in search of better prospects. She meets a travel agent Cyril who, knowing well that she has no one, dupes her by pretending to fall in love with her. While the concept of love is real for Tessa, for Cyril it is just another game. She is raped twice by Cyril’s employer and later accused of drug peddling and sent to jail. Life seems all lost for her. However, she is not the one to give up easily without making the culprits realise what it means to suffer and for no reason. And lesson she does teach, for as she admits, she has nothing to lose, after being raped twice and seeing hell in jail.

The film raises several issues. Who has to bring about liberation for women? Who has to empower her? Traditionally, it is believed that men have to secure liberation for women. However, the film seems to suggest something different. It is women themselves who have to fight their own liberation and also fight the injustice meted out to them by patriarchy. But, what means could they use? Any means that will serve the larger goal!

While the film is not preachy or indulging in male bashing, it does make a point quite powerfully. Rima Kallingal as Tessa steals the show in the film. 

- Melwyn Pinto SJ

Peaceful Warrior: Making journey itself the destination!

Well, one has heard of setting a goal, a destination and striving or journeying towards that goal and destination relentlessly. But can journey itself be a destination? Can one enjoy the present moment instead of trying hard to make the best of it to achieve something in the future?

“The journey is what brings us happiness, not the destination!” This is the lesson Dan Millman learns the hard way in the film Peaceful Warrior. And he learns this through an illusory character whom he calls Soc (Socretes). 

Director: Victor Salva

Film Clip

Dan is a gymnast who wants to achieve greatness in his life. He wants to be a great gymnast. But destiny has other ideas for him, as his plans are shattered due to a series of accidents. And then he meets this character, or he imagines he meets; who teaches him some hard lessons. He teaches Dan that what is important is to enjoy each moment and not to worry about what fruit it would bring. He teaches him that life will be wasted if one only thinks about the destination and forgets the journey. Dan learns that even journey itself can be one’s destination. It is only this way that one can make the most of life.

The film directed by Victor Salva and based on the novel Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman is an inspirational sports film that teaches a different lesson from what the world would usually teach. At the end of the film we see Dan just giving himself totally to the given moment on the still rings of the gymnasium weaving an incredible poetry of movements raising the eyebrows of one and all. Of course, the audience by now knows the secret which is not revealed to the judges and the live audience.

Indeed Peaceful Warriour is an inspiring tale to all those who only think of results and goals, forgetting, thus, to relish the given moment.  What matters most is that one lives entirely in the present moment. 

- Melwyn Pinto SJ

Cairo 678: Fighting sexual harassment

Egypt has a fairly good film culture. The country, though Muslim, is not as orthodox and fundamentalist as certain other theocratic countries. In the last few years, the film fraternity in Egypt has been releasing quality films.

Cairo 678 is one such Egyptian film in Arabic language that came in 2010. Supposedly based on real life incidents, it revolves around a feminine theme: self defence against sexual harassment. How should a woman react when she becomes the victim of derision, eve-teasing and groping in public places? Why should a woman be exploited and ridiculed in such fashion just because she is a woman? And how is a woman supposed to respond when the entire society is governed by principles and norms prescribed by men to suit their own agenda? The solution that the women in this film find is self defence of a unique kind: they pork needles to the vital parts of those who grope them in the crowded buses.

Director: Mohammed Diab

Film Clip

The plot has several twists and turns, giving the film quite a surprising narrative of three women from three different walks of life. One of them is a stage comedian, who has to face a near death situation of eve teasing and road rage of a hooligan. The three-some come together to devise their own methods to fight sexual harassment. While you sympathise with these women who resort to unusual means to protect themselves, you also wonder if such means are effective in the long run. Further, you may also be confronted with the question as to should not society bow its head in shame for driving women to such helplessness.

Director Mohammed Diab has, no doubt, raked up a healthy debate through a powerful film. It is not preachy, neither is it mellowed in conveying the one important message: a male-dominated society cannot think it can play around with the assumed weakness of women. The fact that this message comes from a film directed by a male director adds to the seriousness of the subject. 

- Melwyn Pinto SJ

Eega: Celebrating filmic possibilities

Can a housefly take revenge on a human being? Yes! S S Rajamouli’s (Telugu film director) phenomenal Eega (Fly) has shown that even a fly can take revenge; mind you, the director has shown it quite realistically and you almost believe that it is true! Call it Eega (Telugu), Naanee (Tamil) or Eecha (Malayalam), but ultimately it is flying high everywhere! 

