Experimentation in Malayalam Cinema – the wise and the wild!

Malayalam cinema is witnessing an unprecedented release of experimental vigour and innovation frenzy in the recent times. Audience, critics and movie-makers have never been so inquisitive about reel freshness, thanks to the digital technologies of Information Age, especially the Internet with its social networking applications. New-gen thoughts, collaboration and practices have heavily influenced the Industry, resulting in the so-called new-gen movies.

This is the story of creative experimentation during the release years 2013 and the first half of

2014. The pick is for the top ten experiments, which is a mix of the wise and the wild.

Gangster

Ashiq Abu is the synonym for experimentation in Malayalam Cinema! While there have been many other movie-makers who took paths less travelled by, no other director has enjoyed the hype, support, and recognition in as much degree as he has. Aashiq Abu can afford to make a Gangster, and he alone can! He can also name his production company OPM that sounds like “opium”, which cannot be a simple coincidence.

The experimentations in Gangster were brave, many, and completely execution-centric. The core of the movie was the protagonist’s vengeance, cold-blooded, and Aashiq executed it with an alien style that the average Malayali audience hardly recognized or related with. The pre-release hype was so alarming that the no-story, no-fun, no-verbal-thrashing, no-romance realization style struck the masses like a bolt from the blue, and the result was catastrophic! Gangster was an outright rejection and rebuff. The faceless critics of Facebook feasted on the movie’s debacle.

The publicity tagline of the movie read, “During these times of rule by the fear, courage is a luxury that only a selected few can afford!”. If you thought it was to qualify the movie’s protagonist, you’re mistaken. Aashiq Abu has a wily smile on his face now!

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Gangster

Shutter

It is not often that you see offbeat creative work win the appreciation of both critics and the masses. Shutter is one of the very few that broke the usual mould, venturing into territories darker yet thoroughly relatable, and return with ecstatic gifts for its audience. Experimenting with the plot, the theme, the characterization, the treatment, the locales, and the casting, Joy Mathew has pulled off a remarkable movie that’s going to be in the golden books of Malayalam Cinema forever.

The commercial success of Shutter proves beyond doubt that quality, sensible, and close-to-life cinematic experiments would be whole-heartedly celebrated by the discerning Malayali spectators. This is quality cinema in its brutally powerful format, sans the superfluous digital gimmicks and tomfoolery.

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Shutter

Natholi Oru Cheriya Meenalla

V. K. Prakash is another champion of experimentation and innovation, and has been quite successful at that. In Natholi Oru Cheriya Meenalla, the quest for change begins with the title itself. It then advances in the same path, touching surrealism when the protagonist’s counter-ego enters the plot as another character.

The experimentation in the plot is not something original or new to the creative world, considering the many literary works that treaded the same path of surrealism and fictitious counter-ego. One example is the Czech-language novel “Life is Elsewhere” by Milan Kundera. Not drawing any comparison, the movie definitely had its moments of freshness. Since the commercial reception was lukewarm even after the massive publicity phase, it is a natural conclusion that the experiment did not quite work well with Malayali audience.

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Natholi Oru Cheriya Meenalla

Tourist Home

Ten stories, ten writers, one director, one shot per story – the experimental specialities are quite a handful, isn't it! With the single locale of a Tourist Home, where the ten individual stories unfold in its ten different rooms in a round-robin fashion, the movie’s claim to be a path-breaker was genuine. It was executed well too.

To conclude that the experiment failed miserably going by the poor box office performance might be against reality. Poor marketing that failed to reach the right audience, lack of star value etc could be valid reasons for the under-performance. Too many threads that continually switched and swapped to hamper emotional continuity, lack of focus, uninteresting digressions like factors seem to have worked against the brilliant experimentation. A few rooms could have been left vacant to allow more breathing space, in hindsight!

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Tourist Home

Idukki Gold

It’s Ashiq Abu again, which is why we said he’s synonymous with experimentation! Idukki Gold could have been the ideal opening project for his production house OPM (pronounced as opium) because of the obvious connection. The “terribly ordinary” (as the publicity tagline reads) experimentation this time was on many aspects – main cast of veteran actors who mostly did supporting roles, fresh young artists playing crucial roles, scenes that looked like independent units in a program rather than a single unidirectional project, novel treatment (may have been influenced by Quentin Tarantino) with onscreen comments and jokes, and lots of “smoky stuffs”!

