Totally Filmi presents Polandine Patti

With this episode, we begin a look at Malayalam films centred around the sea, and examine the importance of the sea to those that live near it and from it, and examine the sea as a metaphor.

Download Episode 19

Episode 19 Highlights:

Spoiler Alert! We try to remember to alert listeners to spoilers, but just in case, know that we talk about the films in-depth, so be sure to watch them first if you’re concerned about spoilers!

While we didn’t get to mention this in the episode, Harsha recommends the podcast “Rethinking ‘Keraleeyatha’: Centering Oceanic Histories” as an excellent companion to our series on The Sea.

[00:00:17] Spoiler Alert!

[00:01:33] We will start with Chemmeen and it’s important to note that the personification of the sea, Kadalamma (lit. Sea Mother), is revered in many fishing communities shown in these films.

[00:02:43] Chemmeen is a huge milestone for Malayalam cinema. It’s the first Southern film to win the National Award and frequently mentioned in lists of the best 100 Indian films. Alas, good prints with subtitles have been hard to find.

[00:03:14] There have been critiques in recent years from the community depicted in the film that it’s a regressive and unflattering portrayal of them.

[00:03:40] The film is an adaptation of a novel by Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai and centered around a belief that a fisherman’s fate is dependent on his wife’s chastity.

[00:04:00] The story is about Karuthamma, played by Sheela, who is in love with the wealthier Muslim, Pareekutty, played by Madhu. Her ambitious father tasks her with getting money from Pareekutty for his own boat and nets. Pareekutty agrees with the understanding he is able to sell the catch for them.

[00:05:18] When Karuthamma’s father becomes successful, he marries her off to a man who is able to live with her family and join them in the business.

[00:05:45] So much pining

[00:06:20] Karuthamma tries to be loyal to her husband but the tragedies start on her wedding day, along with the rumors following her about her relationship with Pareekutty.

[00:07:22] Harsha always found the movie hard to get into. It might be partly because Thakazhi is not from the community he is writing about.

[00:08:53] The music is beautiful. You don’t see these big orchestrations today.

[00:09:20] Katherine finds Madhu gorgeous. Harsha finds Sathyan’s acting more accessible.

[00:10:48] There’s a lot of sadness and loss in the story. Stories about marginalized groups in the mainstream often portray them as happy people despite their poverty and marginalization.

[00:11:58] Bobby, in Hindi, has a similar portrayal of Christian fishing communities.

[00:12:23] In Malayalam, the problematic depiction of fisherman is an issue of caste more than religion.

[00:13:15] When your way of life centers on something as unpredictable as the ocean, it makes sense to have superstitions and beliefs built around it as a means to control the uncontrollable.

[00:13:55] North American coastal homes often have something called widow’s walk, a balcony intended for sailors’ wives to look out for their husbands who have been lost at sea.

[00:14:30] In Ireland, there’s a myth that Aran sweaters were supposed to have unique stitches for each family and drowned men were identified by the stitch used by the women in their family.

[00:15:03] The film’s legend persists because of the National Award and because of the crew, including Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Manna Dey. 

[00:16:20] There’s a pre-Chemmeen Malayalam cinema and a post-Chemmeen Malayalam cinema. In the film Celluloid, the Father of Malayalam Cinema, JC Daniel, is depicted hearing the news of Chemmeen’s win with a mix of pride and sorrow.

[00:17:45] Celluloid’s thesis about the need to honor our film histories is relevant to Chemmeen. The lack of investment in remastering and making it more widely accessible means it could be lost in time.

[00:18:40] There is a chance before Madhu, who is 90 in September 2023, and Sheela pass to capture their experiences in a documentary or oral history project.

[00:21:05] The film required a high level of national, or “pan-Indian,” cooperation to make.

[00:21:42] Lots of movies are 50 years old so it’s important to provide context on why this particular film turning 50 is important to venerate.

[00:23:41] This is a great example of the sea as a metaphor for the lives of people who live off it.

[00:23:47] Chemmeen also sets a template for the depiction of Kerala’s fishing communities in Malayalam cinema

[00:24:05] Thumboli Kadappuram is our next film and it’s very different in tone, including comedy.

[00:24:40] Two fisherman, Methrinju and Williams, played by Vijayaraghavan and Manoj K. Jayan, respectively, are rivals in their fishing community. The locals look up to Methrinju. His love interest, Clara, is played by Silk Smitha.

[00:25:28] When Williams elopes with a wealthy man’s daughter, Mary, played by Priya Raman, Methrinju offers them sanctuary in his home.

[00:26:26] Soon, the community begins to circulate rumors that Mary is having an affair with Methrinju when Williams is at sea.

[00:26:48] Katherine’s previous experience with Jayaraj has been his artsier fare. This is a massy film.

[00:27:37] Silk Smitha’s important role also surprised Katherine. Harsha is surprised at her contemporary reputation as just an item girl when she’s done significant roles in films like Spadikam.

[00:29:42] Williams and Mary’s meet cutes are shot beautifully and Jayaraj shows off his artier skills.

[00:30:39] The character of Stanley/Chellappan is the kind of 90s comedy character that is jarring to those of us watching in the 2020s. 

[00:31:36] When fishermen in film are depicted as the epitome of bravery and masculinity, anyone who deviates from that, like Indrans’ character or the lead in Chandupottu, is mocked for their femininity.

[00:32:13] We are so glad Indrans can play more full-fledged roles now.

[00:32:37] Harsha enjoys Priya Raman from among the early 90s heroines who were not the big stars like Shobana, Revathy and Urvashi. She is now known more as a television serial actor.

[00:34:11] The cast includes actors like Augustine and Sainuddin, both of whom have passed away. Others like Prem Kumar and Manoj K. Jayan were omnipresent in Malayalam films of this era and did not transition into New Gen films.

[00:36:18] Malayalam films in the 90s employed huge casts of character actors to give them that lived in feeling while telling the story of a hero and heroine.

[00:37:36] Harsha believes one of the reasons Bollywood films are struggling recently is because of the lack of a world that feels lived in and familiar populated by tangential characters.

[00:37:52] We discuss Anurag Kashyap’s comments on rootedness in South Indian cinema.

[00:41:07] Bollywood is stuck between a rock and a hard place addressing the current Indian social context. They would prefer to exist in a timeless, placeless urbanism.

[00:42:52] Were fisherfolk in the 90s still talking like they were in Chemmeen and not using motorboats?

[00:44:00] Our next is Puthiya Theerangal, directed by Sathyan Anthikkad and his moral values.

[00:44:58] The main character, Thamara, is played by Namitha Pramod. She’s an orphan and fisherwoman, who finds and takes in an old man, played by Nedumudi Venu. Nivin Pauly plays her friend and love interest.

[00:47:22] Thamara going out fishing on her own boat is a marked difference from the other stories. She is supported by her community and thrives, despite being an orphan.

[00:48:12] Sathyan Anthikkad’s characters often survive with the goodwill of the community.

[00:49:02] There are references to Chemmeen, once again showing its long shadow.

[00:49:35] Nedumudi Venu’s character is written as a plot device. He has little agency.

[00:51:10] This is not a Nivin Pauly film. He’s the eye candy.

[00:51:28] Once again, we see frequently seen elements like fishermen who have an interest in the arts and theater and the sea taking loved ones away.

[00:52:56] Namitha Pramod was a young teenager when she starred in the film. She hasn’t really acted much once she became an adult. We previously discussed her in Al Mallu.

[00:54:33] We both thought that it fell apart in the second half.

[00:55:01] Rajagopuram, shot in Hampi, is very pretty. Cinematographer Venu shot the film with a lot of color. It was a bright spot in our series on the sea, which can often be bleak.

[00:56:23] Next time, we discuss Mosayile Kuthira Meenukal, Akashathinte Niram and Amaram.

We conclude our series of Malayalam supernatural films — in this episode, we look at Ennu Swantham Janakikutty, Mayilpeelikkavu, and Bhoothakaalam.

Download Episode 18

Episode 18 Highlights:

Spoiler Alert! We try to remember to alert listeners to spoilers, but just in case, know that we talk about the films in-depth, so be sure to watch them first if you’re concerned about spoilers!

[00:00:20] We’re back with a final episode about supernatural films in Malayalam cinema. 

[00:00:25]  We started off planning this episode around two Jomol films, Ennu Swantham Janakikutty, Mayilpeelikkavu, but also decided to add in a more recent film, Bhoothakaalam.

[00:00:44]  Katherine has learned more about yakshis through this series looking at supernatural films.

[00:00:48]  As an outsider to a culture, it’s sometimes a challenge to understand things that are so ingrained in a culture that everyone who is part of that culture would immediately pick up on the cues.

[00:01:03]  Katherine was searching for “movies with yakshis”, and feels that the movies that have “yakshi” in the title are often not great films.

[00:01:21]  Katherine and Harsha realized that Katherine was missing out on yakshi films when it wasn’t expressly stated that this was a yakshi – like in Manichitrathazhu.  But now that Harsha has helped clarify what to look for, Katherine is seeing yakshis everywhere.

[00:02:02]  Harsha sent Katherine a list of yakshi movies, and a music video that has a yakshi theme.  Check the end of these show notes for the list of films and a link to the music video.  Without Harsha’s guidance, Katherine wouldn’t have had a clue that Ennu Swantham Janakikutty was a yakshi film.

[00:02:25]  Harsha notes that Mayilpeelikkavu is a reincarnation film, and not a yakshi film.

[00:02:40]  Harsha watched the short film called Yakshi on YouTube, and made the connection that yakshis and chudails are pretty much the same thing.

[00:02:50]  “Chudail” in Hindi films is always translated as “witch”, but you realize they both pretty much have the same characteristics, except for the feet, which are backwards in chudails.  Both terms, yakshi and chudail, have been used to curse women.  Previously, Harsha only thought of yakshi’s as a Kerala – and specifically a southern Kerala – thing.

[00:03:23]  The figure of the vengeful woman is common in supernatural stories across the world.

[00:03:45]  Katherine realized that she was looking at things through a very narrow lens, and recognizes she was missing details because horror and supernatural are not genres she watches a lot of, nor knows a lot about.  It’s also a good lesson in how we, as outsiders, can miss things in another culture.

[00:04:25]  We decide to start our discussion with Ennu Swantham Janakikutty in order to keep going with our yakshi theme.

[00:04:29]  The film is from 1998, and stars Jomol along with a number of marquis names, plus a script by M.T. Vasudevan Nair.  It’s directed by Hariharan and produced by P.V. Gangadharan, names associated with classic films such as Oru Vadakkan Veeragatha and Kerala Varma Pazhassi Raja, especially if you’re thinking about very literary, dense Malayalam films.

[00:04:58]  Katherine notes, as an aside, that this is another example of Scube having the rights to a lot of really excellent films, and again she begs for them to add subtitles.  But you can find the films on their YouTube channel.

[00:05:30]  The film is about a young woman who is living with her extended family in the trope many viewers will recognize as the traditional tharavadu (ancestral home in a joint family system).  In this case, it’s very a much a matrilineal tharavadu,

[00:06:38]  What were the clues to this that Katherine picked up on?  A household full of a lot of women.  There are age clusters of the women, so she figured some of these would be mothers, some would be aunts, some would be daughters and nieces and cousins.  So she was looking at the group of women and the cluster of ages to come to this conclusion.

[00:07:25]  What Katherine did not pick up on is the fact that the grandmother in the film is not Janaki’s actual grandmother, she’s her grandmother’s older sister who has fallen out with her own children, so she comes to stay with her niece.

[00:07:45]  Janaki calls her “muthassi”, because all of the sisters’ kids basically look on the mothers’ sisters as interchangeable mothers.

[00:08:23]  It’s very matrilineal, though there is one male figure who is there and complains about the fact that there’s the old woman who fought with her kids.  He’s the son-in-law who would have married into the family.

[00:08:43]  Their matrilineal traditions are the reason why they take care of her.

[00:08:48] Jannakikutty is going through adolescence.  She’s developing her first crush, but she’s very awkward and doesn’t seem to have a lot in common with the other young females around her.  She really bonds with her great aunt and comes to hear the stories we’ve come to expect from Malayalam movies about yakshis that get passed on from generation to generation.

[00:09:23]  Janakikutty starts meeting this woman in the woods who we’re led to believe is some sort of supernatural entity, because she comes only when Janakikutty is alone.

[00:09:40]  Janakikutty has a crush on a young man who is around the family, and the woman she meets, Kunjathol, played by Chanchal, schemes to help Janakikutty to get what she wants. 

[00:09:58]  The young man Janakikutty has a crush on is secretly in a relationship with one of Janakikutty’s cousins.  Part of Janakikutty’s stress/distress is because she discovers the guy she has a crush on is interested in her cousin, and not her.

[00:10:50]  Janakikutty’s muthassi tells her yakshi stories and has a book of yakshi stories that she gives her. 

[00:10:55]  As a young woman, growing up in this part of the world, you would assume that it’s the stress of adolescence that is triggering this mental breakdown (or whatever you want to call it).

[00:11:15]  Katherine saw a description of the film, when she was trying to find out more information about it, that said it was the first Malayalam film dealing with schizophrenia, but Katherine didn’t feel that was really what was going on in the film.

[00:11:30]  Harsha feels it’s more like Janakikutty’s manifestation of a poltergeist.  Poltergeists always show up in homes with adolescents, especially young women.  They tend to cause a lot of chaos, which is resolved once the kid is past a certain age, and are mentally more stable.   So you can think of Kunjathol as a poltergeist instead of a vampire in this context, even though she has some vampiric features.

[00:12:20]  This is not a scary film, it’s more psychological, but there is a moment in particular where Kunjathol is very frightening.

[00:12:30]  At least two of the films we’re looking at in this episode deal with how a person’s psychological stress affects them, and how that gets manifested as some kind of supernatural vision.

[00:12:50]  There are points in this film where other members of the film kind of catch Janakikutty apparently talking to herself, or laughing to herself, when what she’s imagining is that she’s talking to Kunjathol.

[00:13:06]  Harsha is not perfectly sure whether this is all just supposed to be in Janakikutty’s head, or if only she can see the yakshi.  Harsha doesn’t necessarily believe in ghosts, but she likes the idea of the poltergeist as an external manifestation of somebody’s distress.  She’s very open to that interpretation in movies, that something can both be in someone’s head, and can be supernatural at the same time.

[00:13:43]  Katherine notes that a lot of the yakshi films she turned up were more about vengeful women preying on men (sometimes with a sexual undertone), so what she liked about this film was that Kunjathol doesn’t fit into this pattern.  Yes, she is a vengeful woman (as the film reveals), but what she does is show up when Janakikutty needs her (like the idea of the poltergeist).  Janakikutty needs the support.

[00:14:33]  For Harsha, this is why, as a yakshi film, this film really stands out.  The romance element is only given weight because of how Janakikutty feels about her crush and her cousin’s relationship with him.  He doesn’t have a lot of personality, he is just the object of her desires.

[00:15:00]  Katherine notes that’s often what it’s like for an adolescent girl having her first crush.  It’s an overwhelming emotion, and at times you might be projecting things on the object of your affection that don’t exist at all.  She gives a lot of meaning to things like the Cadbury chocolate bar he gives her. 

[00:15:43]  He overlooks her, and gives her the chocolate bar because he sees her as a kid, but it becomes this overblown thing in her mind.  Janakikutty’s isolation is emphasized.  She doesn’t really have anyone to tell her that he’s not really into her, and to point out the really obvious things that are going on around her.

[00:16:15]  She’s very isolated, and her central relationship is with her elderly great aunt as well as her vampire friend, and her vampire friend’s friend.  There is such a strong female central relationship in this film, and the movie stands out because of this.

[00:16:55]  Jomol won a Special Mention at the National Awards for this film.  Katherine is frustrated that this film isn’t subtitled so she could share with people.  It ends up being overlooked except by people who understand the language.

[00:18:09]  Harsha feels that this film and Nandanam are very similar movies because of their connections to a supernatural entity, the relative loneliness of the main character, they can only turn to the supernatural entity for solace.

[00:18:41] Karineeli, the friend/aide to Kunjathol, is a very popular and identifiable yakshi character in Malayalam folklore, so anyone encountering her in this movie would be very familiar with her as a yakshi figure.  Janakikutty, as someone familiar with this lore, is pulling in all these details to create this very vibrant inner life.   

[00:19:25]  Kunjathol is a glowing, beautiful figure.  Her hair, her sari is luminescent  — she’s a very vibrant part of Janakikutty’s imagination in what is an otherwise dull life.

[00:20:05]  Katherine feels this interpretation of a lonely, isolated adolescent reaching for a very vibrant inner life to help her navigate what’s she’s going through, makes more sense than any schizophrenia interpretation.

[00:20:45]  Harsha compares it to her experience at the age of twelve, emigrating and being very lonely as a teenager, and internet hyperfixations were a way to cope with it.  This is Janakikutty’s hyperfixation, and it seems very natural and beautiful and organic — it’s not scary or threatening.   She feels that it’s not threatening because this is not M.T. Vasudevan Nair framing this as a story of “what do women get up to in their minds?”.  Contrast the way we see Ganga’s connection to Nagavalli in Manichitrathazhu – because she’s an adult, her hyperfixation is more worrisome. 

