2018: Everyone is a Hero (Malayalam; 2023)
Written and Directed: Jude Anthany Joseph
Written and Directed: Jude Anthany Joseph
This must surely be the first successful full-length disaster movie ever done by filmmakers of Indian cinema. Unlike the usual endeavours where the final outcomes appear inferior to an average B-grade Hollywood flick, this one is for real; it looks it anyway. It is India's entry to the 96th Academy Awards under the Foreign film category.
It tries to recreate the 2018 significant floods that hit Kerala. Monsoon was particularly bad that year, with unusually high rainfall that resulted in the worst floods in the century. 483 people died, and 15 went missing. In the aftermath of the floods, Keralites realised and feted not only the government-sanctioned rescue teams but also the role of the general public in helping each other out. The fishermen were particularly mentioned for rising to the occasion with their fishing boats. This movie is also to honour these people. Everyone is a hero when he acts selflessly.
Many characters' lives get entangled when a small village gets badly flooded. As strong as Nature is, it resets the order of things. A discharged Army is sometimes sniggered upon by villagers. He leads a quiet life, waiting for his visa application to Dubai to be ready. The ex-soldier turns out to be a hero later. A patriarchal fisherman family is upset that the second son is not interested in the family profession of fishing but is interested in modelling. Even his girlfriend's family rejects him mainly because he is from the lowly fishermen clan. The fishermen community became heroes later when they went around rescuing stranded villagers, including the family who looked down on them.
A long-distance grumpy interstate lorry driver from an arid-dry region of Tamil Nadu who is transporting dynamite to a group of dam protestors has a change of heart after seeing so much devastation. He becomes a hero and distributes ration food. A couple amid separation renew their bond. A couple who had built a new home is devasted their house is destroyed but is happy that they still have each other.
The thing that struck me about the movie is the part where the managers of a dam and their decision to control the release of water to balance between preventing the breakage of the dam and flooding of human habitation. Not that it had not happened before. One of the reasons cited for the recent massive floods in Pakistan was precisely this. Unable to pay for the maintenance of their dams, torrential rains caused dams to overflow and cause devastation.
It tries to recreate the 2018 significant floods that hit Kerala. Monsoon was particularly bad that year, with unusually high rainfall that resulted in the worst floods in the century. 483 people died, and 15 went missing. In the aftermath of the floods, Keralites realised and feted not only the government-sanctioned rescue teams but also the role of the general public in helping each other out. The fishermen were particularly mentioned for rising to the occasion with their fishing boats. This movie is also to honour these people. Everyone is a hero when he acts selflessly.
Many characters' lives get entangled when a small village gets badly flooded. As strong as Nature is, it resets the order of things. A discharged Army is sometimes sniggered upon by villagers. He leads a quiet life, waiting for his visa application to Dubai to be ready. The ex-soldier turns out to be a hero later. A patriarchal fisherman family is upset that the second son is not interested in the family profession of fishing but is interested in modelling. Even his girlfriend's family rejects him mainly because he is from the lowly fishermen clan. The fishermen community became heroes later when they went around rescuing stranded villagers, including the family who looked down on them.
A long-distance grumpy interstate lorry driver from an arid-dry region of Tamil Nadu who is transporting dynamite to a group of dam protestors has a change of heart after seeing so much devastation. He becomes a hero and distributes ration food. A couple amid separation renew their bond. A couple who had built a new home is devasted their house is destroyed but is happy that they still have each other.
The thing that struck me about the movie is the part where the managers of a dam and their decision to control the release of water to balance between preventing the breakage of the dam and flooding of human habitation. Not that it had not happened before. One of the reasons cited for the recent massive floods in Pakistan was precisely this. Unable to pay for the maintenance of their dams, torrential rains caused dams to overflow and cause devastation.
Some say building a dam can be a curse. Perhaps it is just fighting back. The world over, many ambitious dam projects have proved disastrous. On top of all the news of dams overflowing with heavy monsoon and glacial waters, the ill-thought King Zahir's ambitious plan to build a massive dam to change Afghanistan to a little America only turned the country into a poppy-planting lawless one. Meanwhile, Russia has been embarking on projects where rivers flowing towards the Arctic regions are diverted artificially to irrigate lands where it is needed.
Worth the watch.
