International Film Festival of Kerala: A global showcase not restricted to the state's own films

Old Appachaayi (grandfather) gazes unblinkingly at his eight-year-old grandson while the little fellow sculpts a mud fisherman with seemingly expert hands. As they sit surrounded by the tranquil stillness of the backwaters in Kerala’s Kuttanad region, the ageing duck keeper asks the child in wonderment: Where did you learn to do that? Kuttapaayi raises his large, bright, diamond-like eyes and responds in a flash: Where did the kingfisher learn to fish? Where, indeed? Later, when he is being sent away to school by his ailing, uneducated Appachaayi, the boy asks: Why do you want me to study? The reply: Why do people study? Who knows? These guileless exchanges in R. Jayaraj’s Malayalam film Ottaal (The Trap) are among the many reasons why this magnificent yet sublime film deservedly swept the top honours at the just-concluded International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) 2015 in Thiruvananthapuram. Truth be told, the National Award for Best Film On Environment Conservation/Preservation that it won earlier this year is slightly reductive since there is so much more to Ottaal than its prayer to nature. [caption id=“attachment_2545790” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] A screen grab from the film Ottaal.[/caption] The story of Kuttapaayi – orphaned by the suicide of his debt-ridden parents – is a heart-rending, acutely observed, bitter-sweet commentary on love in trying circumstances, genius in places we least expect to find it, class-defying friendships, and ultimately, the exploitation of children, against the backdrop of one of the most resplendent settings in the world. The God that resides in God’s Own Country must be the reigning deity of Indian cinema. There can be no other explanation for the unrelenting flow of great films emerging from this narrow strip of land on India’s south-western coast. The schedule at IFFK is not restricted to films from Kerala though. The festival showcases cinemas from across India and the world, with this year offering an alluring eclectic mix, ranging from Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi’s compelling documentary Taxi; to Sean S. Baker’s highly entertaining American film Tangerine that was shot entirely on the iPhone 5S; the deeply stirring Australian film Tanna set among (and starring) the indigenous Yakel people of the Pacific island nation Vanuata; the gritty, one-take Filipino film Shadow Behind the Moon; the quietly moving British film 45 Years that should justly earn Oscar noms for veterans Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay who have both already collected acting trophies in Berlin this year; and 2015’s Palm d’Or winner at Cannes, French director Jacques Audiard’s powerful Tamil-English film Dheepan, about a trio of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in Paris starring former LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) member Antonythasan Jesuthasan in the lead. The festival element that reveals the IFFK organisers’ commitment to their roots in addition to their global vision though, is the bow to the state’s own thriving film industry. The Malayalam Cinema Today (MCT) segment this year offered seven Kerala productions from 2015, which were supplemented by two Malayalam films in the Competition Section, of which Ottaal was one. Malayalam cinema – known in some quarters as Mollywood – is less cash rich than the country’s three wealthiest industries, Telugu, Hindi and Tamil. Its tally of 95 feature films certified for release in 2011 was also less than the number of releases from these three industries and from Kannada, Bengali and Marathi, according to the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) annual report of that year. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting’s 2012 annual report reflected the same ranking. However, Mollywood is widely respected and often singled out for praise among serious film buffs across the country for the quality of its content. It is this that IFFK’s Malayalam segment seeks to underline. The Malayalam films screened at IFFK may be steeped in cultural specificities but their themes have universal resonance. R. Harikumar’s sadly evocative Kattum Mazhayum (Wind and Rain), for instance, is the story of a Muslim businessman whose children are all unwilling to donate a liver to their critically ill father, yet kick up a fuss when a poor Hindu temple priest comes forward as a donor. Their father’s health is not their priority; the organ-giver’s religion is. This subject – communal obsessions even in the face of dire human need – has found repeated echoes in works of fiction and real-life communities across India. Look no further than Vikas Swarup’s 2005 English novel Q&A from which British director Danny Boyle derived his multiple-Oscar-winning, India-based film Slumdog Millionaire (2008). In the book, a Christian priest names an orphan Ram Mohammad Thomas when he is badgered by representatives of various communities for taking in this abandoned child and giving it a Christian name without knowing its parents’ religion. The foundling was not their priority; his runaway parents’ faith was. Two years after Swarup’s book was released, life imitated art when a Hindu couple in Hyderabad adopted a Muslim girl whose parents were killed in a bomb blast. The man and woman have been targeted by fundamentalists from both communities, with Muslims concerned that the child is being brought up as a Hindu, while Hindus object to a Muslim child sullying – in their opinion – a Hindu home. The child’s welfare is not their priority; her religion is. Another recurrent subject in the contemporary Malayalam arts are the Malayali migrant workers in the Middle East, compelled to seek their bread and butter on foreign shores. This is but natural considering the influx of Keralite expatriates in the Gulf countries, many of them poor, many leaving their families behind to escape unemployment in their state, which is the highest in India according to figures published by the Central Government. This was the theme of Lal Jose’s hit film Arabikkatha (An Arabian Tale, 