[00:21:45]  This very strong connection is not depicted as a negative for Janakikutty, and that’s probably why it’s not threatening.  Yakshi’s are not only representative of female sexuality, they’re also representative of female bonding, which is threatening to a patriarchal culture.  This movie, though, portrays it as not threatening.

[00:22:24]  If you want to see a happy yakshi movie, this would be the one to watch.  There is a thread of sadness in the film, because Kunjathol has this tragic story, but you can also see why this kind of tragic figure would also appeal to a teenager. 

[00:22:40]  Teenagers act like this today (in terms of parasocial relationships and hyperfixation), but they’re accessing different stories.

[00:23:05]  Harsha always thought of the movie as pleasant to watch, and extremely relatable.  But talking about it on the podcast, she realized the reason was that it was a teenage hyperfixation.  Janakikutty is telling her problems to this extremely empathetic figure who just wants to help her figure out her teenaged life’s problems.  If she were an actual ghost with a real agenda, she’d be out there murdering people.

[00:23:44]  Katherine notes there’s a moment where the sister gets married, and that’s the moment where we see the yakshi get very intense, and her incisors come out.  Nothing serious really ends up happening in that moment, but we can see that for the yakshi, it relates to her own incident and how her life ended up being so tragic.

[00:24:10]  We don’t realize it at first, but the grandmother figure/great-aunt has died while they are all at the wedding.  She doesn’t attend because she’s had some kind of incident, but they also don’t want Janakikutty at the wedding.  Janakikutty tries to wake her, but we as an audience perceive she has died.  However, suddenly her eyes fly open, and she runs to the wedding, which she couldn’t have done.  Janakikutty follows her, and they arrive to find the yakshi at the wedding.

[00:25:35]  Harsha always assumed that the family didn’t want Janakikutty at the wedding because of her erratic behaviour (in their eyes).  The other thing is that with Kunjathol being the vessel for providing empathy for Janakikutty, this allows her to see that her cousin is being put through something really unfair, even though it clears the way for Janakikutty with her crush.  But the cousin’s wedding is really tragic in its own way.

[00:26:08]  At one point, Janaki realizes that the object of her crush isn’t interested in her, and she tries to help her cousin, but it doesn’t work.  It’s a huge step in her growing up – through the move, we see her learn to accept things.  It might be a little cinematic at the end when the crush likes her back, but Harsha puts this down to film needing a kind of “bow-tie” at the end.  Has Janaki learned that as an adult, you don’t always get the things you want?

[00:27:23]  We turn to the next Jomol film we’re going to talk about in this episode, Mayilpeelikkavu.  This is a much more mainstream film.  It came out in 1998 as well. 

[00:27:50]  Harsha has always assumed they cast her in Mayilpeelikkavu because she started out in a supernatural film, and they liked her for that kind of role.  Except, she plays a very different character here:  it’s a typical kind of mainstream heroine role, with a gaggle of young kids around her constantly.  But for Harsha, she doesn’t care for Jomol in those kinds of roles.  Jomol is amazing in movies where she has to be a little awkward, like in Niram.  For Mayilpeelikkavu, it feels like they wrote a role for Shalini and not Jomol.

[00:28:50]  The set up is very reminiscent of Aniyathipravu.

[00:29:05]  The film sees Kunchacko Boban and Jomol playing characters staying in the same house for vacation, and they’re both have dreams about a person coming to kill them.  Or are these memories of a past life?  They slowly discover that they were lovers in a past life.  She was murdered, and he was framed for the murder.   The same person from their past life is now out to get them in their present life.

[00:29:45]  It’s a reincarnation story, and the other people involved in this story are still alive and in the household.  There are some deceptions around who the killer really is, that set us up for a twist at the end.

[00:30:05]  Thilakan plays a character that is similar to the one he played in Manichitrathazhu.  Katherine felt this film was like a cousin to that in some ways:  it’s a traditional household with lots of people in the house, and things are happening.  There’s a mystery and some kind of supernatural things going on.  She sees parallels between the two films.

[00:31:35]  Katherine found herself surprised by Thilakan’s character, expecting him to be very much like the one in Manichitrathazhu.  SPOILER:  Thilakan’s character is the murderer.

[00:32:05]  Harsha notes that in these kinds of films, a lot of the same actors get cast in similar types of roles.  We’re supposed to pull from our historical film knowledge to understand the type of character they’re playing, so it’s logical to make an assumption about Thilakan’s character.  Katherine thought the plot twist around his character was great, though.

[00:35:00]  Harsha is amused by the fact that even after many years, someone will have the same hairstyle, and no one seems to recognize them.  And why do movies that are otherwise complex assume we won’t recognize a character if they don’t give them the same haircut?

[00:035:45]  Katherine generously argues that perhaps because the haircut has us make an assumption about the culprit, the twist becomes more impactful. 

[00:35:55]  Harsha enjoyed the twist at the end, but she also enjoyed the songs and the background track, which gives spookiness to the movie.

[00:36:07]  The flashbacks are made to look visually distinctive either through black and white or sepia colouring.

[00:36:28]  The film is otherwise quite colourful – it’s constantly popping with colour, perhaps because it’s a more mainstream movie than Ennu Swantham Janakikutty.  It’s a very accessible mainstream movie, much less scary than films like Manichitrithazhu. 

[00:37:15]  Except in a film like Ennu Swantham Janakikutty, Jomol is not great as a lead heroine.  But the fact that she’s paired opposite Kunchacko Boban and surrounded by a big cast allows her to be more integrated into this film despite all of that.  Katherine also felt she was better in the flashbacks to the past, though Harsha notes that both actors are wearing brownface in the flashbacks and it is very distracting.  It also makes no sense in the context of the story:  why did they have to be darker skinned?  And why did they have to have completely different hair texture?

[00:38:20]  Possibly the only reason for this is to differentiate them from their present day incarnations, which is maybe not a great excuse, but could be an explanation.  However, the guy we’re supposed to think is the murderer gets to keep his same haircut after fifty years.

[00:39:02]  It really is an interesting film to watch and compare with Manichitrathazhu.  Harsha wonders if there were any of the same kind of yakshi bits as there were in Manichitrathazhu?  Katherine says no, but instead there’s a serpent shrine.  The film’s title also reminds us that this shrine is also covered with peacock feathers.  But no yakshis.  It’s fully a reincarnation/revenge movie.

[00:40:50]  We turn to the final film in our discussion, Bhoothakaalam, with Revathi and Shane Nigam.

[00:42:15]  Bhothakaalam is the story of a mother and son who are taking care of her ailing mother/his grandmother at home.  The mother/grandmother passes away, and strange things start happening in the house.  Asha is a schoolteacher and her son, Vinu, is trained as a pharmacist.  He had to pass up on a job because it would have had him move away from home, and his mother needed him to help with her ailing mother.

[00:42:58]  Asha suffers from depression, and in the course of the film we see her seeking treatment for that.  Vinu suffers from the stresses of being unemployed and living in this household with his mother.  As well, he has insomnia and he drinks.   Is he drinking and not sleeping because he’s stressed, or is he stressed because he’s drinking and not sleeping?  In either case, he begins seeing hallucinations or visions.

[00:44:00]  A friend of the family calls in a counsellor named George (Saiju Kurup) who comes to talk to Vinu and try to get him some help.  Vinu is very resistent to this, because he really believes he’s seeing something in the house and that nobody believes him.

[00:44:20]  Katherine wonders if this is related to “folie à deux”, the French term for a kind of madness shared by two people.  There’s a question about whether they are both stressed and manifesting it in different ways.

[00:45:00]  George comes by their house one day, and when they’re not at home, he speaks with a neighbour, who reveals that something terrible happened in the house, and suggests that now the house is troubled.  Katherine has a wee bit of trouble with this character because what he discovers about the house scares him, and he no longer wants to counsel Vinu.

[00:45:30]  However, his wife suggests finding out the truth behind the house, and he begins to investigate and discovers that the original owners were a man and his wife and child.  The man killed his wife and child and then killed himself, too.  The house has since been rented out to a series of people who have things happen to them, including more suicide attempts.  So there is something going on in relation to this house, but what that might be isn’t really clear.

[00:46:03]  One of the things Katherine noted and liked about the film was the scenes with Vinu’s girlfriend and her family.  Everything is well-lit and bright.  He goes to her sister’s birthday party and the house is brimming with people, and it’s bright with sunshine.  Contrast this to the house where he lives with his mother which is very dark and oppressive.  The cinematography is being used to emphasize that the relationship between these two people is very claustrophobic. 

[00:46:00] Harsha wanted to talk about the house.  The timeline the movie gives is that the man who first owned it killed his wife and child six or seven years earlier, and we learn he built the house when they got married.  But the house looks *very* old – it looks like it was built in the 1970s or 1980s.  Even the style of it is very dated.  It also looks like it’s not being maintained at all.  The house was very out of fashion, and Harsha wondered if that were intentional, or because they couldn’t find a new house that was poorly kept up.  This house is meant to evoke something older.

[00:48:00]  The house is like a manifestation of someone’s depression with it’s grime and neglect and peeling paint.  The house itself is a character in the film.

[00:48:30] There’s a strong enmeshment between the mother and son.  They can’t really stand each other, but they also can’t stand to be apart.  He’s trying to pull away, but his mother keeps reeling him back in because she’s widowed and somewhat isolated, because she lost her mother whom she seemed to be close to.

[00:48:55]  The grandmother was played by Valsala Menon, who played the great aunt in Ennu Swantham Janakikutty.

[00:49:15]  Of course, we wonder at first if it’s the grandmother who is haunting the house after she dies, and everything starts up after that happens.  It’s connected to the fact that Asha was very connected to her mother and had a hard time letting her go. 

[00:49:40]  Asha is up every night crying, and Vinu is unable to sleep because of this.  Asha is taking medication for her depression, but Vinu is self-medicating, so it makes sense that he’s the first person to manifest these hallucinations. 

[00:50:15]  Revathi won an award for this performance, which we feel is very well deserved.  It’s so well acted.  In the scenes where mother and son are together, they’re just playing off each other.  This could be a play with just the two of them in that house.

[00:50:42]  Katherine wanted to make sure to comment on Shane Nigam in this role, because the film is very much a two-hander between the two of them.  She could connect with both characters and their distress equally. 

[00:51:00]  The film is genuinely painful to watch (because the actors are just so good).  The relationship just felt so lived in with its pain and disappointments, and his desire to be away from her, and her desire to keep him close.  She’s so afraid of being alone.

[00:51:40]  The film is painful because you can understand both of these people and the pain they’re going through, and the pain of the cycles they both keep going through.  He wants out, he wants to find a good job, but he can’t do that if he stays.  She’s adamant that he needs to stay, but finds the hotel job he plans to take unacceptable because of his education.  They are endlessly dancing around the things that hurt them.

[00:52:50]  Harsha notes the film made her think about so many people at the stage of Asha’s life, where parents are aging and passing away, but children are no longer children but adults and they don’t really need you as much.  They might not have flown the nest yet, and there’s a temptation to try to hold them back at this point.

[0053:20]  Because this is a contemporary film, there were a lot of things to potentially dig into, like caring for aging parents, which is time-consuming and exhausting.  Asha ends up having to take a leave from her teaching job because she’s unable to function appropriately as a teacher, which isolates her even more.

[00:54:55]  Asha is barely keeping things together, and when one domino falls, everything goes down.

[00:55:20]  The counsellor also disappoints her because he’s scared of the house.  Harsha thought they might be going to pull a Doctor Sunny moment with the counsellor, which she wouldn’t have been able to cope with because there was so much tension in the household.  In the end, though, he ends up being just one more disappointment in a series of disappointments and losses for them.

[00:55:55]  The mother and son are in their own little bubble, and you see people knocking at the bubble, trying to through them a lifeline to pick up.  The principal, the girlfriend, the friend, the neighbour, there are all these caring people around them, but they won’t let them break through their trauma bubble.  It’s very realistic, too.

[00:57:15]  Asha finds this interest annoying, because she’s not able to judge the response from people.  There’s a lot of shame that they are both going through this.  Asha’s response is to keep everyone out. 

[00:58: 15]  Katherine suggests that the film has a happier resolution, maybe.  They move out of the house, and the scene then is much brighter after all the dark interiors of the house.  Harsha doesn’t find it happy because she was left with the thought about what would happen to the people who move into the house next.

[00:59:10]  Harsha keeps thinking about The Haunting of Hill House, based on a Shirley Jackson novel.  There’s a room in the house which becomes whatever the person wants or needs at that time.  The house is slowly digesting the people who live in it:  they kill themselves, they kill others.  But it’s also not clear if it’s the house, or if it’s the family.  Each member of the family has trauma, and the trauma is manifested in different ways.

[01:00:25]  The scene near the end of the film where we see shadowy figures made Harsha think of Hereditary, where there is definitely a supernatural explanation rather than “it could be either”.

[01:00:40]  The film is very unlike most Indian supernatural movies.  It felt very Western in the way in which it conceived of the supernatural. 

[01:01:05]  Katherine confesses she was wary of a supernatural topic for the podcast, because she’s not a big horror fan.  But she does like films in this genre that are more psychological, or are more about folk tales, folklore and psychology.  Jump scares are fine, but not violent films.  

[01:01:40]  Katherine doesn’t care for very violent, slasher type films with lots of blood and gore.  Harsha suggests not a lot of those films are made in India  — there is no Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

[01:01:55]  There is violence, or at least the hint of violence in some of the films we’ve looked at, but for the most part things are unsettling.  Something like Bhoothakaalam is a very good film, but still remains a very hard watch, despite its lack of overt violence.

[01:02:40]  We start to sum up with Katherine suggesting that it’s interesting to think about what the ideas in these films represent, and particularly what they represent in Kerala.

[01:03:00]  For Harsha, what is important to think about is the emotion of fear.  She often comes back to The Haunting of Hill House and The Turn of the Screw and other Western canon stories, and what makes them so scary for her is not, in fact, the supernatural, but the supernatural manifestation of our disturbed minds.  Something like ghosts isn’t scary for her, it’s sad, because there’s something that has unsettled someone for so long that they keep coming back.  And that’s what’s frightening in Bhoothakaalam.

[01:03:55]  In Ennu Swantham Janakikutty, we’re dealing with a poltergeist, so there will come a time in her life when this will be in the past, and the events are not something she will continue to keep revisiting. 

[01:05:00]  When Katherine reflects on the whole series of films, what stands out for her is the contrast between traditional stories and modernity, or of faith versus science. 

[01:06:15]  Katherine can’t choose one film that stands out because each of the ones we’ve explored have been very different.  Harsha notes that even the yakshi films we looked at are also very different from each other.  The films approached the supernatural in very different ways.   It was fun to see how these movies approached that which cannot be explained.

[01:06:55]  Harsha would like to see what a modern yakshi movie would look like.  There was an attempt with Akam, but it wasn’t very satisfactory.  Maybe Aashiq Abu and his vibes in Neelavelicham will give us that satisfying modern yakshi movie?

[01:07:40]  Our next set of episodes will focus on The Sea, and Malayalam cinema’s relationship to the sea.

Harsha’s List of Yakshi Movies:

Oru Murai Vanthu Paarthaya

Lisa (and sequel Veendum Lisa)

Aakasha Ganga

Vellinakshatram

Indriyam

Meghasandesham

Bhadra

Bhargavi Nilayam

Raktharakshassu 3D

Kalliyankattu Neeli

Yakshagaanam

Pakalppooram

Yakshiyum Njaanum

Noorie (music video)

Yakshi short film

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Episode 17 sees us continue our journey with Malayalam supernatural films — in this episode, we look at Anandabhadram and Akam.

Download Episode 17 (Right-click and ‘Copy Link’, then paste into your podcast app’s ‘Subscribe to feed’ field)

Episode 17 Highlights:

Spoiler Alert! We try to remember to alert listeners to spoilers, but just in case, know that we talk about the films in-depth, so be sure to watch them first if you’re concerned about spoilers!

[00:00:15] A discussion about Prithviraj’s comedy skills leads into our first film for the episode, Anandabhadram.

[00:00:44] SPOILER ALERT!

[00:01:7] Anandabhadram is a Santhosh Sivan-directed supernatural film from 2005

[00:01:41] Prithviraj plays a young man whose mother elopes from her ancestral village to marry the man she loves.

[00:02:04] She tells her son before she dies that she wants her ashes scattered in her village.

[00:02:29] He meets his mother’s family who practice snake worship and their enemies who practice black magic.

[00:03:00] Katherine points out the black magician wants to gain immortality.

[00:03:30] There’s an ayurvedic cryopreservation chamber.

[00:04:01] Harsha is very confused about the plot and Katherine tries to make it make sense.

[00:04:48] Manoj K. Jayan has a magic toe!

