Art reflects society; contemporary tastes go up on screen, canvas or Kindle. Which is why the current oeuvre of Malayalam cinema conveys what Kerala is thinking and feeling today. Film after film is evoking audience appreciation everywhere.
Each time it looks like a fluke – how can they maintain this extraordinary level of talent, this momentum, these dialogues, this acting, these relevant plots and content? And yet, come Friday, there is another pleasant surprise waiting in theatres. Themes are different and storytelling is unique to each film, but the competent straddling of realism and brilliance remains the same each time. New-age filmmakers of Kerala are not only producing watch-worthy gems, they are also keeping it real.
Kerala is a masked state; it has the all-round reputation for 100 percent literacy, while home to patriarchy and its own share of toxic masculinity. God’s own country – but employment prospects microscopic. A state that worries a lot about how it looks, and would never be needy enough or poor enough to clean up its tourism act. Cinema, however, shows a society determined to leave behind all double standards, by holding up a mirror.
In the late seventies and a good part of the eighties, there was the soft-porn phase. Kerala, a pimply youth, played peeping Tom. Posters during the time usually showed semi-nude women. Movies like Avalude Ravukal (her mornings) were aplenty and so were actresses like Silk Smitha. Female exploitation in the industry was at its highest and most overt.
Overlapping the end of this voyeuristic era was the comedy wave of the mid-eighties and the nineties. Films like Poochakkoru Mookutthi (a nose-ring for the cat) and Nadodikkattu (vagabond wind) had people rolling in the aisle with laughter, perhaps an organic fallout of the previous raunchy period. Then came the two Ms – Mammootty and Mohanlal – in seventy MM, who pretty much ruled the roost through youth, middle age and beyond.
Dileep, Mukesh and co walked the parallel path. Through this whole hero-worship, heroines came and went as if in a silent movie. Backlit by its own misogynistic beliefs, the industry was nearly myopic when it came to female characterisation. As elsewhere in India, heroines played moms to the same heroes they earlier wooed. Dialogues of much chauvinistic depth were specially penned for the heroes to mouth. Dishum-dishum remained the staple diet.
And thus wobbled Malayalam films towards eternity, with bombastic portrayals of superhuman men played by the same trusted and revered brigade. Viewers and superstars had entered a pact; maintaining mediocrity meant keeping expectations low. We wanted larger than life men and we got them.
Now this. Movies that are meaningful dialogues between audiences and artistes. Movies like Kumbalangi Nights and Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum (mainour and the witness). Movies like Ee.Ma.Yau (Jesus, Mary, Joseph) and Android Kunjapppan Ver 5.25. Movies like Virus and Uyare (up above). It is raining at last on parched Mallu screens.
The bar is raised. Script is king. These are real actors here, not nurturing of nepotism. Kerala is making and viewing world-class cinema. Watch on.
Shinie Antony is a writer and editor based in Bangalore. Her books include The Girl Who Couldn't Love, Barefoot and Pregnant, Planet Polygamous, and the anthologies Why We Don’t Talk, An Unsuitable Woman, Boo. Winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Asia Prize for her story A Dog’s Death in 2003, she is the co-founder of the Bangalore Literature Festival and director of the Bengaluru Poetry Festival.
Read Shinie Antony's columns here.
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