Director: S S Rajamouli

Film Clip

This Eega is a simple story about how a lover boy Nani (Nani), in love with a micro artist Bindhu (Samantha) is killed by an eccentric billionaire Sudeep (Sudeep). Nani reincarnates himself as a fly and makes Sudeep’s life hellish, and impossible to live.

What makes the film work are its breathtaking graphics, visual effects and CGI (computer generated imagery). The important elements that really impact the audience are the birth of Eega and how it visualises the world with its hexagonal view.

In the second half, the fly reveals its identity to ‘his’ sweetheart. In the song ‘Gagageega’ Eega has a shower bath, does body building exercises and gets dust proof goggles. This song is arguably one of the best visualised songs ever made. The teasing gestures and emotions of the fly are hilarious and seem realistic as well. In the penultimate climax scenes, the escape of Eega from eagles and gun bullets are magnificently shot. Sudeep has done a commendable job as the anti-hero. 

The entire film is a story narration by a father to his lovely daughter. Eega’s usage of its weapon (needle) and killing Sudeep is a visual extravaganza. Eega is indeed a classic revenge story told in unimaginable proportions (a few- millimetre vs. a six-foot). Well, the film itself may not classify itself as one that raises issues for discussion in different circles, but through this film we are once again swept off our feet by the immense possibilities of film both as an art and a visual narrative that has its roots deeply entrenched in technology.  

- Sirisha Akshintala

Shala: Going back to school

Once again here is a gem from Marathi. Shala (School), a 2011 film takes you back to school and makes you feel nostalgic, especially if you have had a humble schooling. Set in 1970s India, the film portrays myriad Indian socio-cultural complexities through the eyes of a bunch of students.

Mukund Joshi is a ninth standard boy who ‘falls in love’ with his classmate Shirodkar. He is so mad after her that even as he is good in studies, he registers himself for tuitions just to be with his girl. One might think this is absurd, and the whole aspect of love affairs in the high school not convincing. However, the director Sujay Dahake has weaved a compelling story of love with hardly any grand romanticism and glamour that is intrinsic to an adult love. Here is a young boy who is so passionate about a girl and his love for her is pure and precious. Hence it does not seem unwieldy and artificial at all.

Director: Sujay Dahake

Film Clip

The film is also about the Indian struggle to keep pace with democratic principles. In 1975 Indira Gandhi declared Emergency and that brought about tremendous upheaval in the socio-economic and cultural spheres of India. It affected education as well. The director tries a bit to depict this part of our history through the eyes of the protagonists.

The school that is portrayed in the film, of course, is a typical idea of an Indian grand narrative called ‘School’. It has all sort of characters (call them teachers). There are those who are so full of ego and think that only brown wrapper is the best for the note books. There are others who have their own idiosyncrasies that keep them low; while there are also a few who are more sympathetic to the students.

While the film is hardly a mirror to what schooling must have been in medieval India, it, no doubt, gives a glimpse into its influence in society. And, well, the love story of two village teens has all the characteristics of a fairy tale in a real world. 

- Melwyn Pinto SJ

Sarah’s Key: Lessons from history

“We are all products of history,” says a dying father to his son William. The scene is from the poignant narrative film Sarah’s Key, a 2010 French-English film directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner.

How true! Of course we are all products of our history, whether we like it or not. History may be the thing of the past, but no one must forget history and history must shape our present and put us in right mode for the future. The difficulty is when we refuse to learn from history and make the same mistakes over and over again, as it happens in the world today.

Director: Gilles Paquet-Brenner

Film Clip

The film is about a journalist’s (Julia played by Kristine Scot-Thomas) quest to go behind history to know the truth about the deportation of hundreds of French Jews to concentration camps in Auschwitz during the Second World War. Most of them died there, though one of the two little girls who escaped the camp managed to survive. The journalist takes it upon herself to find out where and how that little girl Sarah, who escaped in 1942, is in the present. Her journey takes her to different places and different people. She has also to face the reality, though with a little relief at the end, that her family too is somehow connected to the whole episode of that deportation. Does she find Sarah? How does she confront her? The answer to these questions makes the crux of the whole narrative and is depicted with utmost precision, raising curiosity at each stage.

The film goes back and forth between 1940s and 2009. This also adds to the poetic narrative, though very heartrending in certain places. However, nowhere does the director attempt to portray a melodramatic tale, even as the issue is painfully stark and inhuman. He, rather, tries to draw an optimistic tale.

The Second World War and Hitler’s Anti-Semitism have inspired many films. This film is unique in its portrayal of the sordid tale as it dances between melancholic pessimism and incorrigible optimism. 

- Melwyn Pinto SJ