[00:05:35] It’s very obvious this is a Santosh Sivan film with beautiful cinematography, songs and production design

[00:06:19] The actors in Pinakkamano were made up to evoke oil paint.

[00:06:45] Santhosh Sivan cinematography is known for using reflective surfaces like mirrors and water, which if found throughout Anandabhadram

[00:07:07] The film draws from both Raja Ravi Varma painting and the Kalari martial art, which takes center stage in Santhosh Sivan’s 2011 film Urumi.

[00:07:50] Harsha found the tharavadu setting and the NRI who falls in love with his cousin antiquated even for 2005.

[00:08:32] Prithviraj plays the same character as he does in Nandanam and Harsha found him awkward.

[00:09:21] He does a better job when he has to depict being possessed because he is better at menacing roles.

[00:10:35] The filmmakers didn’t want to commit to the darkness of its subject.

[00:11:27] Riya Sen is only in the film to be objectified and it makes us uncomfortable.

[00:12:40] Katherine appreciates that Anandabhadram made her look up a lot of Kerala supernatural folklore.

[00:13:02] Revathy plays Prithviraj’s mother and she looks beautiful in her cameo.

[00:13:38] A lot of supernatural elements get brought up in different parts of the film and then dropped, making the rules of the magical world seem incoherent.

[00:14:05] Other films in this series had consistent parameters to the supernatural, which this does not.

[00:14:55] Biju Menon shows up as a seemingly important character and is unceremoniously killed.

[00:15:45] Is Digambaran’s (Manoj K. Jayan) kryptonite sex or the magic toe?

[00:16:37] There’s a seed of a great story here that never comes to fruition.

[00:16:50] Could Riya Sen’s Bhama and Kavya Madhavan’s Bhadra have at some point been one role?

[00:17:09] Meera Jasmine was set to play the Bhadra role at one point and she might have been more comfortable with the risqué scenes Bhama ended up in.

[00:17:55] We don’t understand!

[00:18:18] We don’t like Kavya Madhavan for reasons on this podcast but she looks beautiful in the film.

[00:18:53] The importance of traditional stories passed down through generations are once again highlighted in the film, like in Manichitrathazhu.

[00:19:30] The tension between and coexistence of modern science and traditional practices is another theme, like in Sarppakavu.

[00:21:21] Next, we talk about Akam, directed by Shalini Usha Nair, based on the novel Yakshi by Malayattoor Ramakrishnan.

[00:21:52] The film was shot circa 2011 and stars Fahad Fazil and Anumol. This is very early in his career.

[00:22:14] FaFa plays a young urban man disabled by an accident. His partner leaves him and he becomes depressed. He meets a young woman and marries her but begins to suspect she is trying to kill him because she’s a yakshi.

[00:23:51] Yakshis are something between a female ghost and a vampire and are said to lure men to murder them.

[00:25:38] Many cultures have stories about the danger of alluring women and their sexuality like the nine-tailed fox.

[00:26:24] Katherine wonders where she can find more yakshi stories. We will discuss some in upcoming episodes.

[00:28:02] Katherine didn’t realize Manichitrathazhu is a yakshi movie.

[00:29:11] Bulbbul is another yakshi/chudail film.

[00:32:30] We found Akam quite impenetrable because of its minimalism and limited characterization.

[00:33:21] Malayalam movies are strongest when characters are placed in the context of their larger society.

[00:33:37] We understand the isolation of the characters is intentional as it adds to the feeling of paranoia experienced by Fahad’s character, Srini.

[00:34:30] The main characters’ marriage seem to come out of nowhere in the story.

[00:35:24] Srini’s paranoia is partly a result of the rushed marriage and the things he does not know about his wife.

[00:35:49] Harsha thinks Anumol is a great fit for a yakshi because of her frostiness on screen.

[00:36:22] The plot has a lot of gaps and leaps, and while it may be intentional, you still have to give your audience something to grab onto so they get through the film.

[00:36:42] We love the John Everett Millais’ Ophelia-inspired ending and it makes the message of the film explicit.

[00:37:55] Because of the dreamlike quality of the film, it’s never clear what is in Srini’s disturbed imagination and what was real.

[00:38:32] The director’s intentional choices, like the use of yellow to represent deception, make us wish she kept a firmer grip on the rest of the film.

[00:39:18] The novel itself is surprisingly urban and is ripe for another adaptation from a less minimalist director.

[00:40:30] Harsha really did not like the facial scarring make up on Fahad and thinks it did nothing to show his physical pain.

[00:40:49] The casting on this film was done by Geethu Mohandas.

[00:41:20] Harsha thinks Anumol is very underappreciated. She’s been doing a lot of work but most of them fly under-the-radar.

[00:43:33] Aashiq Abu’s upcoming Neelavelicham is a yakshi film.

[00:43:59] Bally Sagoo’s music video Noorie also centers a yakshi.

[00:45:17] We are here to learn (about yakshis and other stuff).

[00:45:30] Next episode, we will talk about Ennu Swantham Janakikutty, Mayilpeelikkavu and Bhoothakaalam.

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In this episode, we continue our exploration of the supernatural in Malayalam cinema by looking at two very different faith traditions and how they are depicted, in Sarpakadu/Sarpakavu* and Ezra.

*note that this film’s title can be transliterated into English in two different ways, and finding the film might require you to search on one or the other.

Download Episode Sixteen

Episode Sixteen Highlights:

Spoiler Alert! We try to remember to alert listeners to spoilers, but just in case, know that we talk about the films in-depth, so be sure to watch them first if you’re concerned about spoilers!

[00:00:28]  We return to our discussion of the supernatural in Malayalam cinema, with films that explore two different traditions:  Ezra (based on Jewish religious folklore around the dybbuk), and Sarpakadu (“Snake Grove”).

[00:01:43]  Sarpakadu is a film from 1965.  Harsha notes it’s one of those movies that played on Doordarshan and Asianet all the time. 

[00:02:22]  The film features a young Sukumari – we were both happy to see her so early on in her career.  Sukumari plays the second heroine, and Ambika plays her sister (they are cousins in real life).

[00:03:02]  There is a supernatural element to the story, but a lot of it is about tradition versus modernity.  The central conflict is between the father of the heroines, who is part of a clan that traditionally worship snakes (not uncommon in Kerala, even if the film exoticizes it a little), and the father of the hero, both of whom are doctors and scientists, and who come to the forest to look for an antidote to snake bite.

[00:03:48]  Katherine notes that we talked about this juxtaposition of modern/science-y stuff and traditional beliefs.  She goes on to discuss snake movies, and how the online community has become familiar with the genre.

[00:04:25]  Harsha notes that the family god in parts of India is often *not* a snake, but in Kerala – especially among Nair families – they will have these snake groves, where the deity is the snake.

[00:05:15]  When you read Dalit authors or Scheduled Tribe writers about religious observances, you realize what is happening is extremely localized and non-Braminical (ie, not Vedic Hinduism) observance that has woven itself into many local and village gods.  What you see in Kerala, then, are animistic beliefs, apart from mainstream Hinduism.  And these traditions can be very specific to various families or villages that worship snakes.

[00:07:17]  We understand in the film that this particular snake grove is a family grove that they manage.  The implication is that the area was once thriving, but modernity has encroached, and now the family is somewhat isolated and now it’s only a family of three people who are responsible for taking care of the snake goddess.

[00:08:00] The doctors bringing guns into the forest is seen as something that provokes nature against humans.  And we see this play out in the film, especially in the scene with the giant flower.

[00:08:25]  Katherine notes that films from the 1950s and 1960s reflect some of the innocence of the time, a much more innocent kind of humour, and a much more innocent type of fear.  She was fascinated with how they shot the segment with the giant flower.

[00:09:00]  The sequence can seem a little corny, however, but it does reflect one of the ideas in the film that the doctors with their guns come in to the forest to find a specific snake, but they’re not particularly thoughtful in their actions.

[00:09:25]  Harsha notes the doctors are dressed in old-fashioned safari gear, in contrast to the man and his daughters who are dressed in extremely vedic looking outfits.  Again, modernity versus tradition.

[00:10:20]  Madhu is dressed very elegantly in his safari suit and detailed boots, at least until he has to roll around on the ground when attacked by the giant flower.  Harsha notes the film invites you to just go along for the ride.  Like one of the YouTube comments said, just enjoy the innocence of the movie.

[00:11:00]  Harsha reminds us that what we might call “bad acting” today really doesn’t take into account the style of acting in that era, which was much more theatrical.  Madhu, especially, was not known to be a naturalistic actor.  Sukumari might be an exception in this period, and we have the benefit of having seen her more recently, but she still had a more naturalistic style even in this film (contrast this, perhaps, to Sheela working in the same period).

[00:12:37]  We know we’re not supposed to be laughing, but some scenes – like the bear attack – just provoke that today.  However, for us, the film is just a good time that way.  The nature attack scenes are fun!

[00:13:35]  The print on Eros Now cut out the bear attack.  You want to see the bear attack.  A note:  since we recorded this, Eros Now’s streaming service seems to have come to an abrupt halt, so nothing is currently available.  So, be sure to check out the film on YouTube to make sure you see the bear attack!

[00:14:25]  Swallowed harmonica comedy!  It’s silly, but we loved it.

[00:15:30]  We note that the harmonica does have a legitimate place in the film apart from comedy, in that it’s used to mesmerize the snakes.

[00:16:25]  Harsha helps to clear up several plot points that Katherine could only guess at, having watched the film unsubtitled.

[00:16:40]  Towards the middle of the movie, we realize that the father understands that his daughters have been spending a lot of time with the doctors, and he’s trying to protect his daughters from being charmed by them.  And he’s concerned that the doctors are only doing this to try to get the snake they need, and will leave the daughters heartbroken.

[00:17:15]  Love requires a great sacrifice.

[00:17:50]  Katherine wonders if there are any other Malayalam films that have snakes and snake worship as part of the plot – this is the only one she could seem to find.  Harsha suggests Anandabhadram as a possibility – this is a film we’ll discuss in our next episode.

[00:18:45]  Katherine notes that the songs were pretty, and she always enjoys a film that explores the clash between tradition and modernity.  She also enjoys older films, and found this one entertaining.

[00:19:15]  Harsha also found pure enjoyment (apart from the bear attack scene) in the dancing of the two sisters.  The actresses of this generation came up with classical dance (especially the family of the Travencore sisters).  It was also fun to see Sukumari in a very young role, not playing a mother or an aunt.

[00:20:00]  Katherine also finds it a joy to go back and watch older films and seeing people who are now elderly or who have passed away when they were quite young.

[00:20:30]  Harsha also thinks the film is a little bit different from some of the films you’d see from that era.  A lot of those films aren’t tackling the supernatural, or struggling with modernity.  They’re much more “human level” movies.  The kind of “cosmic interplay” we see here isn’t common for that period.

[00:21:33]  We move on to the second film today, Ezra.

[00:21:40]  Ezra is from 2017, so it’s a much slicker film in some ways than Sarpakadu.  For Harsha, it’s not a great film – it has Prithviraj as the lead character, Priya Anand as his wife, and Tovino Thomas as a police inspector.  For Tovino Thomas, this is a role that’s a kind of stepping stone on the path to the star he is now.

[00:22:25]  The film also features Sudev Nair, who was a Kerala State Award winner, for the film Life Partner, one of the first same-sex romances in Malayalam cinema.

[00:22:40]  Katherine notes that some reviews suggested the film suffered from the “curse of the second half”, but for her, the second half of the film is much better.

[00:22:55]  The film is set in Kochi, with the backdrop being the death of the last Kochi Jew.  This, combined with the move of Prithviraj and Priya Anand’s characters moving from Mumbai to Kochi, sets off a chain of events that starts a haunting by a dybbuk, this kind of evil spirit from Jewish lore.  Often this is the spirit of a person who died in such a way that their spirit is unable to move on to the afterlife.

[00:23:32]  Katherine talks about Jews in Kochi, specifically about Sarah Cohen, who ran an embroidery shop that made things required for Jewish observance and ceremonies.  She was looked after by a Muslim caretaker and a Christian cook, who also started learning the business near the end of Sarah’s life.  Katherine notes that even though she was aware of the Jewish Kerela community, she hadn’t really seen their stories in film.

[00:24:17]  Harsha notes that the Jewish community in Kerala is much smaller, and that’s probably why we don’t see more representation of their stories in film.  But there are a lot of similarities between Abrahamic faiths in Kerala, so you do see those similarities reflected in some ways, for example in clothing.

[00:25:00]  The whole idea of the “death of the last Jew in Kerala” is somewhat fictionalized in the film, as there are still Jews in Kerala.  In the film, an antiques dealer gets hold of a dybbuk box from the house of the fictional last Jew.

[00:25:30]  Priya (Priya Anand) is an interior designer (Harsha notes that’s a very Bollywood kind of job), and fills her time after the move from Mumbai shopping for antiques.  She’s very different from the type of wife you usually see in Malaylam cinema, she’s very much a kept woman.

[00:26:20]  The film deals with inter-faith relationships.  Ranjan and Priya are a mixed faith couple, something that’s also at the heart of the story behind Abraham Ezra.

[00:26:50]  The inter-faith relationship in the film between the Jewish Abraham Ezra and the Christian Rosy is perceived as a problem from the Jewish side.  The Jewish family is wealthier than the Christian one, but they are also Zionists, so their intention is to go to the state of Israel once it’s been founded.  That means there is no point with keeping ties with people in Kerala.

[00:27:26]  Abraham Ezra ends up dead, and his father, who practices Kabbalah, makes him into a dybbuk to wreak havoc on the place that wronged his son.

[00:27:35]  Katherine has issues when the film returns to the present day.  If the idea is that the dybbuk will possess someone, then we expect the spirit in the box to be that of Abraham Ezra, but Priya, after bringing the box home, sees an image of a girl.  This is not the dybbuk, and things happen in the house where it makes you feel that there is a haunting, rather than Priya is being possessed.  There were a lot of small details that didn’t seem to connect properly to how the whole dybbuk thing was supposed to work.

[00:28:20]  Harsha skimmed through the Hindi remake (Dybbuk) as well, and she felt the explanation might be more clear in the Hindi version.  In the Hindi version, Norah (the Rosy character in Ezra), is trying to stop the dybbuk, because she’s trying to pull Ezra back.  For Katherine, that makes more sense. 

[00:28:55]  The Hindi version is set in Mauritius, and everyone speaks Hindi, instead of Creole or French.  It’s odd that they placed it outside India.

[00:29:15]  Katherine feels mixed about the ending of the film.  They have to do an exorcism to put the dybbuk back into the box.  The dybbuk transfers itself into Ranjan at some point.  If you go back and watch the film again, you’ll see indications that Marques, who is going to perform the exorcism, realizes that this has happened.

[00:31:10]  Harsha watched a documentary about how synagogues in Kerala work now, and often what they have to do is find Jewish tourists to attend holy days for prayers, so asking random Israelis visiting Kerala to come help with the exorcism is not as far-fetched as Katherine thought it was.

[00:31:55]  In her review of Dybbuk, Anupama Chopra compared it to Ezra a lot.  Harsha felt that she seemed to think that Ezra was a higher quality film.

[00:32:15]  The movie definitely exoticizes (especially in terms of presenting the mystical elements) Cochin Jews in a way that feels a little uncomfortable. 

[00:32:50]  The rabbi in the film has blue eyes, which could feel off (however, note that there are blue eyes in the Ashkenazi Jewish population).  The film may be accidentally and unintentionally playing into things more familiar with European anti-Semitism. 

[00:33:50]  In a general sense, it can be challenging to meld the supernatural with religious tropes, it can come off as cringe-y.  For Katherine, the film Grandmaster did some of that.

[00:34:00]  Kabbalah as a not mainstream form of Judaism.  They call it “black magic” in the film, but it’s more of a mystical tradition.  Harsha suggests it’s more comparable to something like Sufism rather than “black magic”.

[00:34:30]  Katherine found herself doing a lot of reading to better understand the film and what it was trying to portray.  This was the same for Harsha.

[00:35:10]  The song in the middle of the flashback section, “Thambiran” was really haunting, and they didn’t recreate that in the Hindi version.

[00:35:30]  Parts of the film were *really* scary, and people who are sensitive to violence against animals.  There are neighbours with a Black Lab that Priya befriends, and it doesn’t turn out well. 

[00:36:25]  Priya’s pregnancy is important to the plot in the sense that the foetus might be considered an empty vessel for the spirit to possess.

[00:37:00]  Katherine can’t decide how she feels about the end of the movie.  They perform the exorcism, which she thinks is kind of neat on the one hand, but it also seems kind of corny with Prithviraj shooting up in a chair and hanging in the air.

[00:37:23]  Harsha notes that it’s not a great “acting” movie for Prithviraj.  It’s been a long time since she’s seen Prithviraj act in something good.  She doesn’t find him a flexible actor, and finds the “lovey-dovey’ scenes uncomfortable.  Katherine does, too.  We’re not sure why that is, though.

