Spadikam re-released: The parable of the prodigal son overturned in a 1990s Malayalam commercial framework

Cast: Mohanlal, Thilakan, K.P.A.C. Lalitha, Chippy, George, Urvashi, Nedumudi Venu, Silk Smitha Director: Bhadran Language: Malayalam In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, Jesus speaks of a young man who goes astray, leaves home and squanders his inheritance. When he repents and returns though, his father embraces him despite the resentment of the older son who had been at home all the while, serving the family. The dutiful son is hurt and offended by the father’s expensive celebration of the prodigal’s return. While the father’s response is interpreted as being symbolic of God’s merciful nature, the elder son represents one who measures relationships in terms of rewards and recognition rather than offering love for love’s sake and service for the sake of service. Writer-director Bhadran turned this Biblical story on its head when he created Spadikam (Crystal/Prism) in 1995. The protagonist of the film is a hooligan called Thomas Chacko a.k.a. Aadu Thoma (Mohanlal), nicknamed thus because he derives his legendary strength from drinking the blood of a goat (aadu). Thomas’ father Chacko (Thilakan) is the wealthy, stiff-necked, award-winning teacher and school headmaster who believes a formal education must be given precedence over encouraging a student’s natural talents that are not apparently useful to a conventional academic syllabus and examination system. Thomas was a bright child who tapped his instinctive understanding of mechanics and electronics to build various gadgets in his attic. Chacko was unimpressed because the boy did not ace his Mathematics exam. And so, the man bullied Thomas, abused him physically and emotionally until a series of events led to him growing up to be Aadu Thoma. Unlike the Prodigal Son, Aadu Thoma in Spadikam is not rejected by his sibling – he is close to both his sister Jancy (Chippy) and mother Mary/Ponnamma (K.P.A.C. Lalitha).  Despite his waywardness in various areas of his life, he is loyal to his family and friends and they, with the exception of Chacko, to him. His numerous run-ins with the law are usually a result of fights he fights on behalf of vulnerable people or for his honour. The one who needs to repent and reform here is Chacko not Thoma – the father, not the son. In a culture that even today expects offspring to be reverent, perennially forgiving and eternally tied to their parents’ apron strings, for a 1990s Indian film to take Spadikam’s path was quite remarkable. Remember that in the north, this was the decade defined by the Hindi film Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (DDLJ, also released in 1995), in which a young man (Shah Rukh Khan) refuses to stay in a relationship with the woman he loves (Kajol) unless he has her despotic, patriarchal, self-centred father’s blessing and permission. Spadikam was as mass-targeted and commercially designed as DDLJ, but unlike that film, it challenged traditional Indian cultural notions of the parent-child equation and condemned paternal authoritarianism. This, in addition to the unflagging energy of the narrative, its pace, the script’s push to leave children unfettered so that they may follow their dreams, the songs, the charismatic cast and a career-elevating performance by Mohanlal are what make this film memorable. On its release 28 years back, Spadikam took the box-office by storm. It also won several awards including the Kerala State Film Award for Best Actor for Mohanlal. It remains a milestone in the superstar’s career. A digitally enhanced 4K Dolby Atmos version has been released in theatres across India today. As I watched Spadikam this morning in a theatre in Delhi, I could not view it through a prism of nostalgia though. For as much as the storyline is gripping and substantial, the film is/was also committed to exaggeration and over-statement in the writing of situations and  characters, and the acting by several members of the cast (Indrans’ over-acting in a supporting role, for one, is embarrassing to say the least); and the writer-director’s mindset regarding women characters other than Jancy and Mary was appalling. In the first half of Spadikam, Aadu Thoma frequents the house of a sex worker called Laila (Silk Smitha). Bhadran seems to share Chacko’s and the policeman Kuttikkadan’s contempt for her. Apart from the cringe-worthy objectification of Laila – the camera focuses on her cleavage spilling out of her blouse before we see her in her entirety – the script also completely forgets her once Thulasi (Urvashi) enters the picture in the second half. Thulasi is the one Thoma ultimately falls for, a woman that a mainstream Indian film would consider worthy of a hero’s love since her family and her profession (she’s a teacher) are deemed respectable. Thulasi may fit a class and caste-conscious filmmaker’s definition of heroine material, but this also translates into terrible mistreatment at the hands of the leading man. Before he develops feelings for her, Aadu Thoma is physically violent while rejecting her advances. He slaps her when their paths first meet as adults. He repeatedly strikes her, including kicking her – literally, not figuratively – out of a vehicle. He forces an entire bottle of alcohol down her throat. She is never shown repulsed by his conduct towards her, he is never shown penitent. In fact, his abuse has no effect whatsoever on her. She remains unequivocally in love. If the writing of the father-son relationship in Spadikam defied traditionalist Indian values, and the agency written into Jancy and Mary’s characters defied commercial Indian cinematic trends of the time, the film’s approach to Laila and Thulasi exemplified the co-existence of progressive and regressive perceptions within a single work of art. The standard criticism of such critiques is that they amount to unfairly viewing old art through a contemporary lens and judging old films by modern social mores. In the context of Spadikam, this would suggest that there was once a time when it was acceptable for a man in the real world to hit a woman and get her drunk against her will, and for such actions to be normalised or even glorified in films – it was not okay when Homo sapiens first emerged through evolution, it was not okay in the 1990s, it is not okay now. Watching Laila and Thulasi today is, in fact, a sad reminder of how much still needs to change in Indian commercial cinema, whether it is the glorification of aggressive masculinity in romance, the disdain for female lovers or the duality in attitudes to women. For recent examples , you can refer, among others, to Akshay Kumar’s filmography (Hindi), the rape of Avanthika in Baahubali: The Beginning (Telugu), _Pushpa: The Rise_ (Telugu), the male protagonist’s leering comment about a sex worker in _Pathaan_ (Hindi) parallel to his respect for his female boss, the abduction of the heroine by the hero who describes her as “entertainment” in KGF2 (Kannada), or the male lead’s lecherousness and sexual insinuations about Honey Rose’s character in Mohanlal’s own _Monster_ (Malayalam). There is a lot in Spadikam that makes it worthy of a discussion nearly three decades since it first came into our lives. For students of cinema it is a great showcase for how a film might rise above its times, both cinematically and socially, yet simultaneously be unevolved. Spadikam has been re-released in theatres Anna M.M. Vetticad is an award-winning journalist and author of The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic. She specialises in the intersection of cinema with feminist and other socio-political concerns. Twitter: @annavetticad, Instagram: @annammvetticad, Facebook: AnnaMMVetticadOfficial Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News ,  India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and Instagram