Abhijith Balakrishnan

Watched Unda last evening on Amazon prime. Unda is a story of contradictions that sets itself up through the movie. It sets up the relative peace in Kerala against the perceived instability in Bastar. The policemen sent to fight Maoists end up fighting the political goondas. A tribal colleague is taunted bybhis own fellows showing the apparent education in Kerala hasn't yet shed it's casteist prejudices. A well oiled ITBP and the untrained Kerala Police. Mammootty for most part of the movie remains human. He even fails to take charge of his team when they are attacked. The background score is relevant and catchy. The cinematography captures Bastar for the Malayali viewer well. The movie for once shows Mammootty his age. Or almost there. The movie does try to captialise on his superhero persona towards the end during the stunt scenes. The man who had all his vulnerabilities and was superbly human turns a little too audacious towards the end when he stands and watches his team fighting the political goondas. Somehow that ringside cheering didn't fall in line with the story arc. The characters were beautifully etched. For me, Lukman was the best. Shine, to me seemed to be an extension of his character in Ishq and I thought he is falling into a stereotype. There is this female character who is Shine's estranged wife who refuses to accept his apology for his philandering ways. In a movie with hardly just one female character, this voice over the phone shows a strong woman who isn't willing to suck up to patriarchy and it's fall outs. The ITBP officers were a little too harsh on rhe Kerala Police and I thought the character of their chief was etched a little too aggressively. There was scope for him to empathise with the ill-equipped men from Kerala who had come to help. Even his good bye, though in charater is a little harsh. When they landed in Bastar, Kapil Dev almost looked down upon them because they couldn't speak Hindi and was cavalier in a "Maoist infested area". But he slowly warms up to the Malayalis and even begins to understand their language.

Write a story that begins so: "An inter-faith couple hitch a ride to the railway station in the middle of the night". Now, depending on your story writing sensibilities, you could make this a narrative littered with loud and flashy clothes and dialogues; where they break into a song and dance routine, where the hero fights the villains, sermonises the onlookers, teaches the audiences and gets his fans cheering. Sanal doesn't do that. If you have seen his earlier works, you wouldn't even expect him to. Sanal yanks you by your neck and pulls you into the narrative. You are part of the movie. You feel exasperated. You fear for durga when you see her standing as the camera pans around to show her beside a road all alone. You sense the relief when Kabeer turns up. You question their hastw when they are walking down the middle of the road trying to hitch a ride. You want to tell them to be careful. But you don't know their story. And so you just watch them. And then Sanal shows you two guys in car. You pray that Durga and Kabeer don't flag this car. You know they will but you also wish they don't. And they do. Here, you just know these guys are going to creep you out. You are in the story and you want to atop the car, get them out and wait with them till ajothet vehicle comes. But they can't hear you and you are not in the movie, and so you just watch helplessly. Exasperated. Angry. Scared. This is a journey that shows you what the patriarchal society is. You can't just watch this journey as if it were a movie. You are part of it. You just know so many men who would behave like that and women who would feel helpless. Sanal just takes you through as people prepare Durga for a temple procession. You get an idea of the role the camera is going to play when the old man on the wind instrument ( I don't know it's name) shoves it at the camera as it passes by. It is like you are watching a video you shot while you were there. And you are there. Here you see men who are ready to go through pain to appease a woman deity. A woman who can't get back at you or protest. The scene is so long that you begin to get frustrated. Sanal wants to invoke these feelings in you. And he does that well. Inside the car, the camera seems to course through the veins and run around the mind making you clench your fists and sometimes quiver. The camera work again stuns you when it moves in an out of moving car. This is a telling work on the society and it's patriarchy. The fears and the prejudices. Kabeer blurts out a hindu name probably because he thinks that will protect him. Two middle aged men accost them on the road and you pray that this doesn't end up in vigilantism. Durga's being north Indian is a fetish that plays up in the men's mind. Her need to relieve herself leads to a conversation that the me wouldn't indulge in if it was their sister. While the men do anything to appease goddess Durga, they don't leave any opportunity by to make Kabeer's Durga uncomfortable. And they don't even touch her. And they keep repeating how they are helping them and saving them. That trope men use to outrage in public and rape in private. Where women are deified in the role and defiled on the roads. Kabeer and Durga just can't seem to get away from these people. Where are the good people? Well, they may have made a brief appearance as they came out to theirbgate when they hear the commotion on the road. But they go back inside and turn off the lights.