[00:37:55]  Harsha thinks Prithviraj cannot be a sexual being, but when Katherine suggests maybe he was in Aiyyaa, Harsha notes that everything about that comes from Rani’s perception.  All he had to do was brood, and he’s amazing at brooding.  Neither of us can pinpoint what about the canoodling makes us uncomfortable.

[00:38:30]  Harsha notes that sometimes she feels that way about Mammootty, too, but there are times when he can be in the intimate moment, but Prithviraj doesn’t seem to have found a way to make his stoicness into something intimate.

[00:39:20]  Maybe the solution is just to let Prithviraj go back to playing cops.  As Harsha says, that’s his wheelhouse, and he can’t go wrong playing cops.

[00:39:30]  Harsha enjoyed Prithviraj in Vaasthavam, for which he was the youngest recipient of the Kerala State Award for Best Actor, where a lack of believability in his romancing actually works.  Maybe he should lean into to being a user of women? 

[00:40:00]  We did note in Nandanam that his attempt to romance was uncomfortable as well.  We don’t want him to romance.  But we also get tired of him playing cops, so he can’t win.

[00:40: 17]  He’s not a bad actor, we don’t want to leave that impression.  He just doesn’t seem very moldable to us.

[00:40:25]  Katherine had forgotten that Tovino Thomas was in the film, but it’s a really small role.  But she always finds it fascinating to see actors starting out, in tiny roles, and then see where their careers go.

[00:40:48]  You have to give respect to Prithviraj, because, as Harsha notes, he seems to have fully supported Tovino Thomas on his journey to stardom.  They seem to both have a similar world view, it’s just that Tovino is a more flexible actor.  But Prithviraj was definitely a generous senior actor.

[00:41:35]  Harsha closes out our discussion with some more thoughts on Dybbuk, Ezra’s Hindi remake, and where it diverges from the original.  The story is more defined, and many more things that are more explicitly detailed.

[00:44:35]  If you decide to watch Ezra, go in with your eyes open and think about what some of the things they depict and what they can imply, in particular the idea of the Jew as an outsider.

[00:44:55]  Summary!  We talked about two films in this episode that explore the supernatural through two different types of faith traditions in very different and sometimes problematic ways.

[00:45:15]  There is some aspect of making a supernatural movie that exoticizes people from whom those traditions come and makes them somewhat of a curiousity rather than “one of us”. 

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This is the first episode in a series on the Supernatural in Malayalam cinema.  Today, we look at the beloved classic film Manichitrathazhu, directed by Fazil.

Download Episode 15

Episode 15 Highlights:

Spoiler Alert! We try to remember to alert listeners to spoilers, but just in case, know that we talk about the films in-depth, so be sure to watch them first if you’re concerned about spoilers!

[00:00:15] Manichitrathazu is based on the Alummoottil family and Manorama did a story about the their ancestral home in 2019.

[00:00:50] The real-life house is a spooky as the film portrays though the murder is an inheritance issue.

[00:01:26] Supernatural does not just mean horror to Katherine, but also things that have unseen, unexplained origins.

[00:01:58] Katherine does not see Manichitrathazhu as a spooky film. Harsha does.

[00:02:14] Scary movies can often be split into those that have a mental illness origin and those that have a demonic origin.

[00:02:29] Harsha brings up Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House as an example of a scary movie with mental illness origins.

[00:03:02] Manichitrathazhu offers a mental illness explanation for its supernatural occurrences.

[00:03:11] Katherine rewatched all the remakes in addition to watching the Malayalam original for this episode.

[00:03:41] The film is about newlyweds who have arrived from Calcutta to Kerala. They are modern in their belief system, which is a contrast to the husband’s extended family.

[00:04:13] The newlyweds, Nakulan and Ganga, want to stay in their mother’s ancestral home, which everyone opposes because of a belief that women from other families become disturbed in that house. The couple believe this is superstition and choose to move into the home.

[00:04:50] Ganga starts experiencing issues like the family warned. The movie plays around with the idea of whether this is a haunting like the elders believe or a psychological issue.

[00:05:34] The film represents the modern take of this being psychological through the character of Dr. Sunny, played by Mohanlal.

[00:05:42] Initially, some of the strange events in the home are blamed on Sreedevi, played by Vinaya Prasad, a divorcee who is Nakulan’s murappennu.

[00:06:38] The family believes Sreedevi’s divorce is Nakulan’s fault as he refused to marry her. As her marriage outside the family turned out badly, she has reason to be jealous of Ganga’s presence and resent them.

[00:07:46] Among the remakes, Katherine thinks Bhool Bhulaiyya is the closest, which was directed by Priyadarshan, a second unit director for Manichitrathazhu.

[00:08:18] Harsha calls Priyadarshan a Malayalam supremacist and thinks he makes Hindi films only for the money.

[00:08:45] Katherine found the Tamil version, Chandramukhi, too Rajinikanth-focused.

[00:08:53] Having watched the Kannada version Apthamitra, she thinks a lot of the problems in the Tamil version started in Kannada remake with the doctor character introduced from the start.

[00:09:15] Rajinikanth who plays the doctor also portrays the cruel king in Tamil, which undermines the filmi logic of how, in her unstable mind, Ganga projects onto her husband the lord’s cruelty that keeps her from her true love.

[00:10:32] While we understand people wanting things in their own language and culture, in this case, we recommend sticking with the Malayalam version.

[00:10:54] To keep Nagavalli’s true identity a mystery, two different dubbing artists dubbed for Shobana; Bhagyalakshmi for Ganga and Durga Sundarrajan for Nagavalli.

[00:12:52] Nagavalli is capable of things Ganga is not capable of such as superhuman strength which we are willing to fanwank away because of our love for the film.

[00:13:54] Katherine has gained an even bigger appreciation for the film after having watched all the remakes in quick succession, especially the subtle shifts in Shobana’s performance based on perspective.

[00:15:29] Harsha hasn’t seen the Tamil version but is familiar with the kitschy lit-up eyes on Jyothika during the climactic dance. Hindi does voice distortions for that scene, which still does not let the actor show off their craft.

[00:16:53] The film has an excellent background score by music director Johnson that carries so much of its tension.

[00:17:26] Belief in the power of story is an important theme in Manichitrathazhu and its thread through multiple characters.

[00:18:25] For those interested in the Golden Age of Malayalam cinema, this film shows how the superstars of the industry are willing to play supporting characters for the story.

[00:20:01] Even when Mohanlal turns up, it is an effortless performance. His kooky character helps the movie reckon with what is madness and how does it manifest in this particular cultural milieu.

[00:21:44] Sreedevi might be Harsha’s favorite character because of her practicality and steadiness in the face of social stigma, which also might be what attracts Dr. Sunny to her.

[00:23:42] Dr. Sunny thinks the best way to help Ganga is to combine modern psychiatry and the traditional beliefs that formed her in childhood.

[00:25:44] No wonder Dr. Sunny has a Gold Medal from America!

[00:25:50] Thilakan plays a Hindu priest and Mohanlal plays Sunny, one of his most common onscreen names.

[00:26:28] Harsha remembers reading in a Vanitha interview that Fazil gave Shobana a huge budget for sarees.

[00:27:33] Part of the movie’s charm is Shobana’s dance. Ganga has no dance training but becomes a beautiful dancer in her mind as Nagavalli.

[00:28:22] Sridhar, a professional dancer, performs the iconic climactic dance with Shobana

[00:28:49] As a dancer and dance teacher, Shobana would know the subtle differences between a beginner and a skilled dancer in terms of how to hold one’s arms and facial expressions.

[00:29:32] Vidya Balan is not a great dancer and Bhool Bhulaiyaa uses cuts and edits to make her seem like a good dancer opposite Vineeth.

[00:30:20] Harsha’s mini lecture on South Indian classical dances.

[00:31:34] Shobana is a goddess! She’s the standard to live up to in Malayalam cinema.

[00:32:40] Her dignity and charisma is compelling to watch onscreen. When she does comedy it’s a big transformation from her reserved offscreen persona. Check out our discussion of her previously in Thira.

[00:33:50] We have also previously discussed her talent for physical comedy in the cursed film Hitler.

[00:34:15] Manichitrathazhu is the first of our supernatural films, all of which have some element of the tension between supernatural and modern mental health origins for their spooky stories.

[00:34:46] Coming up, we will discuss Ezra, remade as Dybbuk in Hindi, starring Emraan Hashmi.

[00:35:27] Folklore will play a big role in the supernatural films.

[00:35:44] The power of stories is what draws Katherine into this series.

[00:36:19] Hear what Harsha’s grandfather had to say about yakshis and jasmine flowers.

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We’d originally only intended to do three episodes on action films in Malayalam cinema, but decided that we really needed one more — this time, to talk about what we’re calling “Girls Kick Butt”!

Download Episode 14

Episode 14 Highlights:

Spoiler Alert! We try to remember to alert listeners to spoilers, but just in case, know that we talk about the films in-depth, so be sure to watch them first if you’re concerned about spoilers!

[00:00:21] Major Ravi’s son, Arjun, is the cinematographer for The Kung Fu Master (TKFM). Harsha thinks he will become a director.

[00:00:39] Katherine has a lot of thoughts about TKFM

[00:00:45] This is our last episode in the action series, focused on women, or as Harsha calls it, The Girls Kicking Ass episode.

[00:01:25] There is physical ass kicking but also swashbuckling and cleverness to move the story forward.

[00:02:05] First up, The Kung Fu Master, which is about a martial arts gang in North India led by a Malayali. 

[00:02:13] Jiji Scaria plays Rishi Ram, a professional martial arts teacher, who is asked to infiltrate the gang by the police. In retaliation, his entire family is annihilated by the gang, leaving Rishi and his sister Rithu, also a martial artist and college professor, as the only survivors. 

[00:03:15] The siblings drop out of society for a year to take revenge.

[00:03:23] It’s very different from other Indian action films due to the focus on East Asian martial arts, specifically Wing Chun kung fu.

[00:04:10] Compared to an Akshay Kumar-style action film, TKFM has lots of hand-to-hand combat where kicks and punches are shown landing.

[00:05:00] Harsha compares how fight choreography inspired by East Asian cinema is shown in Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings to this film.

[00:05:25] Neeta Pillai, who plays Rithu, trained for a year to do this film.

[00:05:30] In one scene, Rishi and Rithu are teaching a group of children and they give a level of detail about Wing Chun that is surprising. There is a discussion of the Ip Man films with Donnie Yen.

[00:05:55] Katherine mentions this fight scene from Ip Man 2 with Yen and Sammo Hung

[00:06:30] Harsha thinks director Abrid Shine was catching up on the Ip Man series and was inspired to make a Malayalam film with Wing Chun.

[00:06:55] Abrid Shine’s 1983 was a commercial and critical success and helped Nivin Pauly become a star. Then they made Action Hero Biju together, which Harsha does not like.

[00:07:53] Nivin Pauly (and Prithviraj) are known for backseat directing on their films and we speculate if that leads to some of the inconsistency among Abrid Shine’s films.

[00:09:00] Some directors like Lijo Jose Pellissery can try different things while having a unifying style but it’s hard to find that with Abrid Shine’s four films.

[00:10:20] Like Katherine, if you know Hong Kong action films, it’s hard not to spot some of the weaknesses of this film.

[00:10:59] Harsha didn’t like how dialogues were limited to mundane interactions. In productive scenes, the audio is muted and background music plays over it in a montage style. It feels odd.

[00:11:52] We both expected a more fun movie from the title and the family annihilation scene so early on was jarring. Katherine fast forwarded through a lot of it on her second watch.

[00:12:56] Harsha thinks that as much as this was supposed to be a martial arts film, the parts where it exceled were the ones Malayalam cinema always does – the ordinary, family moments.

[00:13:32] The film has the benefit of a beautiful location – the Himayalan foothills. It is beautifully shot. We really liked the way a bloody fight scene was shot against the backdrop of a ground covered in snow. 

[00:13:54] Major action also happens in the Beatles Ashram in Rishikesh. Harsha spent a lot of time looking at the graffiti on the walls. 

[00:14:50] This is a vengeance film but without any upsides. It’s hard to imagine our protagonists ever being able to return to a normal life with the trauma and survivor’s guilt they experienced.

[00:15:50] The early scenes out of chronological order was incredibly confusing for us both.

[00:17:15] Rishi’s powerpoint presentation to the police about the bad guys was unintentionally funny 

[00:17:29] Harsha references Kelly Rowland texting Nelly on Microsoft Excel in the early 2000s

[00:17:49] The villain introduction was extremely cringe. Abrid Shine hates recreational drug use.

[00:19:38] Jiji Scaria is a real martial artist and Neeta Pillai trained for a year. We hope she gets more chances to use it.

[00:21:05] Neeta Pillai is depicted very unglamorously, which makes her feel more real. Everyone also wears comfortable clothes appropriate for fighting.

[00:22:28] We appreciate the choices, possibly dictated by the budget, to not objectify her unlike the villain’s moles who are all white women. Their depiction was uncomfortable.

[00:24:10] Next, Independence from 1999, starring Vani Viswanath, who is pretty glamorous.

[00:24:24] This is a classic masala film. Vani Viswanath and Indraja play sisters trying to get revenge on their parents’ killer.

[00:24:52] Khushboo plays another important character, a police officer who is tasked with apprehending the sisters but ends up siding with them.

[00:25:40] We had to include Vani Viswanath in the action series and Harsha picked this one.

[00:25:45] Katherine had only seen her play supporting characters. It was also hard to track down with subtitles but she liked it!

[00:26:15] Trigger warning for potential physical and sexual assault.

[00:26:38] The songs are very good and Nandalala was a popular song for little girls to dance to circa 1999.

[00:27:05] It’s not so different from a massy action film starring Mohanlal or Mammootty from the time – good songs, comedy uncles, hero(ine) entrance

[00:27:40] Both VV and Khushboo are styled beautifully and Khushboo gets a romance track with her husband, played by Vijayaraghavan.

[00:28:35] Harsha compares Khushboo’s character to the female police officer in Anjaam Pathiraa who has no home life.

[00:29:10] This is directed by Vinayan who is known for giving Kalabhavan Mani characters with dignity.

[00:30:10] Kalabhavan Mani plays an odiyan, or shapeshifter

[00:30:30] We miss many of the supporting cast in the film who have since passed away, including Mani, Cochin Haneefa, Rajan P. Dev, Murali, and wonder how they would have fared in the industry today.

[00:31:30] Murali plays a communist who is accused of the parents’ murder. Communists are often depicted as good people in 90s Malayalam films. At one point he says, God is the greatest communist there is.

[00:32:35] The film has some topical depictions of politicians, the labour movement, Gandhian philosophy and religion. Harsha points out the reference to K. Karunakaran visiting Guruvayoor.

[00:34:25] We liked the range of female characters.

[00:35:15] Despite the surprising progressiveness of the film, it has gotten somewhat lost in time.

[00:35:50] Katherine wants this to be available to non-Malayalam speakers. She is happy to donate to crowdfunds for such projects.

[00:37:00] SCube is doing some restoration and uploading them on Youtube but often without subtitles.

[00:37:25] VV is a charismatic screen presence who hasn’t gotten her due because she isn’t considered An Actress the way Manju Warrier was.

[00:37:45] In our previous discussion about Hitler (1996), we mentioned how she held her own next to Shobana. 

[0037:55] VV is married to Baburaj who has had a great career in New Gen movies. She was the bigger star when they married; let’s give her a career resurgence too!

[00:39:00] Women choosing to give up acting careers might be their choice but it’s also spurred by the industry’s discrimination and social pressure against them.

[00:39:20] Krishna plays the younger sister’s love interest and is the villain’s son. He is another one of the films in this episode.

[00:39:30] Krishna had a Rahman-like career arc in the late 90s. He is related to Shobana and Vineeth and is a grandson of one of the Travancore Sisters.

[00:40:05] He has the appeal of a boy band member.

[00:40:25] Our next film, Daya, also stars Krishna as the love interest. He plays Mansoor, the spoiled son of a wealthy father.

[00:40:35] When his father passes way, the 17-year-old Mansoor inherits all his wealth. He loses all the money due to bad friendships. In the end, all he has left is the slave girl Daya played by Manju Warrier who hatches a scheme to restore Mansoor’s wealth.

[00:42:55] The story is from the Arabian Nights and the screenplay is written by M.T. Vasudevan Nair.

[00:43:50] At one point, Daya pretends to be a man and is appointed prime minister. 

[00:44:50] Manju Warrier rides horses, shoot arrows, fights with swords and all around swash buckles through this film.

[00:45:45] Disney’s Aladdin inspires some of the aesthetics of the film.

[00:046:57] Queer studies academics would find the genderbending and the princess falling in love with boy-Daya very interesting.

[00:48:10] This film and Kannezhuthi Pottum Thottum are the crux of Manju Warrier the star. 

[00:48:35] Katherine is grateful that these films are finally becoming accessible online with subtitles. She watched it on Hotstar at one point with subs.

[00:49:18] We discuss how content can stop being available on one streaming platform and go to another, depending on licensing agreements. There is also a difference among countries in availability.

