Yet we talk about the film!

Kasaba (Circle, കസബ, 2016, Malayalam)
Screenplay, Director: Nithin Renji Panicker

It was probably after the release of this movie that many ardent Malayalam viewers and actors started voicing their concerns about the presence of misogyny in Mollywood. Despite the loud opposition and charges filed against the moviemakers, with the Malayalam Movie Association getting involved, it broke the record for the most widely viewed Malayalam movie teaser. Talk about the Streisand effect!

The seed of dissatisfaction was sowed against the senior actor Mammotty by many actors, especially Parvathy Thiruvadu, who was cyberbullied by trolls and Mammotty fans. Police reports flew, but she stood her ground. She went on to be the voice against misogyny in the Kerala film industry. A collective known as Women in Cinema Collective came to the forefront, opposing misogynistic dialogues for the betterment of society. They questioned why a highly respected actor like Mammotty should be so low as to partake in movies that denigrate women and their presence in society. 

This is a masala movie, much like a spaghetti western, and does not need many grey cells to follow. Rajan Zachariah is a police officer handpicked by the IGP to investigate the death of an inspector, the IGP's son and his fiancée. Even though the deaths were reported as Maoist killings, the IGP suspects foul play. 

Rajan can be labelled as a rogue cop. He walks around with a chip on his shoulder and cares two hoots about following rules. He makes his own rules and thinks he is an honest cop because he brings in the bad guys. His flirting and sexist jokes are part of his remuneration for getting his job well done.

One scene of this nature sparked controversy. As Rajan is walking haughtily, puffing his cigarette without a care in the world across a non-smoking corridor, he is rebuked by a more senior female officer. Rajan is told off for not saluting her and for lighting up in a non-smoking area. What he did afterwards was utterly out of order! He apologised unconditionally for not saluting a higher officer, extinguished his cigarette, and placed the cigarette bud in her hand, asking her to dispose of it. She retaliated by uttering, "f@#k you!" to which Rajan lifted up by her belt at her hip, saying, "Sure, and you'll be running around me for a week!" (paraphrasing from subtitles).

Soon after that film, a case appeared of an actress sexually assaulted. The rebel yell reached a disturbing pitch that compelled the government the other day to set up the Hema Commission to look into this issue. After many delays, with Covid and other political pressures, its report is out, and it is pretty damning, at least to the doyens of the industry.

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Science, scientism or pseudoscience?

Cold case (Malayalam; 2021)

Amazon Prime

We thought science had an answer for all of Man's woes. The recent pandemic just put it in plain sight to us how inadequate we are. With all the latest armamentarium, statistics and cutting-edge biomedical technology at our disposal, one year into the Covid-19, we are still groping in the dark of how to sound the death knell of this near-invisible foe.

Logically, science, with its systematic application of knowledge of the material world, which uses methodical and unbiased analysis, should uncover truths and fundamental laws of the world. There was a time when advances in the sciences helped squash beliefs propagated by religious men and shamans who claim to communicate with the netherworld to find solutions to our problems. We sniggered at them, labelling their sciences as pseudoscience or mumbo-jumbo.

Our belief in science in the 21st century is shaken. All the statistics and data in various rhymes and reasons fail to tackle the root of the problem. It seems that the virus is taking us for a spin and is having the last laugh.

Practitioners of alternatives are starting to suggest that perhaps our excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge and techniques, i.e. scientism, needs reassessment. After all, many of the fields which were dismissed as quackery never really disappeared. Telepathy, morphic resonance, synchronicity and even religion had been rejected as they cannot be verified by scientific inquiry. They suggest that we descend from our high horses and give a little credence to this field of so-called pseudosciences.

After all, the wisdom of many ancient Eastern civilisations did not fall from the sky or was infused via ancient alien transmission of technology. All the astronomical calculations, architectural par excellence and seafaring prowess, did not materialise from thin air. Maybe we have to rediscover, remind and relearn the knowledge that our ancestors knew. We need to find the key to that treasure chest, which probably got misplaced in the annals of time when we got too complacent with the pleasures of life.

I thought this movie was very nicely made, albeit its occasional holes in its plots. (Like my daughter would say, “don’t ask too many questions!”) The storytelling and the build-up are slightly different. One crime, but there are two ways the victim and the perpetrators are pinned down.

 
A fisherman nets a black garbage bag from a lake. The police are called in when he finds a human skull in it. The forensic team then determines that it belonged to a young female. Through digital facial reconstruction techniques and intelligent detective work, it is determined that the deceased is a certain Eva Maria.

On the other side of town, a recently divorced TV journalist with a young child moves into a rented house. Her area of work is paranormal activity. She soon notices some unusual occurrences in her new home. Through her guest in one of her previous shows, a seer is summoned. The seer senses the presence of an unsettled soul of a lady yearning to be heard.

