With Manjummel Boys, The Spotlight's On The Survival Thriller Genre In Malayalam Cinema |
Manjummel Boys is being lauded as one of Malayalam cinema’s most realistic survival thrillers. The genre has other gems too — titles that are well worth (re)visiting if you can bear the vicarious anxiety, writes Neelima Menon. |
THEIR road trip to Kodaikanal is an impromptu plan; all nine of them stuffed into a single van, in high spirits (both literally and figuratively) throughout the journey. They halt at roadside stalls, buy woollens, ration their liquor, and yap nineteen to the dozen. Once in Kodaikanal, their energy levels don’t dip for an instant as they take in the sights. They’re the kind of noisy tourists you would rather not encounter on your journey. In his sophomore outing Manjummel Boys, director Chidambaram unpacks an oddly poignant survival drama amidst this chaotic setting. He allows the men — who in hindsight, aren’t given detailed character arcs — to grow on you. When one of them falls into an 800-ft pit inside the Guna Cave (also known as The Devil’s Kitchen), the fun fades and we are abruptly confronting the true depths of their camaraderie. When the enormity of the accident sinks in, the other eight men snap out of their stupor to chart an incredible story of humanity and friendship. Their characters are sketched with such casualness that you are prepared to believe these men would immediately pack their bags and rush home when faced with such a crisis. But each of them surprises you with their compassion and generosity, as they frantically look for ways to save their friend. What elevates this survival thriller is their unabashed display of friendship that leaves us in tears, propelling us towards profound relief and joy as we witness their eventual triumph. Manjummel Boys is an ode to human resilience, and the film is already being lauded as one of Malayalam cinema’s most realistic survival thrillers. The genre has other gems too — titles that are well worth (re)visiting if you’re in the mood to explore the vicarious anxiety of being extricated from a precarious situation. |
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| I've Reached A Place Where I'm Ready To Tell More Stories: Kiran Rao |
GROWING UP IN CALCUTTA, Kiran Rao’s annual family summer pilgrimage to the South, especially Madras, Bangalore and Mysore, took place by train. She’d board the Coromandel Express from Howrah to Madras, and then take the Madras Mail or Brindavan Express to see her grandmother in Bangalore. “Trains were really the only option for most of us. And I loved them! You got two days to yourself to look dreamily out of the window, see the passing landscape and cook up poems about the clouds. I found it all very romantic to see vast swathes of my country. Till date, these train journeys are tied to my idea of India,” says Kiran, whose delightful Laapataa Ladies has wormed its way into so many hearts since its release. Interestingly, the train plays an important role in the film too. As it passes by the small villages of Madhya Pradesh, the story travels too. |
Laapataa Ladies is also possibly the first mainstream film after Jab We Met that zooms in on railway station platforms and those who people them — the elderly lady who fries snacks, the young tea-seller, the customer who always asks for a little extra chutney… And when Phool (Nitanshi Goel) finally undertakes a journey in search of her beloved, you almost sense the excitement as the train chugs past villages, ponds and fields. “That’s what I remember about my train journeys. I thoroughly enjoyed them. I would climb up to my berth and read a book for hours. And watch the lights glimmer in small stations, bulbs and tubelights flicker when we passed by villages, the food that changed from station to station…,” says Kiran. |
Your previous film Dhobi Ghat, and this, in many ways, are about journeys — from home to home, from place to place. They are as much about inner journeys as they are about the external. What does a journey mean to you? Ah, you’ve touched upon one of my favourite themes, which is the idea of a journey. I think a journey helps us come close to who we actually are. It helps us understand the mystery of life. We are all on some kind of journey. I love to travel and I feel travel is one of those starting points of discovering yourself as you journey outwards. That’s also possibly why I took less than five seconds to okay the script when I heard it. |
I read that the original script (it is not a novella as is being mentioned) dealt with the issues in the film with a lot more seriousness… Aamir (Khan; Kiran’s ex-husband) was part of the jury at a screenwriting contest when he saw this script by Biplab Goswami, and he told me about it. The story was incredible and had a lot of scope for inherent humour, but I wanted to develop it further. I also knew I wanted to shift the genre from a realistic drama to the drama-comedy-satire space. I felt the story gave us an opportunity to address important issues, and I feel humour is a great tool to touch upon issues that one is not usually comfortable speaking about — like dowry, for instance. Without humour, it becomes angry, dark and grim. Humour makes it more palatable, people are more receptive when they are laughing. And we worked hard to achieve this in this movie. We had to strike a balance between emotions and humour, between suspense and humour. This was also where the inspector’s role of Shyam Manohar (Ravi Kishan) came in. |
The film plays on in your mind long after the end credits roll. Why do you think that is? I think it is the tone we adopted. Using the device of humour, we took the chance to laugh at ourselves, and it gave us the chance to say things we could not in a lecture. We were able to pack in some pretty strong punches without alienating anyone. The second you speak about violence and dowry and deep-seated patriarchy, the audience tends to get antagonised. But if you’re able to get everyone to the place where we laugh, we can identify the issues without any finger-pointing. The idea is to have a conversation as a society. First acknowledge the issues and find alternatives — commit to change the status quo. Aamir tried something similar with Satyameva Jayate. |
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