"What we
know, wish to know, struggle to know, must try
to know about love or rejection, being alone or
together and dying together or alone – can
all that be streamlined, put in order, match the
standards of consistency, cohesiveness and completeness
set for the lesser matters? Perhaps it can –
in the infinity of time, that is. " -
Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Love
Since the days of Padmarajan and KG George, very
rarely has Malayalam film looked at man-woman
relationship so sensuously and closely as Shyama
Prasad's Ore Kadal. It is a film that
takes an incisive look at the fragile but complex
web of sexual relationships. The film, based on
the Bengali novel Hirak Deepthi by Sunil
Gangopadhyay, portrays some very intense moments
so rare in Indian cinema, where an 'ordinary'
housewife (Deepthi played by Meera Jasmine) enters
into a sexual relationship with a philanderer-economist,
and walks out of her family to join him. More
importantly, the film dares to let many loose
ends hang out, leaving many questions unanswered
and many troubling scores unsettled, just like
in any true life situation.
The film begins with Nathan, the middle-aged hero,
( Mammootty in a very atypical role of a vulnerable
lover) an urban uprooted 'free' individual driving
a car in the middle of a city cutting his last
tenuous links with his home. Apparently, his aunt
is on her deathbed; but he is unwilling to make
that emotional move or return back to his home
and family, something that is affirmed and endorsed
by his girlfriend, Bela (Ramya Krishnan). He is
one who has cut himself away from the drifts of
natal bonding and kinship, and wants to live his
life engrossed in pleasure-seeking and academic
pursuits (though most of his 'findings' are thoroughly
outdated, especially about population as the
cause of poverty etc). Surfing through life, he
is least concerned with the details of other people's
lives except using them as database for his research.
Cut off from the day-to-day exigencies of the
mundane life that is teeming outside, even the
sight of an accident on the way fails to evoke
any response in him. The world is something 'outside'
him, to be observed, analysed and enjoyed. And
he himself asserts he is not interested in love
or any kind of attachment, but only in 'pleasure
sans anything social or emotional.' In a way,
the film is about his fall.
At another level, the film is all about connections
- people desperately trying to connect and relate
to each other. The leitmotif shots in the film,
a la Kieslowski, is that of cityscapes of rising
apartments; in the foreground is the complex web
of telephone posts and lines, connecting and criss-crossing.
In the opening sequence, we find all the three
main characters tallking over phone: Nathan spurning
the plea from home, Deepthi desperately trying
to contact her husband who is out of town to inform
him about the illness of their kid, and Jayan
(the husband played by Narain) pleading to his
friend to find a job for him. When Deepthi, a
middle class wife who lives in the same apartment
complex, is hesitantly but fatally attracted to
Nathan, one such random connection is established.
But everything goes awry once he realizes that
the child born to her is his. He is haunted by
guilt, while her life is shattered as she is driven
to madness. But in an affirmative end, she comes
back to him with her children and he accepts them
with open arms, a truly touching moment in the
film. The film ends with left with his girl child
slowly climbing her way up the stairs with a bewildered
look. Where will life take her?
As usual, the woman who dares to venture out of
the family to pursue her own sensuality and crosses
the boundaries of monogamous love, is punished
severely. She goes insane, and has to seek desperate
refuge in devotion. But she is not able to ignore
the call of love. But would it turn out to be
a journey to the very same sea of marital life?
As for her and him, there is a reversal of roles
in the narrative. In the case of Nathan, it is
a 'fall' from his manly certitudes to become a
fragile and vulnerable human being. Deepthi moves
from indecision, insanity and devotion to a make
a choice of her own. She goes to the man she loves;
though it may be a journey from one family to
another. For, it is also a reunion of sorts, something
that brings about the formation of a typical nuclear
family at the end of all turbulence.
But why should the act of procreation be the key
to all these transformations and turbulence? Why
should sex be a sin for woman and guilt for man,
once it transgresses the limits of transient physical
pleasure to seek continuity in procreation? Why
should the woman be always condemned to fatal
attachments, whether it be a man or a family?
Why for her there is only insanity and devotion
between men and families? Why is it that for a
woman each man she relates to turn into a terminus,
anchor or fate of sorts, while for a man it could
still be just another experience? Why should all
the women who are 'now free' have an abusive past
(like in the case of Bela)? Why is it that it
is all arrivals for a woman, while for man each
encounter opens up yet another possibility for
departures? Relationships, the searing lure of
love, the pain and agony of having to live a life
without love, the pain of walking into someone's
life and of walking out, the trauma of giving
birth to babies and families, the tortuous wander
between lust and love…these are the dilemmas
that haunt this film.
Excellent camera work (Azhakappan), editing (Vinod
Sukumaran) and background score (Ousepachan) capture
the shifting narrative moods in an extremely evocative
manner. For instance, the character of the husband
(Narain) is composed visually by resorting to
dull colours in order to create a kind of subdued
presence suitable to the character, while sensuous
Deepthi is foregrounded in stark colours.
One thing though. Despite its 'European' looks,
one can feel the suffocation of an Indian film
- one that has to visualize the narrative within
the censorship norms, in effect, to make a film
about physical relationship without 'revealing'
bodies, forced to overcharge words and utterances
to cover up for sensuality. This takes a lot away
from an otherwise good effort.
Dr C S Venkiteswaran, is a Kerala based
film critic who has won state and national awards
for film direction and film criticism. He is now
Director, School of Media Studies, Kochi, Kerala.
He writes regularly about film in various national
and international journals and handles a weekly
column 'Rumblestrip' in New Indian Express.
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