This is a story about a group of friends in a city. They have their diverse cultures and differences but the apathy of the city brings them together as a family’. “Aren’t we a family?” Zorem asks Upasana. I wonder if these diverse cultures and languages will endear them to each other as much if they were closer to their roots. Being in a distant city that refuses to understand and accept and instead judge and fetishise has sewn a common thread through their lives. The movie takes us through the life of friends from the North East who are trying their best to make the wedding of their IAS aspiring friend memorable by cooking something special - AXONE! Having lives among the “Indians”, they know that cooking Axome at home will be difficult as the pungent smell is going drive the neighbourhood crazy. The movie takes us through the struggles the friends go through as they find a safe place to cook AXONE to surprise their friend. While we wait for the special dish to unravel, we see what human beings can do in their daily lives. How easy it is for us to judge another based on their physical features and the food they eat. Shiv, their local friend is looking for something familiar to eat and instead contends with a plate of salad. Bendang is a metaphorical character. He has regained his life after being beaten to near death for his weird hair-do. His girlfriend Chanbi forgets his past and derides him for not standing up for her against sexist men who find it okay to discuss how to spend a night with her in the street. While everyone tries to find a way to cook, Ben goes missing. Chanbi wants a career. Upasna will find a guy and settle down and find another if Zorem leaves her. Just as Chanbi gets to know she has made it to a job (that requires her to put on an American accent) they find Ben locked up in a room fighting his fears. Upasna urges him to try and fit in which he does towards the end as he manages to sing a song that has everyone.

I watched Thithi. I don't remember another movie that can be mistaken for a dry documentary of life in an Indian village captured by Western eyes, but isn’t. It would have been just that if there wasn't a story teller. The cast I am told are amateurs. And if that be true, then the casting director needs a huge pat on their back. So easy are the portrayals by the characters that you don't think that they are acting. It is like the camera is capturing life- as it is. The story teller tells it like the bearded character Gaddappa narrates his story in a long monologue. There is no drama. No gestures. Just plain narration very much like the director has told us the story. The shepherds all sit in front of him awestruck and bewildered until the end; when he says aloud that he wonders if all that he said was life as it had happened or his dream the previous night. The shepherds now don't know whether they were just taken for a ride or did they hear the deepest secrets of an old man that he probably is narrating for the first time. It is during this narration that the viewer would appreciate why Gadappa is the philosophical wanderer that he is- detached from the world. The director also leaves us with a similar feeling as the movie ends. Like Kavery wants Abhi to find her wherever she is and marry her, viewers will also go looking for the director and his movies. The movie starts with just the voice of Century Gowda who passes commentary on the passersby. And in that commentary he takes the viewer through what someone who has lived a 100 years has seen. Century Gowda was a very nice character that was being fleshed out, but he doesn't last long. He passes while passing urine. And then we are introduced to his near and dear ones. The viewer is given time to understand and appreciate the relationships between the characters. The great grandson has his way of earning money, the grandson is struggling with his farm, the son is the philosophical wanderer. The movie is not just about the sons but also about a village and her people told without romanticising the village beauty or the people that live there . It is a story about the struggles - within and without- of every man The priorities that men have at different ages. The young great grandson is happy go lucky and doesn't really sorry about squandering money gambling. He has a girl to follow, friends to drink with,sand to mine illegally and friends again to pull him out of trouble. . The grand son is struggling to meet societal expectations. He wants the land which his father will not take the effort to write in his name. And so he has to find devious ways to make some money. The son has seen life and like he tells the shepherds to be happy with what you have, he is. Although he does steal a ₹100 from a stranger's pocket. This technically sound movie with a tight screenplay and wonderful cast is philosophical and yet laced with humour. It is so real that it blurs the borders of reality and story telling. Was that a movie that I watched? Or just last nights dream?