[00:50:00] K. Madhavan, the former chief of Asianet and a Malayali, is the current head of Disney India.

[00:50:48] Some of these OTT platforms need to consolidate because there’s too many out there now.

[00:51:12] Harsha is afraid of being geolocked out of content because of Disney’s purchase of what used to be Rupert Murdoch’s Asian entertainment business, which owns all the Star content.

[00:52:20] Next, we talk about Thira, starring Shobana, directed by Vineeth Srinivasan.

[00:52:49] This is one of the few films Shobana has dubbed for herself. Her Tamil-inflected Malayalam accent isn’t out of place in this cosmopolitan film.

[00:53:30] She plays Rohini Pranab who rescues trafficked girls.

[00:54:00] The girls in her NGO are abducted by the antagonists. Dhyan Sreenivasan plays a brother looking for a kidnapped sister taken by the same abductors. 

[00:54:30] Shobana isn’t doing a lot of physical action but she’s setting bombs and showing Dhyan how to fight. She pushes the plot forward.

[00:55:30] The camerawork by Jomon T. John is very frenetic, which isn’t pleasant to watch.

[00:57:28] This is Dhyan’s debut and he isn’t a strong actor.  

[00:58:25] He is likeable in ensemble films like Kunjiramayanam and Adi Kapyare Kootamani, not as a lead.

[01:00:02] Thira was supposed to be a full trilogy but nothing has happened in 9 years.

[01:01:40] Shobana does a film every 6-7 years so maybe we have to wait another few years. She deserves her own action trilogy.

[01:02:15] It’s exciting to watch movies where women push the action forward. 

[01:02:24] Harsha is still mad about The Great Father, which is where we started this series.

[01:03:30] We had so much fun with the action series!

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We’re back with our third look at action films in Malayalam cinema! In this episode we look at the younger generation of actors who are entering the action space, with Prithviraj, Asif Ali, and Unni Mukundan.

Download Episode Thirteen

Episode Thirteen Highlights:

Spoiler Alert! We try to remember to alert listeners to spoilers, but just in case, know that we talk about the films in-depth, so be sure to watch them first if you’re concerned about spoilers!

[00:00:31] It’s not the last action episode!  Harsha notes we have plans to do one more episode on women in action films.

[00:00:35]  Today’s episode is on New Gen action films, pretty much films after 2008 featuring the newest generation of superstars in the Malayalam film industry.

[00:00:50]  We begin the episode by discussion Puthiya Mukham, the Prithviraj film from 2009.  It’s about a Brahmin musician who goes to college in Kochi, where he’s hazed by the students.  The physical assaults he suffers result in him changing into the film’s action hero.

[00:02:00]  Katherine notes that his character has had some kind of childhood trauma, which results in that any time he’s in a stressful/violent situation, his violent side may emerge.

[00:02:25] The film’s title can be translated as “New Face” or “New Persona”, so it’s a reflection of what happens to the main character.

[00:02:33] Harsha notes that this film is most notable because it’s what made Prithviraj a superstar in the Malayalam industry.  In her words, “It did bonkers business.”

[00:02:45] It also stars Priyamani, who was a popular pairing with Prithviraj early in his career.

[00:03:00]  The draw of a masala movie like this is that Prithviraj gets to play both the quiet boy-next-door as well as the action star.  In that way you get a whole range from your preferred star’s talent.

[00:03:10]  The movie came out in 2009, and this was a period whrere Telugu movies, especially with Allu Arjun and Mahesh Babu, were really doing good business in Kerala.  Malayalam movies of the 2000s weren’t that great and people weren’t excited to go to the movie theatre.

[00:03:25] Malayalam movies of the 2000s weren’t that great and people weren’t excited to go to the movie theatre.  They had the veneer of being “family movies”, but mostly they were movies that had lower levels of humour, in which women weren’t as interested in.

[00:03:45]  This film came out at a time when Telugu movies were doing really good business in Kerala, and this was a Malayalam movie trying to do what Telugu movies were doing.

[00:04:00]  You also see Hindi movies of the time – for example, Dabangg – that were also trying to emulate Telugu films.

[00:04:15] Katherine notes that this is the place (as we’ve discussed before) where Malayalam cinema gets closest to other industries from the south.

[00:04:25] In interviews from the time, Prithviraj actually name-checked people like Allu Arjun in explaining what he was trying to do.

[00:04;40]  It also benefitted by Prithviraj putting on some muscle, getting to do the clean-shaven good boy for the ladies who like that, and then he got to do the bad ass for those who that would appeal to.

[00:04:50] Despite the fact that it was a masala movie and typically we don’t think of action films as aimed at women, Harsha feels that Prithviraj in this era was making specific appeals to female gaze – something that didn’t happen a lot in the movies from the 2000s.  We haven’t seen that in our action series since Jayan.

[00:05:15]  Katherine discusses sharing one of the songs from the film, where Priyamani is literally grabbing Prithviraj’s chest.  We don’t see *that* a lot.  We see a lot of the women who need to be rescued, an object for the hero and villain to fight over.

[00:05:50]  We don’t see a lot of women with agency in this period, and at least with Anjana, despite the fact that her marriage is arranged, we have a character trying to hang on to a little bit of it, with her choice to stay in school, postpone the wedding for four years, and oh, yes, she’ll do what she wants during that time.

[00:06:20]  Harsha does point out that Anjana’s choice is a bit of a plot device, but, that said, she does have a certain amount of agency, certainly not something we see much of in masala movies.

[00:06:35]  In this series we’ve gone over a lot of movies in which the agency of women and girls is specifically taken away, so it’s at least a bit refreshing that Anjana has some.

[00:06:45]  All of that said, don’t watch the film and expect to come away with female empowerment, because that is not the case.  It’s a little step in a good direction.

[00:06:55]  The villain they cast in the film, Bala, is also considered attractive, or was, at least at that time.  He was considered someone women liked watching.

[00:07:20]  Katherine notes there’s a song at the beginning of the film, and there is Bala dancing with Priyamani while Prithviraj plays the drums.  It’s notable because Bala looks happy and cheerful and non-villain.

[00:07:50]  The other thing that stands out in the film is Guinness Pakru – who now prefers to be referred to by his real name, Ajay Kumar.  He is a little person who is an actor who did a couple of films with Prithviraj around this period.  He plays a kind of comedy uncle, and it’s a role Harsha isn’t completely comfortable with.  The comedy uncle is a role that’s laced with a certain amount of classism and castism, and with Kumar being a person with a disability, that just piles on to the comedy uncle aspect.

[00:08:35]  Katherine notes that Ajay Kumar was in a lot of films in this period, in Tamil films as well as in Malayalam films. She also notes that it was the first time she’d seen a little person in Indian films in a more substantial role, even if much of it was “comedy uncle”.   Katherine is reminded of Mimie Mathy, the French actor who is also a little person, and who built a substantial career for herself.

[00:09:40]  Harsha notes Game of Thrones, as well, with Peter Dinklage, who has also become a huge star and present in a lot of things.  But in GOT, he had a character that was pushing the story forward.  Ajay Kumar has a place, but he’s not had that kind of career.  He has directed a movie.  We’d love to see him in more substantial roles – much in the way that Salim Kumar has been able to transition from being a comedy actor to a serious actor.

[00:10:35]  Is the reason we don’t see him in more mainstream things these days because Malayalam cinema has, since the 2000s, moved away from less politically correct, more comedy uncle usage?  That would mean the kinds of roles he used to do aren’t as prominent as they used to be.

[00:11:05]  Harsha notes that Ajay Kumar is always on Malayalam television shows where they judge music and dance competitions, and he always comes across as a very likeable guy – we’d like to see him given the chance to do more as an actor.

[00:11:25]  Katherine suggests that despite the “comedy-uncleness” of some of his roles, he’s still an engaging presence on screen.

[00:11:35]  Harsha mentions a show that Ajay Kumar used to do, where he would pick an old actor and tell us all about the gossip – Harsha’s mother used to complain that they were making him voice misogynistic thoughts, and that’s the only way he’s allowed to make money in the industry.  It’s sad, and we want to see more work for him that allows him to do more than this.

[00:12:15]  If you want to see Prithviraj becoming a superstar, this is the movie that you should check out.  It’s not the best movie in the world, and if you want this kind of masala you’re probably better off checking out a Telugu movie, but it is a nice milestone in Prithviraj’s career.

[00:12:40]  If she has to watch patriarchy and misogyny on screen, Katherine wants it served up with big song and dance numbers and lots of glitter, and the Telugu industry serves that up.

[00:12:55]  Harsha notes that in the 90s and a bit beyond, stars weren’t there for the female gaze.  It was tried in the 70s with Jayan.  In the 80s you had actors like Rahman and Shankar who were more appealing to women, but they weren’t doing action movies.  In the late 2000s you started to see movies appealing to the female gaze.

[00:13:35]  Next we turn to the 2012 film Asuravithu, starring Asif Ali.  It has a connection to Prithviraj through the film Stop Violence, and it’s by the same director, AK Sajan.

[00:13:50]  The film is Asif Ali’s first foray into a massy action film.  His character is Don Bosco.  He’s in a seminary studying to be a priest.  He’s soft-spoken.  But he eventually goes up against the gang who killed his father.  SPOILER:  his father is Prithviraj’s character who died at the end of Stop Violence, though we don’t know that initially.

[00:14:20]  The film opens with his mother, Angel (played by Lena) leaving him with the priests.  It’s a “nature versus nurture” thing – she’s afraid if she raises him, he will become a gangster like his father.  She wants him raised by the priests so he will have a better chance at becoming a good person.

[00:14:45]  There is a Satan/Angel dichotamy that exists in Stop Violence, and this movie is fully about which parent this young man is going to follow in the path of.

[00:15:00]  Harsha did NOT like this movie at all.  It was a pain to get through.

[00:15:20]  Katherine suggests it’s almost caricatural as an action film.  There were moments where they were hitting all the right action beats and tropes, but they were done so badly she laughed (and she apologizes for how terrible that sounds, but she couldn’t help it).  It was embarassing funny.

[00:15:45]  As Harsha notes, any time Asif Ali’s characters was smoking or walking around, his outfits changed from the white seminarian outfits to his black suits, and then suddenly he’s smoking and drinking – it just happens so quickly after he finds out who his father was.  He gets the kernal of the idea that the world is unfair and you have to use violence to fight it.

[00:16:10]  His change in character happens so fast!  It’s not explained, for example, in the way it was in Puthiya Mukham, for example, where they gave the main character a medical condition (real or not) to explain the change in his character.  He becomes an underworld kingpin so fast!

[00:16:35]  There is an extremely diverse group of men and women who are his gang members.  They suddenly start calling him ‘bhaiyya” out of the blue.

[00:16:45]  One of the characters in the seminary with him, and who joins the gang with him is the son of Acid from Stop Violence.  Very conveniently.  And Harsha reminds us that he’s played by Mammootty’s nephew, Maqbool Salman.

[00:17:10]  The film is about Good versus Evil, and it really doesn’t have much of a plot beyond that.

[00:17:15]  Katherine read an interview with Asif Ali for his film Underground, another action film.  They asked him if there were any role he would like to try again, and he said it was this role from this film.  He said that he jumped at the opportunity to do something he hadn’t done before in films.  Katherine doesn’t think this is his wheelhouse, and Harsha agrees.  But he said he didn’t think he was a good enough actor to do the role when he took it, but he jumped at it anyway because it was something he wanted to try.

[00:18:10]  Katherine suggests we talk a bit about Asif Ali.  One of the things she’d started doing on Twitter is bringing attention to other actors than, as Harsha notes, “our dear beloved Fahadh Faasil”.  (WE LOVE HIM, but there are more actors in Malayalam cinema who are worth learning about.)

[00:18:45]  Asif Ali works steadily, he’s known, but for Katherine he doesn’t seem to be up there with the actors that people will always mention or recommend to you.

[00:19;00]  Harsha feels Asif Ali’s niche is something like Kunchacko Boban’s.  He obviously didn’t get the extremely stellar debut Kunchacko Boban had the benefit of.  But Asif Ali made his debut with Rithu which was a very experimental film from director Shyamaprasad.  He came into the film industry at a relatively young age.  He’s been steadily working, and he’s got enough charisma and enough interest.

[00:19:30]  He hasn’t risen to the beloved status that Kunchacko Boban has because he just doesn’t have as many years in the industry.  However, he’s on track to get to that place.  Harsha reminds us about the joke in Ustaad Hotel when Asif Ali shows up and they ask him if he’s Kunchacko Boban.

[00:20:00]  Katherine appreciates that Asif Ali takes the chance on quirkier and/or more experimental films.  Whether you like a film like Kili Poyi or not, it was an attempt to make a stoner film,  not previously done in the Malayalam industry.  She also thinks he’s quite funny in it.

[00:20:25]  Honey Bee is fun.  Asif Ali works well in a light, fluffy space.

[00:20:35]  One of Harsha’s favourite Malayalam films is Ozhimuri, with Bhavana.  He and Bhavana are really good friends so they’ve done a couple of movies together, including Honey Bee.  Harsha likes their chemistry because it’s clear on screen that they’re friends and they like each other. 

[00:20:55]  All the movies Harsha thinks of with Asif Ali in them, the ones she enjoys are the smaller films where he gets to play extremely “boy next door” roles, or ordinary men.  It’s good that there’s an actor who excels at playing those kinds of roles.

[00:21:15]  There is space for more than one actor.  And Harsha points out you get a great sense of a normal, ordinary Malayali man in many of his films.  Fahadh Faasil has done some of those roles, but Asif Ali’s movies are chock full of the ordinary life of people in Kerala, in the same way as Kunchacko Boban’s.

[00:22:20]  We encourage people to seek out Asif Ali’s films, other than Asuravithu.

[00:22:30] Asuravithu is, in some ways, a little bit of a good fit for his filmography, because with Honey Bee and films like it, he’s done some Kochi-centric movies where people are talking in Kochi slang and it’s all about the Kochi underworld.  If anyone ever wants to become an Asif Ali completionist they can check this out.

[00:23:00]  Every time the gang complete’s a job there’s a “D Company” stamp on the screen.  Harsha reminds us that D Company was Dawood Ibrahim’s gang, and she wonders why they appropriated that for the film?

[00:23:40]  Harsha believes we were supposed to get a second part to the film, where Maqbool Salman’s character in the lead.

[00:23:55]  The film is also incredibly anti-Semitic, which for Harsha came out of nowhere.  She suggests that Indian movies don’t have a context for anti-Semitism that is known in the West and the Middle East.  Jewish people don’t have as much of a presence in Indian life, but also, Jewish people were famously well received by and were not persecuted in the subcontinent.  So for no good reason, the film’s villains are extremely, comically Jewish.

[00:25:00]  There are a lot of things that are part of Malayali culture, like castism and colourism, but anti-Jewish prejudice is not one of them.

[00:26:05]  Katherine considers the film for Asif Ali completionists only, with lots of warnings about the content.

[00:26:15]  We begin a discussion of the last film for this episode, Style!

[00:26:30]  Katherine tries to summarize the film.

[00:27:30]  Harsha notes that from the film’s summary you can understand that the film is very low stakes, and a lot of fun – of the films we watched for this episode, this one was the most fun, with the caveat that we have reservations about Unni Mukundun because of the sexual assault allegations levelled against him.

[00:28:00]  The movie spends a lot of time objectifying Unni Mukundun.

[00:28:05]  Katherine suggests that Unni Mukundun seems to be the most natural fit in the action space.  Harsha notes that he really does have the physicality for it, and he may have been trying to create a kind of New Generation Suresh Gopi-type career.

[00:28:40]  The movie flips the masala trope of the hero following the heroine around at one point.

[00:29:35]  Can the situation with the sexual assault allegations be resolved in a way that respects the alleged victim, and rehabilitates the actor?  Katherine feels a wee bit uncomfortable recommending the film (despite it being fun) when there has been no resolution of this situation.

[00:30:45] Harsha gives an outline of the news reports on details of the situation.  We come back to talking about why are professional meetings being carried out in unprofessional contexts?  Why are the meetings happening in flats and hotel rooms and not in offices?  It’s completely inappropriate, and it’s something that has to change in the industry.  Women who want to work in the industry are often forced into these inappropriate situations, where they probably feel unsafe.  It’s unfair, and it shouldn’t be the standard.

[00:31:45]  There has to be responsibility and accountability and things have to change.

[00:32:05]  As viewers we have a choice:  if your actions are so egregious, and there is no accountability, then we can choose not to watch the content.

[00:32:15]  Katherine feels that right now she’s sitting on a fence with respect to Unni Mukundan and his career.

[00:32:35]  As Harsha notes, the sad effect of all this is that people are just no longer going to listen to stories from female writers, rather than realizing that they should be taking these professional meetings in professional places – like in an office, with other people present.

[00:33:05]  There is something about narrating a script that is very personal – they have to act out some of the characters, and maybe that’s not great over an online meeting platform like Zoom.  That’s fine, but then you do it in an office, in a space where other people can vouch for what you are doing.