Through imaginative storytelling and parallel investigations, the storytellers try to tie the twisted ends to give an intelligent and plausible explanation to the turn of events whilst pinpointing the wrongdoer in the end. The story tells us that science and mystic knowledge should complement one another to solve man's problems, not to be at loggerheads to prove one's superiority over the other. Maybe, just maybe, we should not write off non-science knowledge as mere mumbo jumbo.

scientism
excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge and techniques.

morphic resonance
the idea of mysterious telepathy-type interconnections between organisms and of collective memories within species.

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Opium for the masses

Trance (Malayalam, 2020)

A sucker is born every minute, they say. Probably what they meant was that the rooting reflex was innate in all babies. Stroke the cheek and the baby would automatically turn its head towards the stimulus and initiate a suckling reaction. It also could imply to the many who are suckered up to racketeering and daylight robberies. 

Watching this movie was a sort of a deja vu experience for me. A close relative had discovered Jesus late in life, and she made it her raison d'être to spread His word. And along she went to all four corners of the country praying for the sick and the fallen. She would personally harbour drug addicts and vagabonds in her home to nurse them back to functionality.

I remember her style. To get her congregation interested in her sermon, out of the blue, she would blurt out 'Hallelujah' on top of her lungs to get approval what she was saying. And an often repeated phrase was that Jesus spoke to her in her dreams. How she would in her usual demonstrative form place her hand on the vertex of her client to pray desperately to chase off the devil that plagued them. She looked sincere and was utterly convinced that she was doing something good. At least it kept her sane.

Well, that is not what this film is trying to highlight. There are people out there who target people's weakness and make a living out cheating desperate people blind. Man created religion to give them a tuft of hope in facing day to day uncertainties of life. Religion is supposed to give them sanity when the storm on Earth becomes too overwhelming. It gives them the assurance that their actions of maintaining peace and order will be rewarded, in this life or after. It absorbs the guilt of the mistakes that he commits at the moment of inebriation. There is a fine line between faith giving peace of mind and it being the cause of lunacy. Extremism negates other points of views. There is a loss of mindfulness and the compulsion to cut off other people beliefs. The guilt of not sticking to the true tenets of religion can turn one into a raving lunatic.

It is beyond comprehension how some people are often lulled into submission by putting the fear of God. The world becomes too complicated for some to strive a living that they get suckered into the promise of divinity in negating all the miseries. And they fall prey to their myths. Rather than resorting to critical thinking, they are deluded with blind faith.

This Malayalam movie tells a tale, perhaps not unreal, of a motivational speaker, mired with a sad family history filled with mental illness and a recent suicide of his brother. He is pulled in by a group of businessmen who use religion to dupe the unsuspecting public into evangelical Christianity and faith healing. Viju Prasad is picked up by a talent corp to be given an intensive course on the Bible and is soon christened Pastor Joshua Carlton (JC, referring to Jesus Christ, of course). JC starts doing 'staged' healing that he himself begins to think that he may indeed have healing powers. His bosses are hot under the collar as JC behaves as if he is the brain behind the whole facade.

This film may be the anthesis of 'Mookuthi Amman'. If Mookuthi Amman pokes fun at Hindu godmen, 'Trance' hits up at the bogus media-savvy megalomaniac pastors who victimise desperate patients who are wit's end to find a cure for their advanced maladies. Fahadh Faasil gives a sterling performance as a doting elder brother and a confused healer who is himself at the brink of a mental breakdown. 

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Mollywood disaster movie

Dam 999 (2011)
In spite of having a band of renowned award winning film makers in the crew and many accolades to boast, the producers actually lost money making this movie. Before even hitting the silver screen, the movie industry fraternity gave threat their choice of actors and even a court injunction was out to ban its screening. Even though the movie is supposed to highlight the danger of dams and was dedicated to the 1/4 million people who perished in China dam mishap in 1975, the governments of Tamil Nadu and Kerala thought that it would ignite the age old water squabble between the two states. The 999 in the title refers to the 9th September 2009 and it was supposed to depict nine types of human emotions.

Vimala Raman - a sight for sore eye

Unfortunately, I failed to appreciate these 9 emotions in this film. Perhaps it was the language in which I was watching, Tamil. This film actually comes in four languages, the original Malayalam, the dubbed Tamil, dubbed Hindi and dubbed English. To a certain extent, all the films are dubbed as the cast is a international type - Americans, Pakistani, Bollywood and Mollywood.

Special EFX

The props in the set look very impressive and the cinematography shows leaps of improvement from the usual fare that is churned out from the sub-continent.
Unfortunately, the movie tries to cover too many things here. They try to highlight advanced nature of Ayurvedic treatment, the advanced nature of Indian astronomic calculations, the corrupt politicians and of course the dangers of a mammoth man made dam all in 1 hour and a half.
Except for Rajit Kapoor, Vimala Raman and Ashish Vidyarthi, the rest of the actors did not really impress on the acting faculty.