Men in Movies.
Seldom have I loved the men portrayed in movies as much as I have done in Kumbalangi Nights. Seldom have I felt as moved by the representation of masculinity as I felt watching this movie. Seldom have I questioned why women blindly or sometimes implicitly propagate ideas about ideal "manly" behaviour should be, as much as I did from the women in this movie.
Seldom have I savoured the melancholy about disturbing tales of dysfunctional families accepting the innate societal prejudice towards them, as much as I did from the central family in this movie. Seldom has the "mood" perpetuated by awe-inspiring cinematography and melodic music in a movie left me with a kind of serenity that this movie inspired.
Kumbalangi Nights gave me many such "seldom" moments to go through and think through. It felt like the crew of this movie somehow transformed into a single conductor who brings together this symphony of all your senses together in perfect harmony, mesmerizes you in unison and leaves you in trance. Idyllic scenes of Kumbalangi, a fishing village outside of Kochi evoked a nostalgia I never knew I could be capable of. Fishing nets, lush greenery, coconut trees, balmy weather and cheerfully painted boats fill your screen and your senses. The frame meanders across the backwaters, before stopping to focus on a dilapidated brick-exposed house, that is clearly past its glory years. You are introduced to the house from the vantage point of Franky, the youngest of 4 brothers, who is clearly embarrassed to admit to his teenage soccer buddies that this is his humble adode. Now the vantage point shifts to the 3rd brother, Bobby - carefree, unemployed but the embarrassment has taken the shape of deep-seated anger at their squalor. The frame then moves to the oldest brother, Saji - the de-facto head of the family, as he folds his lungi and stirs up the fish curry that he is making. Embarrassment of their situation is still a common theme, except that it has turned into muted acceptance of reality with him. Speaking of muted, there is the "other"/second brother, Bonny - who watches and feels all of this internally and more quietly, as he cannot speak. This is a tale woven together by the perspectives of these four brothers, inhabiting a broken home with no women or doors.
Cut to the other end of neighbourhood, there's another tale of a completely credible family - the patriarch has passed away but has been replaced by the son-in-law , "the complete man". And this conveyed to you, with an image in the mirror of a perfect moustache. The shot expands to focus on the face of this man - who doesn’t have a hair out of place. After all, he has the "respectable" job of being an owner of a barber shop. So what if he's moved into his wife's family home - that doesn’t make him any less of a man because he has a "respectable" job. He has assumed the role of being the "chetta" to his wife's sister, Baby as well as the saviour of the three women in the household including his mother-in-law. The women seem to be at ill-at-ease with him, although you are left to wonder if it's out of fear or reverence.
The film is eternally in first-gear-mode but it's a ride that you feel that you ought to enjoy at that languid pace only. There are perhaps two turning points where the film threatens to shift gears, both metaphorically and otherwise. I don’t want to give out spoilers but what these events lead to, makes you sit up and think about what masculinity truly entails. Or if it should be definable at all. In the same breath, it also makes you question about the role of women and femininity. It also, very beautifully, addresses the mental anguish suffered by the common man. In most occasions, the concept of mental trauma is often not acknowledged or wilfuly ignored or blatantly scoffed at. Does crying belligerently so much that you drench your shrink's shirt with tears make you less of a man, especially when you have been doing the heavy lifting of a family including being a mother to step brothers? Does the fact that you wrestle physically with your younger brother make you less of a brother, even though you offer unwavering support to your brother when he wants to marry a girl, whose family thinks lowly of you? Does the fact that you unfairly exploit a co-worker to feed your family make you less of a father figure, especially when you readily bring in his wife and newborn baby into your household upon his sudden demise? The character of the eldest brother, played adeptly by Soubin Shahir, is complex to say the very least. And only Fahaad Fasil can ensure a role oozing toxic masculinity is not turned into a caricature. Each of the characters bring their own neat edge to the tale. A myriad of themes are explored through these characters and one that got me thinking for a long time is what being "progressive" is all about too.
In the off chance that the sharp screenplay and brilliant acting don’t enthrall you, the vivid camera work and the enthralling soundtrack would definitely enamour you. The "nights" of Kumbalangi are near magical. If backwaters during nighttime can be romanticized to this level, I wouldn’t have slept a wink when in Kerala. Reflections of serial lights and dark blue hues of dusk hug the waters as silhouettes dance around. There are very few cinematographers who make you feel like you are flipping through an album of picturesque postcards that yet somehow fluid. This sensory assault on your pupils is accompanied by the most mellifluous background score and songs.
No movie in the recent past has made me want to pull up my laptop and start penning down my thoughts about the film, just so that I can remember how I felt watching the movie and long after it. Easily, the best to come out of Indian cinema in 2019
