A twisted tale of cops and bandits!

Churuli (2021)
Director: Lijo Jose Pellissery

When it came to my attention that the Kerala High Court agreed that the language used in this movie is 'atrocious in nature' after a portion of the film was played in the court following a writ petition, I was excited. In my mind, any publicity is good publicity. After plucking the movie out of cyberspace and watching it, I was hooked. I was eager to find out where the film was heading.

Amidst the beautiful green lush of tropical Kerala countryside, two undercover cops infiltrate into a remote village to apprehend a hardened criminal. The problem is that neither of them had a clue how he looked like, but they were determined to find out anyway by mingling with the villagers.

The towering trees, the rugged terrain and the imposingly dense forest with the eerie background sounds of Nature set a perfect backdrop for a suspenseful thriller with hints of extraterrestrial visitation.

The undercover cops, Anthony and Shajivan, soon discover that the timid villagers who share the transportation suddenly turn abusive after a certain village perimeter. This is the beginning of more surprises and suspense to come. The cops end up becoming helpers at an arrack shop which morphs into a church on Christmas! Many things happen around them, but they cannot finger them. There are many bizarre characters around them, the hut which houses giant machinery with tiny gear-like contraptions ticking away inside, the firefly-like flashes of light that appear every day now and then, and many more.

At the end of the day, this story is based on old folklore. A monk once entered a forest to fight a demon. After looking high and low, he found no monster, only a coiled-up anteater. The monk placed the anteater on his head and continued his journey. He sensed he had got lost in the woods. He asked the anteater for directions. With this 'assistance', the priest got more and more misplaced into the jungle. Nobody knows the outcome of the search. The moral of the story is to highlight the importance of choosing the right partner in any endeavour. A wrong one will lead one astray.

By the end of the film, it is anybody's guess who the villain is and what the story is all about? Are the character caught in a time loop where events happen again and again in indefinite loops? Are the characters subject to alien experimentation? Is there some kind of energy that brings out only the evil part of people? These are precisely the uncertainties that make this film enjoyable!

(P.S. Is the use of profanity necessary? Yes. This lingo is used in the real world, away from civilisation and the rule of law, where hardened criminals rule. Civility only manifests when life is at peace and certain.)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

To laugh is to think!

The webpage screamed of the event being the biggest congregation of Malaysian stand-up comedy acts. It promised a night to remember as most of the national biggest bigwigs of the business were to share the same stage. They even brought in a Singapore artiste to add to the razzmatazz of the night. 

We were suckered in to part with our hard-earned moolah with their pledge of a stomach aching, rolling-on-the-floor type and eye-tearing kind of laughter. With the lure of ease of booking online, within a jiffy before the level headed neocortex could knock sense into our action, the transition was finalised. 

Even though getting to the venue was alright, parking arrangements were not really a breeze. The auxiliary officers did an excellent job though, to avert haphazard parking by patrons. The importance of this was appreciated later when the dissatisfied audience found it easy to take their vehicles out. (That is for later.) Malaysians are notoriously creative at parking their cars in the most precarious and mind-boggling way. Parking tickets do not mean anything as the local council have no punitive powers. 

Keeping to their Malaysian way of doing things, nothing happened at the time the show was to begin. People kept loitering in, out and around. The sponsors were busy promoting their merchandise and house pouring beer. No announcements. No tension in the air. 

A good half an hour later, the compère descended, literally, on a trapeze-like contraption from the ceiling of the stage. He was actually a guest comedian cum Masters of Ceremony. There were no apologies on the delay still.

He went on a rant about the weather, about Kuala Lumpur and his hotel. His stage persona was one that celebrated cross-dressing. The local rules, however, forbad male performers to appear effeminate. He made it a point to highlight his sexuality. 

From then on, it was downhill. Working on the same jokes, YouTube and social media must be a bane to their artistic work. We felt we had heard the punch line so many times before.

Next sauntered in a prima donna who is known for her raunchy lines. Her jokes were not just filled with sexual innuendos but were overtly pornographic. With no qualms, she utters profanity and describes private parts without batting her mascara filled false eyelashes. 

It was followed with more artistes; an American Pinoy with racial jokes, a Caucasian with lame rambling for laughs and an ‘Aunt Agony’ type of call-in show with a panel of 'experts'. 

Maybe it catered for a different crowd as the roar of waves of laughter were heard throughout the show. Or was it canned laughter? I am sure laughter must have been accentuated with the help of acoustics. The musical extravaganza that they promised was nowhere to be seen. After one long hour of performance, there was a break. 

Don’t know what happened afterwards as we joined the chorus of unhappy audiences who took a long walk to their parked cars to call it a day. 

Comedy is actually serious business. Look at all the doyens who stay eternally in my minds. Many comedians on the silver screen started of standup acts. Much of their humour came from human behaviours, with political or social messages or even laughing at our own follies. Many comedians are actually intellectuals well versed with the goings of the world. One can also create a comedy of errors through language.

Talking dirty and infusing four-lettered profanities does not constitute comic. And I do not when uttering vulgarity induced laughter. It is lazy creativity at best. 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.