2007), writer Benyamin’s novel Aadujeevitham (Goat Days, 2008) and now Salim Ahamed’s emotionally stirring Pathemari, which was showcased in IFFK’s Malayalam section. Pathemari’s hero Pallickal Narayanan (Mammootty) enters Dubai illegally at a very young age, and ends up staying on for 50 years doing back-breaking menial jobs. His struggles are unknown to the family back home who assume he is living in luxury in the land of milk and honey. The loneliness and sense of isolation of such people is underlined by a poignant conversation Narayanan has with his fellow migrant worker and close friend Moideen (Sreenivasan) who is leaving Dubai at last. Moideen, apprehensive about his return to India even while feeling a sense of relief, points out to Narayanan: You and I have spent more time together here than we have spent with our respective wives through the entire duration of our marriages. It is unlikely that this was the intention of the filmmakers involved, but both Pathemari and Kattum Mazhayum are also telling essays on the burdens that men unwittingly impose on themselves while fighting to preserve the present patriarchal system in which control of all power and resources is retained in male hands. No one in Pathemari raises an eyebrow about Narayanan’s wife not sharing her husband’s load as the family’s breadwinner; the care of his widowed sister is assumed to be his duty. Both women follow social diktats by staying at home (the sister even becomes demanding after a point), while Narayanan follows social expectations by bearing the crushing financial responsibility of the extended family. This is not just a story of Kerala, it is the story of everywhere and a point over which intelligent men do introspect. Nothing in this article is intended to suggest that Malayalam cinema is flawless. Nirnaayakam’s presence in the MCT section at IFFK is a reality check for those film followers in northern India who have a romanticised, exaggerated notion about Malayalam films being universally superior to the rest of India’s cinemas. Nirnaayakam is a slightly silly, pretentious film about a young man who leaves the National Defence Academy and gets involved in a court case being fought by his estranged lawyer father. The issue is no doubt relevant – the case is about a student who dies when the traffic jam caused by a political rally delays her grandparents who are taking the unconscious girl to hospital. Though not as over-the-top as the worst that commercially driven cinema can be, the film’s inauthentic courtroom scenes are particularly glaring in a year in which the Marathi film Court earned the National Award for Best Film with its wonderfully realistic depiction of the Indian judiciary’s day-to-day functioning. That being said, Mollywood does, on an average, produce more good films than most of the country’s industries. In fact, the exquisite Ottaal should rightfully have given Court a run for its money in the battle for Best Film. And it should, without a doubt, have won the National Award for Best Malayalam Feature Film (with due apologies to Sidhartha Siva’s Ain which bagged that trophy this year). Ain (Eye) itself is an endearing, socially insightful film about a restless, unfocused young Muslim boy in Kerala’s Malabar district and his vulnerability due to his innocence. It is remarkable that there is so much good quality to choose from within the film industry of just one state. As it turns out, not everyone in Kerala shares this pride. Even as this article is being written, a controversy is brewing in the state over the multiple odes to Ottaal at IFFK: the Suvarna Chakoram (Golden Crow Pheasant Award) for Best Film in the international Competition Section, Rajata Chakoram (Silver Crow Pheasant Award) for the film voted best by the audience, Best Film of the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) jury and Best Malayalam film of the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC) jury. Questions are being raised about the Suvarna Chakoram not by directors whose films were in contention for the award but by a Malayalam filmmaker whose film was not in the international Competition Section. Sanal Kumar Sasidharan – whose Ozhivudivasathe Kali (An Off-Day Game) was part of MCT and won a FIPRESCI Award for Best Malayalam Film – posted this protest on Facebook: “Forgive me sir, but the best film of the festival in the international Competition Section was the Iranian film Immortal. Just because this is our festival if we decide to give our film an award, our movies won’t become international.” A counter to Sasidharan came within hours on Facebook from another Malayalam director, Biju Damodaran, whose Valiya Chirakulla Pakshikal (Birds With Large Wings) was also part of MCT. While taking a potshot at the lack of global recognition received “by those criticising Ottaal”, Damodaran asked them to be large-hearted about its victory at IFFK since this was a proud moment for Malayalam cinema. He reminded them too that Ottaal has already been honoured elsewhere in India and abroad, and stated for the record that this is the first time in IFFK’s 20-year history that a Malayalam film has won the Suvarna Chakoram. Awards are obviously a subjective matter, but it is bizarre to so summarily brush aside a film as elevating and enriching as Ottaal. Besides, it is illogical to attribute the film’s IFFK victories to a parochial bias, when it has been adjudged the festival’s best by three separate juries of international (primarily non-Indian) film personalities in addition to the festival audience. Like those extended moments of silence out at sea in Ang Lee’s Life of Pi and the scenes in Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity where the vastness of outer space becomes a character unto itself, Ottaal too is a humbling experience. It is the kind of film that may tempt an atheist to believe in God – any god, one god or many gods. As a viewer I felt I was in communion with the universe as I watched this lovely film. So let me say it one more time: There can be only one explanation for the unrelenting flow of great films emerging from Kerala – that the God who resides in God’s Own Country must be the reigning deity of Indian cinema.