[00:33:55]  All of that said, we enjoyed the film.  This was a time when Tovino Thomas (who plays the extremely hammy villain) hadn’t quite become the star he is today.  Unni Mukundan was probably the bigger name in this movie.  They came into the industry around the same time, but Unni Mukundan had the benefit of having Mammootty as a kind of supporter. 

[00:34:30]  Every time Tovino Thomas lights up a cigar it’s done in a way that emphasizes the movie’s title:  STYLE.  Harsha loops back to Asif Ali in Asuravithu – what they do in Style was what they were trying to do in Asuravithu, but that film didn’t have the tongue-in-cheekness of Style.

[00:34:50]  Style is very self-aware about what it is doing, and that always makes a difference.

[00:34:55]  Part of post-modernism, as cultures move into the post-modern art period, sees self-awareness as a key – otherwise it feels insincere to us as an audience.

[00:35:00] Asuravithu does *exactly* the same things as Style – the exact same kinds of tropes and beats – and they don’t work at all.  In Style, they work perfectly.

[00:35:25]  There are so many little tongue-in-cheek details in the film:  Unni Mukundan’s character suggests she looks like a heroine from a Telugu movie; The brothers are called Tom and Jerry.  It would be corny, except they are actively trying to be corny.

[00:36:55]  Tom also allows his little brother Jerry to take his own revenge. 

[00:37:35]  It’s an action movie.  We have to accept that people beating each other up is part of that experience, otherwise why are we here?

[00:37:45]  In the moral universe of action movies, we think people settling conflict by beating each other up is fine.

[00:37:50]  Violence solves nothing.  Stop Violence (yes, that is a reference to a previous episode). Except in action movies.

[00:38:00]  Katherine found it interesting to see Tovino Thomas and remember that period where Unni Mukundan was the bigger thing.

[00:38:15]  One of the criticisms Unni Mukundan used to face was that he wasn’t a very good actor, and probably Tovino Thomas got the benefit of being considered a better actor.   But Harsha doesn’t mind Unni Mukundan in these kinds of roles where he plays a hemming and hawing muscled guy who everybody keeps complementing on his looks and muscles.  See also:  Vikramadithyan, Oru Murai Vanthu Parthaya.  Though Harsha also thinks he doesn’t have much range beyond that.

[00:38:55]  Katherine thinks it’s quite all right for some actors to have a zone they work well in. 

[00:39:20]  Harsha thinks Malayalam cinema doesn’t know quite what to do with Unni Mukundan.  If Unni Mukundan is going to go in the lane of Suresh Gopi of sorts — Suresh Gopi had proved himself as an actor prior to becoming an action hero, and he’s a good actor all around.  Mukundan has had bit roles in other industries, and maybe they’ll know better what to do with him, but he’ll have to grow as an actor at some point.

[00:40:10]  Over the course of three episodes spanning careers from the big stars like Mammootty and Mohanlal, like Jayan and Suresh Gopi.  Now we’ve had a look at this younger generation, we considers some thoughts about what we’ve seen doing this.

{00:40:25}  For actors for whom action is just part of their bigger repertoire, like Mammootty and Mohanlal, we often see films that aren’t really true action movies.  Those movies don’t stick out in their filmography, and they’re not the ones people are drawn to when they talk about these actors.  For people like Jayan and Suresh Gopi, and Unni Mukundan and perhaps Prithviraj (he’s a much stronger action star than he is in other genres) – actions films are probably where they are most comfortable.  They’re the ones most associated with the action genre.

[00:41:25]  For Malayalam cinema, action movies are still a pretty small genre, and there isn’t a strong action choregraphy industry in India.  Harsha really wants that to change. 

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In Episode 12, we continue our look at Action Films in Malayalam cinema. This time, we look at the two actors who are considered actual action stars:  Suresh Gopi and Jayan.

Spoiler Alert! We try to remember to alert listeners to spoilers, but just in case, know that we talk about the films in-depth, so be sure to watch them first if you’re concerned about spoilers!

Download Episode 12

Episode Twelve Highlights:

[00:00:20] We begin after having talked about terrorism and democracy in the US and Canada.  Harsha notes that it’s always interesting to watch Indian films from the pre-liberalization period because they’re a reminder that Indian democracy is a very recent thing, and that there was a period in history when India wasn’t democratic at all.

[00:02:00]  We segue into today’s episode, action movies with two actors who are firmly considered action stars:  Suresh Gopi and Jayan.

[00:02:30]  Because Suresh Gopi lived longer than Jayan he’s had time to move beyond simply being an action star, even if what he became a star for was police or military action movies.

[00:03:00]  The first movie we look at is Kashmeeram from 1994.  Suresh Gopi imbued a very definite idea of masculinity in this movie.  Harsha reminds us that he was her crush as a little kid.

[00:03:20]  Once again, Katherine is at a disadvantage, as three of the four films today were unsubtitled.

[00:03:50]  Kashmeeram is a very classic action story in which a secret service agent has to protect a prominent political/judicial figure.

[00:04:45]  Harsha feels that this is the movie in his filmography that made him a definite action star.  (But don’t quote her on that.)

[00:05:45]  How do we best protect someone, and what are the lines around that protection?

[00:06:00]  Harsha finds it a very massy movie and a fun film to watch.  She enjoys Priya Raman in it as the spoiled, bratty daughter of the judge (played by the excellent actor Sharada).

[00:06:25]  Sharada started in Malayalam cinema playing heroines opposite Prem Nazir, and then moved to playing mother or grandmother roles, so it’s nice to see her in this part of her career playing this important character.

[00:06:50]  It’s an important role, too, a judge in a terrorism case. As Harsha notes, it’s absolutely not a disposable character.

[00:07:05]  Even though the women in 90s roles are still in films soaked in patriarchy, Harsha feels there are some strong female characters, prior to earlier periods where we don’t see many female characters with strong agency.

[00:07:25]  The songs in the movie are really fun and enjoyable to listen to.

[00:07:45]  Katherine feels that even in the action films of these two actors, films have long stretches without action, and much is defined by a strong on-screen presence.

[00:08:20]  Harsha finds with Suresh Gopi there’s a different demeanor he adopts in his action movies.  Mimicry artists for decades have drawn on his action demeanor for their imitations of him.  He uses lots of English as well – and his punch dialogues are almost always in English.

[00:09:00]  The last ten minutes or so of the film are full on action.  Things explode and go flying, it’s very artistically done.

[00:09:25]  Harsha notes that the portrayal of the terrorists in the film is extremely racist.  It also makes political points that uphold the Indian state as “this big holy thing”, and people in conflict with the Indian state as the bad guys.  It’s a constant in 90s films.  (See article about Dil Se)

[00:10:35]  The film seems to be saying there’s no difference between Kerala and the power centre in Delhi.  It’s a very jingoistic film.

[00:11:05] That kind of statement, that “we, Malayalees, are no different from the centre of the country” – Harsha is not sure that Malayalam cinema can truthfully make a statement like that.  She suggests perhaps that someone like Major Ravi, who is so associated with military service might make a film like that, but she doesn’t think that there’s any sense in Malayalam cinema that Kerala is the same as the centre at this point, and that distance has only grown in the three decades since the movie came out.

[0:00:12:00]  Katherine tries to understand the frustration of a family chafing at being guarded by Suresh Gopi’s Black Cat character.

[00:00:12:15] The motivations of the characters in the film are fairly understandable.  Harsha speaks about Madhupal’s duplicitous character as one of his more memorable roles in a movie.  These days he’s probably known more as a director and a screenwriter than as an actor.

[00:13:15]  We turn to a discussion of the 2007 film Nadia Kolappetta Rathri.  Harsha suggests that even though it’s billed as a Suresh Gopi film, the main character really is the one played by Kavya Madhavan.  Katherine notes that’s another reason she was interested in it.  She plays a duel role, sisters who are a dancer on one hand and a sharp-shooter on the other.

[00:13:55]  Katherine feels the film has a kind of Agatha Christie-esque feel.  Three attacks take place on a train.  Suresh Gopi’s character is an encounter specialist.  He’s railway police.  It’s not as cool as they’re making it sound in the film, but, well, it’s Suresh Gopi.

[00:15:00]  Suresh Gopi’s character is with the RACT – The Railway Anti-Criminal Task Force.  Harsha notes it’s a very silly name.  But they make it sound very impressive in the film.

[00:14:35]  An encounter specialist is essentially a glorified movie term.  It does exist, but basically encounters are extra-judicial killings, so if they’re a specialist, it’s a specialist in doing something extremely illegal.

[00:15:40]  Harsha felt it was Agatha Christie inspired, too, and looking it up, she found it was, indeed, based on a Christie novel, Elephants Can Remember. 

[00:16:05]  Katherine notes that the film is less about action, and more about Suresh Gopi’s style and persona (I mean, he is literally playing Hercule Poirot, yes?).  He does get an action hero introduction in the film, though.

[00:16:15]  Kavya Madhavan probably gets more action to do in the film than Suresh Gopi does.  The climax has more to do with her than him. 

[00:16:55]  Katherine notes that one of the things she likes about the film is that Suresh Gopi’s character, Sharafuddeen, has two colleagues:  his assistant Sudarshan, played by Shammi Thilakan, and Selvan, played by (as Harsha notes) a very young Joju George.  It’s always fun to see these actors, especially in this low period in Malayalam cinema, and see that they now have much bigger careers.

[00:17:45]  You have to look for the joys of watching cinema in this period in the oddest thing.

[00:17:50]  Harsha notes we also have Madhupal playing another random creep in this movie.

[00:18:15]  Harsha feels that saying it’s an Agatha Christie inspired movie encapsulates how she felt about it.  The beats are familiar, there are lots of tropes. 

[00:18:40]  Katherine wanted to include this film because we have the female actor taking on some of the action, which rarely happens.  Harsha was surprised to see it in Kavya Madhavan’s filmography, because it’s not like the characters she is synonymous with.

Please note:    Listeners who have followed us through all our episodes know that we rarely talk about the actor we refer to as That Guy, or The Actor Who Shall Not Be Named, in particular because of the sexual assault of the actress Bhavana Menon (we are using her name here because she very purposely revealed her identity in order to tell people about what she’d been through in the five years since the assault took place.  We also know that Kavya Madhavan, the wife of The Actor Who Shall Not Be Named, was questioned in connection to the case, and that a memory card with pictures of the assault was allegedly kept in the office of her business.  We want to be clear that we understand these connections, and we aren’t trying to give her a pass on this because she’s a woman (particularly as we make a point not to discuss her husband’s films).

[00:20:20]  Harsha has the sense that Suresh Gopi in this film is trying to recapture the glory days of the 90s.  We’re supposed to recall our affection for him in older movies.  Katherine wonders if there’s supposed to be a call-back to Kashmeeram here.  Harsha thinks that Suresh Gopi has played a number of Black Cat commando characters by this point in his career, and they’re all stemming from Kashmeeram.

[00:21:45]  Siddique.  And his wig. And Katherine’s Theory of Siddique’s Wigs.  Harsha points out that Malayalam films have a history of actors wearing terrible wigs.

[00:24:10]  We turn next to the late Jayan.  Neither of us was very familiar with his films, though Harsha was familiar with his punch dialogues, especially his “We are not beggars, we are coolies” speech from Angadi.

[00:24:55]  The first movie we discuss, Prabhu from 1977, is not so much a Jayan movie as it is a Prem Nazir movie.

[00:25:05]  Katherine only heard about Jayan when remembrances were written up, but couldn’t find any of his films.  She also notes that Siddique’s character in Kattappanayile Rithwik Roshan is a huge Jayan fan.  She is frustrated that Scube did not put Angadi on their YouTube channel as originally intended.

[00:27:44]  There are a lot of complicated family connections in this movie.  It’s also a gangster film, so there’s smuggling and land mafia stuff going on, and the film is essentially about the two heros ganging up to save the day.

[00:28:10]  Kaviyoor Ponnamma plays Prem Nazir’s mother.  She is much younger than him.  Sigh.  We can’t figure out why she didn’t get cast in heroine roles instead of mother roles.

[00:29:20]  The benefit of playing the mother is you don’t have to be sexualized – and Seema is extremely sexualized in this movie.

[00:30:05]  Harsha thinks this may be the first time she’s seen Prem Nazir dance.  He’s like Mammootty, he’s not a dancing actor.

[00:30:35]  Katherine thinks it’s unfortunate that this is the first Prem Nazir film we’re talking about.  Katherine loves some of his films from the 60s, especially when he’s paired with Sheela.

[00:31:35]  Katherine’s experience is that the only time you’re going to find Jayan films with subtitles is usually where he’s starring alongside someone else, like Prem Nazir in this film.  And it’s unfortunate for Prem Nazir, because Jayan is young and vibrant.  This is very clear in the action scenes:  Jayan was known for doing his own stunts.

[00:32:30]  Jayan is, like Suresh Gopi, an actor with a definite demeanor and screen presence.  He’s very charismatic to watch, even when he’s in a smaller role like this alongside Prem Nazir.

[00:33:20]  It’s great to watch Jayan doing his own stunts, but it’s also unfortunate because he passed away because he was committed to doing his own stunts.  But him doing his own stunts brings real value to this movie.

[00:33:30]  There’s nothing in the plot that requires Jayan to be there.  But it’s like what we’ll see later with Mammootty and Mohanlal films of the 2000s, a younger hero is added to do the action and dancing portions.

[00:34:05]  Jayan doesn’t even get to do any romancing in this movie.  Prem Nazir does a lot of romancing in this movie, which is his forte.  But, as Katherine notes, he’s also reached a point in his career where the heroines are getting younger and younger. 

[00:34:25]  Katherine finds it sad, and notes she enjoys Prem Nazir’s movies from the 60s – he has a matinee idol look that makes her understand why he was so popular.

[00:34:45]  An unanswerable question:  what would have happened if Jayan had survived?  Harsha finds it an interesting question.  His career was so short – less than a decade.  What kind of actor would he have been in New Generation movies?  How would today’s directors have re-invented him, as, for example, they’ve re-invented Suresh Gopi?

[00:35:25]  Harsha feels that when Jayan plays romance, there is often a lascivious tinge to it – it’s not like a “pure” Prem Nazir romance.

[00:36:00]  Harsha’s experience of the film is coloured by the people who have imitated Jayan and Prem Nazir.

[00:36:35]  Katherine’s reading on Jayan has her noting that when he died, people did feel there was this sudden gap in the industry.  There was a perhaps apocryphal reference that Mammootty had been pegged to fill that action gap.

[00:37:20]  One of the things the film highlights is that we’re at the twilight of Prem Nazir’s career, and people are trying to find the next hero who can take it forward.

[00:37:40]  Jayan’s death was so shocking, and it gave rise to a number of “ghost of Elvis” stories, that Jayan is still alive somewhere.

[00:37:50]  This is still a period where films were shot on soundstage, and acting is very stylized, staged like in theatre.

[00:38:30]  Katherine would hestitate to recommend a Prem Nazir film to people unfamiliar with old cinema, whether Malayalam or Hollywood.  We haven’t reached the era of more naturalistic acting.

[00:39:05]  Jose Prakash, who plays the villain, is famous for playing villains in Malayalam cinema.  He’s such a familiar face.

[00:39:45]  This movie is a bundle of familiarity for Harsha in a lot of ways.

[00:39:55]  We end with a discussion of the final film for this episode, Sarapancharam.  If we could tell that Nadia Kolappetta Rathri was based on an Agatha Christie novel, we can also tell that Sarapancharam has its roots in a 19th century European novel (in this case, Lady Chatterly’s Lover)

[00:40:23]  Jayan plays the lover, and Sheela plays the Lady Chatterly character.  It has more artistic merit than Prabhu does.  And Jayan just hams it up royally in this film.

[00:40:40]  Jayan’s character is a lascivious creep, and Katherine was there for that.  And once again, a film she’d love to have subtitles for.  Do we sense a theme here?

[00:41:05]  Katherine likes the fact that, in the first part of the film especially, the film is dealing with the female gaze.  Sheela’s character plays a woman whose husband is impotent, so she turns to the stable boy for physical satisfaction.  Sadly, she’s punished for this.  Jayan’s character was only there for her money.

[00:41:30]  Harsha notes that there are so many scenes in the first half where Sheela is just staring at Jayan lustfully from her balcony.  Even if they haven’t seen Sarapancharam, people are still familiar with the famous scene where he flexes his muscles as he rubs down a horse.

[00:41;55]  Harsha has never seen such tiny shorts and tiny skirts in Malayalam movies.  Katherine notes there are also a lot of cleavage shots.  It’s a very horny movie.

[00:42:10] Katherine notes that it’s not really an action movie until right at the very end, but it is this action star idea of a heightened masculinity.  It’s interesting to see that transferred into a very non-action film.

[00:42:45]  The horse is literally a stand-in for Jayan’s character.  Every time his step-daughter beats up on a horse or a picture of a horse we know it’s really because she’s angry at Jayan.  It’s tied to masculinity, to virility.