Though the movie performed reasonably well at the box office, the decline in Aashiq’s magic spell was very visible. When you are on a high, more OPM’s and Idukki Golds are bound to happen, isn’t it Mr Ashiq Abu?!

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Idukki Gold

Annayum Rasoolum

Realistic, natural, unaffected – these are the words that best explain Rajeev Ravi’s Annayum Rasoolum. That he did not try to stylize his work, add cinematic tricks to generate artificial pace to the narration, was his experiment. His cinematography was ethereal, to say the least! The common men and women folk of Mattancherry lived their realistic lives in the movie, frame by frame.

Since the new-gen viewers believe in pace, style and entertainment, Rajeev’s experimental frames and shots did not impress many of them, and the complaint of “lag” was widely raised. However, the movie fared quite well at the box office irrespective of its tragic climax, reassuring quality movie-makers like Rajeev Ravi that such brave experiments do have takers and admirers.

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Annayum Rasoolum

Samsaram Arogyathinu Hanikaram

It takes sheer guts to go before the verbally-aggressive Malayali community with a product that suddenly stops talking after a very-talkative first half, and that too with an implausible premise and a weak script. Malayalees are proven “talkers” rather than “listeners”, which is why we see verbal onslaught, intolerance, unimaginable over-reaction by them on TV, public places, digital social networking sites etc. “Opinions are like arseholes; everyone’s got one, and everyone thinks everyone else’s stinks!” holds so true for the average Malayali!

The makers of this movie must have spent a bit more time to understand its target audience. Had they done that exercise, they would have either made the story a lot more believable, and/or done away with the silence part to deny Mallus the opportunity to shout on-the-fly dialogues in cinemas. While the Malayalam version was a flop, it must be noted that the Tamil equivalent was a success both with the masses and the critics.

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Samsaaram Aarogyathinu Haanikaram

1983

1983 was perhaps the safest experiment from this lot. It had star power, creatively experienced tech crew, cricket as its backdrop, and Sachin Tendulkar as its anchoring icon at its onset itself. It then picked up great music, spirited performance and excellent execution on its way to victory.

The experiment was primarily in the plot and story, with a final act and a climax that were at the pinnacle of creative innovation and originality. So natural, so unassuming, so simple, so exhilarating – the final act cannot be described differently. Abrid Shine must be a very proud man to have treaded a loner path, and succeeded exceedingly well.

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1983

Neelakasham Pachakadal Chuvanna Bhoomi

Road movies are always experimental because you never know where they will lead you to. You have control only on their starting point. Sameer Thahir is another new-breed movie maker who likes to travel alone. Just like how he packs freshness and creative awe in every frame when he’s behind the Camera, his inquisitive self attempts to capture the uncertainties, spontaneity, nothingness, completeness, aloneness, togetherness, brutality, compassion, love and hatred of the Neelakasham, PachchakKadal, and Chuvanna Bhoomi that we have inherited.

The experimental long journey did not meet commercial success on its way, while critical acclaim stopped by. But that’s the typical way impeccably original creative experimentation has always fared in this world!

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Neelakasham, Pachakkadal, Chuvanna Bhoomi

Koothara

Having relished sweet success in his debut experimental venture Second Show, Srinath Rajendran took liberties to make Koothara, assumingly guided by the age-old saying “make hay while the sun shines!”. Koothara is an experiment that has gone terribly wrong; in fact, it can be called an assault on the discerning skills of movie-lovers. When the core experiment is based on something that’s disgustingly pseudo-intellectual, how else can you rate it? The characterization of Mohanlal, who appears in the final act of the movie, which was supposed to be the punch and the saving grace of the otherwise-directionless movie, turned out to be an atrociously stupid piece of fiction.

Experimentation and the quest for innovation are good only when they come searching for you for their revelation through your creativity. The triggering point of useful experimentation is “hey, this seems to be something worth dying for!”, and not “I got to do something new”.

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Koothara