[00:43:05]  Jayan’s character represents a kind of toxic masculinity so prevalent in 19th century European literature.

[00:43:20]  When Sheela’s character finds him cheating on her, spending her money, bringing his mistresses home, she sends her daughter away to boarding school out of this toxic environment, but the child grows up extremely resentful of her mother and step-father.

[00:44:20]  We note the presence of house fave Shankar.  But once again, there’s a boy who has vengeance to seek, who tries to take out Jayan.

[00:44:25]  At the end of the day, it’s still the female characters who drive the story, and the Chekov’s gun goes off in Sheela’s hands.  She’s the one that brought this problem into their lives, and she’s the one who’s going to deal with it.

[00:44:50]  Katherine struggles to describe the confrontation between Jayan’s character and the step-daughter’s boyfriend, and Harsha tells it like it is:  it’s an extremely homoerotic scene.

[00:45:10]  We all know if you’re going to have a man-to-man fight, they’re going to have to strip off their shirts.

[00:45:15]  The gaze objectifies everyone in this movie.

[00:45:35]  Sheela’s gaze and her desires are taken very seriously.  Harsha respects that about the movie.  Yes, her character is punished, but she is not really judged (except by her daughter and brother) for cheating.  It doesn’t feel like the servants judge her; mostly it feels like they sympathize with her.

[00:46:05]  It is interesting to consider as a film.  And Harsha raises the SRK film Maya Memsaab, based on Madame Bovary, to see how it treats female sexuality in contrast to Sarapancharam.

[00:47:00]  Inevitably, the woman has to pay for her desires.

[00:47:20]  Katherine leads us to summing up – for her, it’s challenging to have the two actors most associated with action in Malayalam cinema whose films are not widely available to people beyond Malayalees and the diaspora (ie, people who need subtitles).

[00:47:35]  Harsha feels there’s a big gap that the industry needs to fill.  There’s a lot of room for these movies to be restored.  It’s unfortunate, too, that every time you search for these movies, they always show the “naughtiest” clips from the movie in the screenshot, and you might be hesitant to click on it.

[00:48:10]  Harsha wishes there were channels and vendors treating Sarapancharam as art, and not just as “check out the horniest clips from your youth.”

[00:48:15]  Katherine found that to be an issue when she was looking for clips to share with listeners, and things labelled as shocking out of context are not actually as shocking in the context of the whole film.

[00:48:40]  Those clips give you a distorted sense of what the movie really is about.  It’s definitely a film about sexuality, but it’s a whole story beyond the titillating clips.  If you had seen the film in a movie theatre in the period it was released, you would have got the whole story.

[00:49:20]  These movies are part of Malayalam cinema’s heritage, and Harsha urges people to check them out as part of Malayalam cinema’s continuing dialogue with the society it’s part of.  Think about what these movies represent and the time period they came from.

[00:49:55]  It’s especially interesting to see Sheela in this kind of role, when what we might be more familiar with is her roles in some of those very innocent 1960s movies.

[00:50:25]  Katherine agrees that this is a really interesting role for Sheela, and she’d probably watch this film more for her than for Jayan.

[00:50:40]  Harsha notes how much more sexuality is interlaced into the movies from the 70s and 80s than perhaps even today.   Though she notes that it’s in films like Thoovanathumbikal, and since that’s a Padmarajan movie, people think of it as “art”.   To see these movies with a bit of an erotic undertone can be shocking.

[00:51:50]  Harsha suggests that it’s the Jayan movies that have an erotic undertone, and doesn’t think you’d find that in Suresh Gopi movies (he’s all about the English dialogues, though).

[00:51:55]  Harsha wonders if people then would have taken the whole family to see these movies – there hasn’t been, classically, a lot of separation between movies you can take your family to versus films just for adults.  And if they did go with the whole family to see Sarapancharam, what would they have thought?

[00:52:53]  Katherine notes we went from Action Heroes to Morality Tales.

[00:53:00]  We begin to wind things up, and Harsha notes that we’ll be looking at Malayalam cinema’s latest attempts to do action (which really isn’t all that much of action at all), and notes that action is a very niche genre in Malayalam cinema, which is an industry not really known for action.

[00:53:25]  It’s been an interesting journey.

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Dishoom!  Dishoom Dishoom!  Okay, let’s face it, Malayalam cinema is not particularly known for its action films, but action does exist, and we’re here to talk about it.  In this first of four parts on Action in Malayalam Cinema, we take a look at the Big Ms, Mohanlal and Mammootty, and how action plays out in some of their films.

Spoiler Alert! We try to remember to alert listeners to spoilers, but just in case, know that we talk about the films in-depth, so be sure to watch them first if you’re concerned about spoilers!

[CW/TW]  Some of what we’re going to talk about in this episode involves violence/sexual assault, particularly involving a child, and it was hard for us to talk about, and may be hard for people to listen to.]

Download Episode Eleven.

Episode Eleven Highlights:

[00:00:50]  We’re coming through a period of very dark and/or plot heavy Malayalam films (cue Fahadh Fasil!) and looking forward to talking about something more fun.

{00:01:12}  Katherine notes that our film choices invariably are restricted by her need for subtitles, and some of the best examples of action films don’t have them.

{00:01:40}  We begin today, though, with a discussion on intimacy coordinators in India.  If we need action coordinators to make sure action sequences can be filmed with safety in mind, then we also need to ensure the safety of actors when it comes to sexual intimacy, sexual violence, and other intimate moments on film.  This article, entitled “Navigating Boundaries And Choreographing Moves In Cinema: Intimacy Coordinators” introduces the profession and its importance.  We also talked about “Filming a sex scene on the set: Why intimacy professionals are necessary”

{00:12:00}  Today’s films are all over the place in terms of action:  Irupatham Noottandu, Yodha, Rajamanikyam, and The Great Father. 

{00:12:35} Harsha notes that neither Irupatham Noottandu nor The Great Father are great action movies, and suggests that good action movies also need some humour for them to work.  Both of them are more thrillers, or have some element of gangster activity.

[00:12:45]  Katherine notes the Wikipedia definition of action films, and it helped her with some framing around the films we’re discussing.

[00:13:45]  Katherine finds Irupatham Noothandu more “capery” than action.

[00:14:00]  Harsha sums up:  Irupatham Noothandu is about smugglers in the 1980s.

[00:14:05]  This is the film that gave us “Sagar alias Jacky”, although neither of us understands why Sagar really needed an alias.

[00:14:30]  The film involves smuggling in Kerala in the 1980s, but note that smuggling here involves luxury goods that you couldn’t get in India in the pre-economic liberalization period.   Harsha likes to use this period as a marker when talking about Malayalam movies, because there’s a significant control difference in movies in the pre-liberalization period and post-liberalization period.

[00:14:55] Katherine notes that although Sagar is smuggling gold at the beginning of the film, we also see a character played by Mamukkoya who is involved with smuggling things like soaps and perfumes, ie, those luxury goods from the Gulf that people want.

[00:15:48] Shekharan Kutty (Suresh Gopi), the character who is Sagar’s partner, wants to get into drug smuggling, but for Sagar, that’s a moral line he doesn’t want to cross.  “Narcotics is a dirty business.”

[00:15:55]  The split between these two characters is the moment when we finally start to see some action in the film.

[00:16:00]  Aside:  Suresh Gopi was Harsha’s childhood crush.

[00:16:40]  Katherine notes that she’s seen that “drugs are the line” in a number of Malayalam films.  Harsha feels that’s likely because a lot of families, especially middle-class families, have some experience with buying smuggled goods.

[00:16:55]  Harsha invites people to think about Irupatham Noothandu as Malik, but set in the time period that these things are actually happening.  Both films are set in the same area of Trivandrum where a lot of the smuggled goods are sold.

[00:17:10]  These are fishing communities, and when they refer to the smuggled goods coming in they use the term “chaakara”, a phenomenon particular to Kerala where fish come up on shore in great numbers.

[00:18:00]  There are differences between Malik and Irupatham Noothandu, especially caste and community, but IN is a good film to watch after Malik for people seeking more about this period and place – Malik is kind of a spiritual successor to Irupatham Noothandu despite the differences.

[00:19:10]  Once again, Katherine expresses disappointment about lack of or quality of subtitles, because the version on Hotstar has subtitles mis-timed by about a half an hour.  But she likes the film, even if it’s not high on action.

[00:19:25]  Sagar does fulfil the idea of action film’s having a resourceful hero doing clever things.

[00:19:55]  Harsha does see it as more of a gangster film than an action film.

[00:20:20]  This is a very complex film and there’s a lot of information in the dialogues that you have to pick up and follow.

[00:21:00]  Katherine called it a “contemplative action film”.

[00:21:40]  Katherine thinks people going to watch it as an action film have to set their expectations differently:  it’s action film in an unusual niche, different from what we think of typically as action.

[00:21:55]  Harsha notes that the film’s editing is ALL over the place, likely due to the technology available in the era the film was made in.

[00:23:20]  Katherine finds the ending poetic.  Harsha is reminded of the “Oof, poetic cinema” meme.

[00:23:55] Ambika’s character is a journalist who is writing about underworld operations and political connections.  She’s the one that gives us “Sagar alias Jacky”.  But we still don’t know why.

[00:24:50]  Harsha mentions the 2009 movie Sagar Alias Jacky Reloaded, directed by Amal Neerad, but she only watched it because she’s a big fan of one of his other films, Big B.  But SAJR is not as good a film as Big B.  However:  SHOBANA.

[00:25:25]  Katherine suggests that if you’re going to have a “contemplative action film”, it’s going to have to come out of Malayalam cinema.

[00:25:40]  We turn to The Great Father.  We do not recommend this film.

[00:25:55]  Katherine begins a plot summary, but this is the film we referred to for the CW/TW.  It’s a very problematic film, and could potentially be very triggering.

[00:26:00]  The film sets up Dad as Superhero, with a dollop of father worship.

[00:27:10]  The father’s first reaction to his daughter’s assault is to isolate her.  We disagree with this approach.

[00:28:00]  Harsha reminds us this content could potentially be very triggering. She also finds the reaction of Mammootty’s character very unnatural, because it’s more likely that the first though of any parent finding their bloodied child would be to immediately take them to a hospital.

[00:28:55]  It’s even more problematic because it’s a convenient plot point, used purely to set up the competition between the characters of Mammooty and Arya, the police officer working the serial killer case.

[00:29:20]  ASP Andrews Eapen (Arya) is not very sensitive to the needs of the child in this case (this is an understatement!).  His driving factor is just closing the case.  This sets the tension between his and Mammooty’s character, where David only wants to protect his child at all costs.

{00:29:40} Katherine notes again that all of this is used as plot points, and it’s a real disservice to the issue in that it ignores the needs of the child.

[00:29:55]  Harsha notes that in the tension of the competition between these two men – needed for an action film – there’s the loss of agency of the young child who is at the centre of it all.  There’s also a loss of agency of the mother of the child, who had the right instincts of what the child needed in this situation.

[00:30:45]  It’s perfectly fine for the film to argue that Sarah can choose, when she’s an adult, to talk about what happened to her or not; however, as a child, she is pressured to think she’s fine, instead of letting her process her emotions in a way that is helpful for her.  It’s painful to watch.

[00:31:40] Some of the behaviour of the police and social service workers in the film are appalling. Harsha believe that some of the protections for children that Katherine notes are also available in India.

[00:32:10] The aggression towards the child is justified by the film, but we think the argument is wrong:  if you have a young niece, wouldn’t that make you more likely to be tender with the child and approach her in ways that are legally appropriate?

[00:32:40]  Katherine notes the film was directed by Haneef Adeni, who also directed Micheal with Nivin Pauly.  She notes his films are not his cup of tea.  His style is what we would think of as an action film.

[00:33:25]  A detour into Hong Kong action films, which both Harsha and Katherine love.

[00:34:25]  The Great Father deals with sensitive themes in ways that are very insensitive.

[00:35:00]  The film values style (endless slo-mo shots of Mammootty walking) over substance (the trauma of a child).  It’s very manipulative.

[00:35:40]  Harsha feels you could deal with the same themes, and still make Mammootty seem cool for his fan base, and do it in a much more sensitive way.  Katherine suggests that film was Drishyam, though Harsha notes that even if Drishyam was less problematic, it still removed the agency of the victim.

[00:36:20]  Katherine admits that some of The Great Father’s writing really creeped her out, especially in how the father/daughter relationship was portrayed.

[00:36:45]  Harsha agrees, but notes that Anikha Surendran is a great child actress, and Katherine urges listeners to check out the Tamil web series Queen, where she plays the younger version of main character Shakthi Sheshadri.

[00:37:50]  Harsha is much more in favour of children who think their dads are lame than those who worship their fathers. 

[00:38:09]  You can deal with children in an affectionate way without making it cloying.  See also:  Yodha, another film we discuss in this episode.

[00:38:50]  We need to talk about why Mammootty needs to keep playing these rape avengers.  These may not be the views of the star or the producers, but we still don’t know why these kinds of movies are still being made.

[00:39:45]  We turn to the next film, Rajamanikyam, directed by Anwar Rasheed (Ustad Hotel, Trance).

[00:40:10]  The film is about a blended family fueding over the property of the dead father.  Mammootty plays Manikyam.

[00:41:35]  Mammootty as a kind of lovable, uneducated, lower class kind of character (see also: Pokkiri Raja and Madhura Raja).

[00:41:50]  Mammootty does not generally (unless he’s making an art film) play lower class/lower caste characters typically – usually that’s something Mohanlal does more often.  Part of the selling point of the film was probably watching Mammootty playing against type.

[00:41:25]  Why is Mammootty the only one speaking in Trivandrum slang in the movie? 

[00:43:05]  The point is playing against type, punch dialogues, recognizable as a masala film.

[00:43:50]  The film was Rahman coming back to Malayalam cinema after a break, and Katherine really likes his character in the film.  He’s so handsome, and his character is the classy straight man to Mammootty’s character.

[00:44:40]  The film came out in 2005, and it’s a low period for Malayalam cinema.  Not a lot of high grade movies with complex plots were being made in this era.  This film stood out, despite a pot-boiler plot, and that’s a credit to Anwar Rasheed and it’s a credit to Mammooty’s charm.  He really centres this film.

[00:45:28]  Why is Manoj K. Jayan not in more of the New Generation films that get more attention and press?

[00:46:00]  Katherine whinges about subtitles again.

[00:46:25]  Remembering why this episode exists: it does have action.  But Harsha reminds us of her constant complaint, that Indian cinema really doesn’t know how to do action.  That said, it’s still a very enjoyable masala film, with some good actors doing extremely schlocky roles.

[00:47:15]  The movie is also very caste heavy, with constant caste-based insults.

[0047:50]  Our final film for discussion is the 1992 film Yodha, directed by Sangeeth Sivan (with cinematography by his brother Santhosh Sivan, and music direction by A.R. Rahman). 

[00:48:00]  Katherine notes she had been warned off this film by some Mohanlal fans, but of all the films discussed in this episode, this one is her favourite.

[00:49:45]  The film sees Mohanlal on the streets of Kathmandu as the protector of a young monk who some black magic practitioners want to kidnap.

[00:49:55]  The film is essentially about the fight of good versus evil.

[00:50:05]  Katherine notes that the film is a kind of mash-up between the Eddie Murphy film The Golden Child and Zatoichi the Blind Swordsman.

[00:51:00]  Katherine notes that The Golden Child had enough of a budget to extend to hiring Industrial Light and Magic to do special effects, but finds Yodha noteable in how it sets up the relationship between Mohanlal’s character and the young rinpoche.

[00:51:08]  Katherine also gushes about how expressive Mohanlal’s face is in this film.

[00:51:35]  The films of this era are what make Mohanlal, Mohanlal for Harsha.

[00:52:00]  Harsha notes that the theme of good versus evil is a very common fantasy hero’s journey.

[00:52:41]  The film departs from The Golden Child in that the rinpoche escapes, rather than being kept captive, and this sets up the really lovely relationship between Mohanlal and the boy.

[00:52:55]  The highlights for Harsha are the competition between Jagathy Sreekumar and Mohanlal, as well as the sweetness and comedy of the interactions between Mohanlal and the boy.  Check out the song Padakaali Chandi Changari, which is a lot of fun!

[00:53:35]  Yodha is a great example of how you can make interactions with children in a way that is not saccharin or gross.

[00:54:04]  Like other Malayalam action films, it’s less heavy on action than we might expect.  But it does have that central role of the hero’s quest.

[00:54:30]  Katherine was fascinated when the film took a turn towards Zatoichi the Blind Swordsman.

[00:55:35]  The sword sequences are the ones where the action comes in, and why you can call this an action movie.

[00:56:20]  The film also has a lot of mystical elements in it, also not typical of Malayalam cinema.  See also Santhosh Sivan’s film Anandabhadram, which we talked about in Episode 7.

[00:56:25]  Harsha found the depiction of Nepal fairly respectful.

[00:57:10]  Yodha is an enjoyable fantastical caper.

[00:58:20]  Are we fated to talk about Christian Brothers?

[00:58:45]  Katherine doesn’t necessarily go to Malayalam cinema for masala type action films.  Harsha notes it’s not a central genre in Malayalam movies.

[00:59:45]  Our next episode will deal with Suresh Gopi and Jayan, the heroes who are actually the action stars of Malayalam cinema.

In this episode we take a look at parenting and childhood, by discussing four films: Salt Mango Tree, Pappayude Swantham Appoos, Manjadikuru, and 101 Chodyangal.

Download Episode 10

Spoiler Alert! We try to remember to alert listeners to spoilers, but just in case, know that we talk about the films in-depth, so be sure to watch them first if you’re concerned about spoilers!

Episode 10 Highlights:

[00:00:40] Today’s theme is Parenting, but we’re talking about how parents and other adults are the lens through which children see the world.

[00:01:03] The movies we chose deal mostly with how kids view the world, even though the theme is Parenthood.

[00:01:13] We’re looking at this, perhaps, in broad terms:  how children are raised from birth to young adulthood, how children are supported, not only by their parents, but also by other adults in a community.  How are children’s physical, emotional and social needs met?

[00:01:27] As Harsha points out, “it takes a village,” and that was, broadly, her take-away from the movies we watched for this episode.

[00:02:01] Parenting styles:  authoritarian, permissive, uninvolved – we’ll see these in one way or another in the four films we will discuss:  Salt Mango Tree, Pappayude Swantham Appoos, Manjadikuru, and 101 Chodyangal.

[00:02:55] We start with Pappayude Swantham Appoos (“Pappa’s Own Appu”), with the title suggesting that the child is supposed to be precious to his father.

[00:03:15] Shobana plays the dead wife/mother in the film, and Katherine notes it’s a great choice, one again, to have Shobana come in and play a small role with maximum impact.

[00:03:35] Mammootty as the father is an example of an absent parent.  His son is in boarding school, and he is constantly working.

[00:03:45]  Both father and son must navigate their grief and loss.

[00:04:00]  Harsha thought this story felt very Western, in terms of recognizing the child’s individuality, and helping the child recognize his own trauma and loss.

[00:04:48]  The father must also come to terms with the possibility of losing his child, too, and figuring out how to centre the child in his life again.

[00:04:54]  The film came out in 1992, and that year is important because it’s a period of liberalization in India, and the concept of this kind of childhood which is very modern or Western is being introduced to India.

[00:05:15]  It’s not that Malayalees or Indians were not exposed to the kind of childhood we think about now, but the film is grappling with the issue of the child as an individual, and as more than an extension of a parent.

[00:06:15] Katherine finds it interesting that everyone seems to be perplexed by the child’s behaviour, because her own Western lens finds it obvious that he’s acting out because of his trauma.

[00:06:30] Mammootty’s father character was just as neglectful before the death of his wife – she has to constantly remind him to be home, for example, to take the baby to be vaccinated.  We know this is a pattern of behaviour that makes the situation worse for Appu.

[00:07:25]  Katherine finds the behaviour of Appu unsurprising.  He’s not physically neglected – his physical needs are met – but his emotional needs are not.

[00:07:45]  Harsha notes that Mammootty can have an image of a very patriarchal figure in Malayalam movies, and though he is like this to an extent, he’s also a fairly indulgent father.  He’s not an authoritarian father at all – it’s not a “kids should be seen and not heard” situation.  He’s just very casually neglectful, which is why he hires a nanny to entertain his son.  He just doesn’t want to deal with the deeper emotions his child might be feeling.

[00:08:52]  It’s the other side of the coin from authoritarian:  you’re indulgent or permissive, and it doesn’t recognize that your child needs structure, and has certain emotional needs that need both structure and boundaries.

[00:09:00] As Harsha points out, structure and boundaries are best fulfilled by a parent.

[00:09:25]  There is a servant who tells Appu that his behaviour is “naughty” or “wrong”, but it’s important that a child understand why they might need to change how they act, rather than always being told they are “naughty”.

[00:09:40]  The servant character is there to be the worst example, in not explaining what about the behaviour is inappropriate – that’s the “kids should be seen and not heard” mentality at work in the film.

[00:10:25]  Appu ends up injured, and at first we don’t know why, and Katherine was worried that it was going to turn out to be abuse at the hand of his father.  As Harsha points out, it’s a very convenient plot point.

[00:11:15]  The idea of the nanny who brings the family together also feels very Western to Harsha – for example, Mary Poppins. 

[00:11:50]  The nanny also makes Katherine uncomfortable.  She’s supposed to be sixteen, though she turns out to be older, but there’s a whole sexual thing going on with the nanny.  There’s a risk of abusing the relationship, and it doesn’t happen here, but at first the nanny is seen as a temptation.

[oo:13:20]  The whole situation with the nanny also makes Harsha uncomfortable, but she’d not picked up on that when she watched the movie as a child.

[00:14:05]  The age dynamic was wonky, but Harsha suggests there is a bit of awareness in the film as to what’s going on, though it’s playing on the sex appeal of the actress.

[00:15:15]  Once again, we are all about Shobana.

[00:15:35]  This is a Fazil movie, so both of his sons (Fahadh and Farhaan) make appearances.

[00:16:00]  Katherine:  you can *never* get away from Fahadh.

[00:16:33] Katherine sympathizes a lot with Appu and the frustration that leads him to drop the tray of glasses at the party.

[00:17:02]  The film, especially in the party scene, is so very nostalgic for Harsha.

[00:17:30]  The second film we discuss is Salt Mango Tree, which gives us the opposite perspective, in that we have a *very* involved parent, a classic helicopter parent situation.

[00:17:35]  The film deals with the highly competitive education system in India, and in Kerala specifically, where you’re trying to get your child into the best English Medium school (meaning English instruction), and the over-the-top requirements that these schools have.

[00:18:00]  It’s a kind of a rat race for parents – in the US there is an element of this, especially in upper middle class families, where there is this sense that you have to give your child the best chances to retain their class status.

[00:18:35]  India, with its sheer number of people, means there is increased pressure for parents.  The film’s family is solid middle class.

[00:19:14]  The father in the film went to a Malayalam school, and he mentions several times that he is uncomfortable about it, as if his education was not up to standard.  Given his age, it’s probably an indication that he likely grew up in a rural area and possibly in a less well off family.

[00:20:05]  The film also explores the idea that kids need more than just the right school to get ahead in life.

[00:20:25]  The Shining Stars programme in the film helps parents shift their perspective, and it acts as a support for the parents as much as it is for the children.

[00:21:20]  Consider the visit to the grandparents, which serves to reinforce the Shining Stars message:  the grandfather wants to take his grandson fishing and the grandmother tells him stories.  We see the child make a strong connection with his grandparents.

[00:21:55]  The mother is the one who is very invested in getting her son into the English Medium school.  The father doesn’t have as many aspirations for his son.

[00:22:35]  The film is carried on the likeability of Biju Menon, and his father character isn’t as highly focussed on his child’s education, as many Indian fathers would be.

{00:23:25}  Dads in India have more freedom to navigate the outside world than moms do.

[00:23:43]  It’s possible that Biju Menon’s father character has already moved up, from the village to the city, so he may not see that he needs to do anything more.  His wife is the one that has aspirations for her son.

[00:24:05]  The mother could look somewhat negative, but you can understand her motivation to have the best for her child. 

[00:24:40]  Harsha points out that because the movie is told so much from the point of view of Biju Menon’s character, it makes the mother come off as the shrewish wife with a helicopter parenting style, but for Harsha, the father came off as underachieving, and the mother is then required to drag him along to achieve what their family could.  She’s more anxious than negative, because she’s the one with so much invested in it.

[00:25:40]  Katherine notes that she could feel the pressure that was on this mother.  As Harsha points out, it’s a classic example of the wife doing the emotional lifting for the family.  That kind of pressure isn’t good for her or her family.

[00:26:30]  Harsha is left feeling ambivalent about the film, because so much of the film’s charm is down to Biju Menon’s character.  The ultimate message is that a child needs more than just formal education, but Harsha didn’t feel that the child’s point of view gets heard as much.  He’s a non-entity compared to the dynamic between the parents.

[00:27:15]  The movie, despite its theme, doesn’t really take the child’s perspective into consideration. 

[00:27:35]  Katherine could connect with the film on some level, having grown up in a family where there was an emphasis on education and having a profession.

[00:28:50]  Harsha feels this is probably the most parent centred movie.  The other films in this episode really focus in on the child’s perspective.

[00:29:35]  Harsha notes this was a good period for Biju Menon, who played the loveable goof in a number of movies around this time.

[00:30:10]  Katherine finds Biju Menon to be a really great actor who can bring a lot to a role.  Harsha suggests the film is for Biju Menon fans (especially completionists).

[00:30:25]  Harsha notes we haven’t had much light-hearted fare coming from the Covid era, which has been especially Fahadh Faasil focussed, and he prefers darker roles. – but he easily could do a role like this father.

[00:31:20]  We turn to a discussion of 101 Chodyangal, which is probably the most critically acclaimed of the movies we’re talking about in this episode.

[00:31:30]  It’s a fairly quiet, introspective little film about a child who is set a school assignment by his teacher, and he goes about discovering life and the people around him.

[00:32:00]  The child’s story is contrasted against that of his father, who has lost his job – this is a lower middle class family that becomes poor very quickly after losing an income.

[00:32:45]  The child’s teacher (played by Indrajith) is writing a book of 101 Questions, and with the assignment he gives the child, he offers 1 rupee per question, which is money that becomes very important for the child to bring home.

[0033:05]  The movie is directed by Siddarth Siva, which is why Harsha watched it in the first place.  Prior to this he’d only really been known as an actor.  He got so much critical acclaim for this first film.

[00:33:48]  The mother here is played by Lena, who Harsha finds to be a very interesting actor.

[00:33:55]  Katherine points out that once again we have a mother who is carrying the bulk of the stress and anxiety of this situation, not unlike the mother in Salt Mango Tree in some ways.

[00:34:15]  Harsha notes that because of class differences, this mother has very different concerns, but we see the ways she and the father are struggling.

[00:35:05]  The child is teased about his name, but we learn that the name of the factory his father worked for was given to him as a third name, with the idea that the father wants the child to be the owner of the factory, not the worker.

[00:35:45]  Harsha notes that this is not a children’s film, and she can’t imagine a child watching it and enjoying it as Pappayude Swantham Appoos, which she found entertaining.  It’s a very slow, introspective film.

[00:36:10]  What does this film have to say about parenthood?  For Katherine, it’s that all parents want the best for their child, even if they cannot help make that happen. 

[00:37:45] Katherine found the father interesting – very tender with his son.

[00:38:25]  Compared to the other film’s we’re discussing, Harsha’s take-away from this film was that all parents can do is just love their children.  You can’t protect them from what the world is going to throw at them.

[00:38:55]  What the child is learning through asking his questions is the humanness of his own parents.

[00:39:25]  As children we may not clue into these things, but as adults we look back at our parents and there’s a recognition of what they’ve gone through.

[00:39:32]  This leads us to our last film in this episode, Anjali Menon’s Manjadikuru.

[00:39:40]  This is another film from the child’s perspective, it’s very child-focussed.

[00:39:50] Before we get into the film, Harsha loops back to talk about Nishanth Sagar, who played the father’s friend in 101 Chodyangal.  She wonders why we don’t see more of him, and notes he’s very handsome.  We want to see more of him!

[00:40:25]  There were a lot of actors in the Dileep film period in the 90s who had small roles in his films, but never made it big because of the dominance of this one actor.  Also, without family connections (like Prithviraj), it was harder for some of these more talented actors to break out.  Check him out as the villain in Joker.

[00:42:43]  101 Chodyangal is a movie that can make you feel sad that adults can’t protect children from everything, and that they can be frail.  This father is physically frail, but so full of love, and it’s great to be able to examine fatherhood in that way (instead of the father always being a kind of protective tree). 

[00:43:25]  A reminder that this is not a film for children, even though it often ends up on lists of films for children.  Just because a child is a central character in a film does not make it a film for children.

[00:45:10]  We swing back to Manjadikuru which deals with a kind of death children are more able to cope with, the death of an older person.

[00:45:35] There are two release dates listed for the film – 2008 is probably when it spent time on the festival circuit, and 2012 is probably when it got more attention after the release of Ustad Hotel.

[00:45:50] Katherine watched Anjali Menon’s segment in Kerala Café, and found it so compelling that she went to find Manjadikuru.

[00:46:10]  In some ways, this is the warm up film to Bangalore Days, because it touches on a lot of the same ideas but from a different perspective, with younger versions of the cousins.

[00:46:25]  Manjadikuru is a more artsy film; Bangalore Days is a commercial film.  The former is a film made right after film school or not long after, and she was possibly using her film school contacts to help get it made.

[00:47:25]  It’s very much an art house/festival film, which is not a bad thing, but if you’re seeking it out, know that’s where it sits.

[00:47:50]  Manjadikuru is about a Gulf based family that returns to Kerala for the funeral of a grandparent.  They bring their son along, and the story is narrated from the point of view of the boy as an adult (played by Prithiviraj).

[00:48:10]  In some ways it evokes a lot of the films of the 80s, which is the period the film is actually set in.  Anjali Menon has said she grew up with those movies, so what she does here is very purposeful.  She’s taking inspiration from the films of the 80s and 90s.

[00:49:00]  There are some very old school movie star moments with one of the young couples.

[00:49:15]  Even the film’s setting and aesthetics are meant to call back those older films.

[00:50:20]  As a fellow Gulf kid, Harsha thinks Anjali Menon is poking fun of her own romanticized idea of Kerala. (see also:  Kuttan in Bangalore Days).

[00:50:51]  It’s a film that deals with a more authoritarian parenting style.  Sadly, we don’t see much of Thilikan (because he’s the deceased grandfather), but we understand this is a father who is very authoritarian and estranged from his children (2 sons and 4 daughters).

[00:52:00]  The adult children are interested in the terms of the will, and less tied to the family home and their parents in many ways.

[0052:20]  Anjali Menon is also looking at the idea of caste as well.  These mementos of caste – the ancestral home, the pond – these are things that have been prized/valued/idealized in Malayalam movies.  But the thread of the young maid gives us a view of a character who is not often seen in Malayalam movies.  This character makes caste visible.

[00:53:05]  The maid is 12, so on some level she’s still a child.  The children in the family treat her as a child, but the adults only see her as a servant.

[00:53:40]  The children are the ones who want to find a way to get her a ticket so she can go home.

[00:54:20]  Harsha explains that in Nair families (like this family), the system is very matrilineal, so it’s not unusual for property to pass down to women.  Men marry out of the family, so this is a way to preserve ancestral property.

[00:55:05]  Katherine feels she needs to tread carefully with the subject of caste (with good reason, it’s complicated).

[00:55:35]  There has been a bit of a reorganization of Kerala society along more patriarchal lines, but you still see the remnants of matriliniality in movies, especially movies set in Malabar.  It only comes out in very specific instances.

[00:57:00]  The property eventually is given to someone outside the family, which would be very different – and more so in this case, where the property is given to the servant, because she’s the one the grandmother loves the best.

[00:57:40]  Katherine sees connections to Nandanam, with the same actors (Kaviyoor Ponnamma, Prithviraj), but Harsha also notes that it is, again, Anjali Menon playing with older films in which Kaviyoor Ponnamma would play a grandmother and Thilikan would play a grandfather.  This cast of characters are so common in these roles.

[00:58:35]  What is the film revealing about parenting?

[00:58:45]  For Harsha, the film has a happy ending, which is typical of Anjali Menon.

[00:59:20]  Harsha’s take-away from the film is that it shows that childhood is a privilege that these parents afforded to only a privileged few.  It’s the emergence of the idea of childhood as a separate part of an individual’s life.

[00:59:40]  A twelve year old Dalit girl is not afforded a childhood, because she has to work.  Only the children recognize the fact that she’s a child, because they’re afforded a childhood and they’re treated like children, so they expect other people to treat her as a child.

[01:00:05]  The core point of the film is that childhood was only afforded to a select few.

[01:00:50]  Katherine thinks about her own parents as a western example, in which childhood ended much sooner and they had to go out to work as teenagers, which helps you understand why they might put more value on making sure children have the chance to have an education and a better future.

[01:01:00]  Harsha notes that there’s a lot of evidence in the US to suggest that Black children are often considered to be adults at much earlier ages  There’s a suggestion that the way Black Americans exist in that society is much more like caste than race.  They are related concepts, of course, but it is more similar in some ways to how the caste system exists in India.

[01:01:50]  Not being able to see someone of a young age as a child makes them much more liable to exploitation, of not being afforded the protections of childhood.

[01:02:25]  For Katherine, the films we explored in this episode made her consider what childhood is.  We may have started with Parenting as the theme, but we ask the questions of “what is childhood?” and when are you afforded those protections of childhood that we think children should have?.

[01:03:05]  For Harsha, education is a way to extend childhood, and ensure that the next generation get to extend their childhood longer as well.

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