A Perambra Phantasmagoria

'A Perambra Phantasmagoria' could be the word to describe my experience of watching the movie 'Paleri Manikyam- Oru Pathira Kolapathakathinte Katha' (Story of a Midnight Murder), a 2009 Malayalam movie directed by Ranjth. Long gone days of my childhood rushed back in to the palette of my half-dead consciousness. It was more like taking a deep plunge into the abyss of lusty green memories which I pretend to have forgotten. Each character, every single place names used in the movie were busy ringing different chords in me. For the first time I could hear, my once own Malayalam dialect with the clean village accent at least from some actors, while some others of south Kerala background were struggling to flatten their much curled out tongue to match what's heard in this part of Malabar, especially in the villages and towns surrounding Perambra, a town thirty miles away from the historical city of Calicut which happened to be the cradle of European Invasion to India. When ‘Cheeru’(a very important character of the movie, played by the actor Sweta Menon) pleads to the Village Superintendent,  ‘Nhale Rakshikkanam Thampayiye..Nhaankonnum Arinhoodaa..’ (Save us lord, we are innocent), the perfect Perambra Malayalam was coming alive on screen and for some unknown reason; I was delighted with a hidden inexpressible glee. May be for one moment I was thrown back into Perambra and was again a ten year old.

   

‘Manikyam’ was a pretty nineteen year old girl brought to ‘Paleri’ in marriage who was found raped and murdered after just eleven days. Corpse of a local priest was also found in the near by river the same night when Manikyam was murdered. This was way back in 1957 when the first communist party government was elected in Kerala, which was also a first in the world that a communist government getting powers by ballets and not by bullets. Manikyam murder happened to be the first reported murder in the Communist Kerala while the murder of the priest was ruled out as an accident. Rumors about the murders were many, but none of the accused was convicted. A local rich land Lord, infamous for his womanizing and criminal ways was believed to be behind the murder. Thanks to the big social awakening in their life, the police, the newly found government, and most of the people gradually forgot the fair one murdered.  But there were still some People in Paleri who were brought up listening to the myths and mysteries about the incident which they carried in their heart, when they grew up. It took another fifty years before, a local Laureate T.P. Rajeevan, a reputed poet from Kerala decided to write a novel about it. He originally wrote in English but translated later into Malayalam which made waves when serialized in a reputed weekly. Now it was the turn of Ranjth;  famous Script write turned director of Malayalam movie ,who also happened to have brought up in Perambra, to  make a movie based on the novel and   'Paleri Manikyam' the movie was born.

Mammooty  played three different roles,  Harridas Ahmed, a self-driven private detective who comes down to Paleri for his own reasons to find the truth behind the Manikyam incident, MurukumKunnath Ahmed haji  the criminal land lord,  and also his well educated Gazal  loving son Kabir. Among these portrayals, the character Ahmad Haji stands apart for the brilliance in characterization and performance.

      Ranjith did something which most other directors never dared to do. He casted about thirty two stage actors of local background who had had never acted in a cinema before. This extra ordinary decision on the casting front really made the difference as most of the characters looked and sounded authentic and amazingly fresh. Its heard that more than three hundred stage actors in and around Calicut  were interviewed and the team zeroed in to about thirty people.For example, the character of Velayudhan, the Man Friday of Ahmad Haji is played by Vijayan Nair' who made it a perfect debut giving life to one of the neatly etched out characters in the movie. He kills for his lord, and obeys him like a loyal dog but same time, secretly nurses his own criminal instinct. Its impossible to imagine, a Malayalam movie regular like 'Bhiman Raghu' or even Vijaya Raghavan playing it . Its heard that, Nazar the tamil actor was in T.P.Rajeevan's mind who thought would be the best bet to play Haji, but he was stunned by the stellar performance delivered by Mammootty when he saw the movie on the screen. It’s the debut for Mythili the 19 year old actor who brought innocent Manikyam alive on screen.

 

Philosophically there are two strong existences in the movie which represent the consciousness and the unconsciousness of Paleri. Ayidathu kumaran, the insane night wanderer is the unconscious side of Paleri. But he, in one point of time exposes himself as the only one of pure consciousness. This is where he says to haridas that the women with Harridans was not his wife, even though she was introduced to him as it was . The consciousness of Paleri was barber Keshavan, the communist who resigns himself from life, after delivering a closing statement like, 'I am not communist, I am not a believer, I am just a barber'. Barber keshavan played by Shrinivasan and his young days played by Mustafa were a treat to watch.

Movie makes strong political statement reflecting a generic critic wave against the communist rule and its hypocritical ways. Party is shown as the element which saves the culprit from the law even after committing a heinous crime, by accepting an expensive gift for the sake of the people of Paleri.

(Terrific Performance)

 One of the strongest cinematic visual (at least to me) which Malayalam had ever seen is in this movie. That’s where Ahamd seduces Cheeru. Cheeru is called to Ahmad's house for sexual favors. And she boldly goes to his house with a mindset to deny the indecent proposal. But, the macho charm of the baddie Ahamd, the most powerful in the village, is sweeping her off her feet.  Sweta Menon and Mammooty had wonderfully lived this scene. Ahmad greets her, standing in the field, opening the local liquor bottle with his teeth, same time pushing his big toe on to her navel, guiding it all way up to her skimpily covered softness. It’s like an ultimate bourgeoisie religiously performing the ritual of proclaiming his proletarian sex slave. Most outrageous attempt on the modesty of a married woman, but contrarily the appeal and magnetism of the man conquers her for ever. This visual statement definitely has got the high dose of cinematic seduction.

(Sweta Menon, the best role so far!)

  Another Scene to comment here on is where Ahmed Haji punishing his worker on field by replacing oxen with the man, tying him to the plough making him run around the muddy paddy field with single oxen on the other side. It was a punishment for suspecting him to have stolen some coconuts from the land that Haji owned. When the victim collapses to mud, he leaves giving a statement ‘never ever look at my coconuts you son of a bitch’.  Mammooty displayed amazing mannerisms on this scene. A perfect style of a period land lord from Kerala, chewing up a ‘beedi’ (a thin, leaf wrapped local made cigarette) gazing around.

Pokkan the village idiot, portrayed by Sreejith was another character to comment on.I have seen him playing similar roles in comedy skits in TV shows, and he has done a gread performance.  Manikyam's brother, Adhikari, Poosari Thankappan and his dog, corrupted Police superintendent and most of the characters played by unknown actors were memorable. Sidhique's Balan Nair is confused with the accent some times but as usual did a regular good job.  Sarayu, Haridas's girl friend, played by Gowri Munjal was just adequate though there were hiccups in syncing up the dubbed voice and her lip movement. Among numerous other actors who did the cameos, the character of Mollakka the Muslim witch doctor and also the ‘Manthravadi’ , his  hindu alternate who do sacrifices (balikkala) for curing were seen to be close to perfection as the characterization, and the performance are concerned .Camera work, direction of photography, research on the period setting all seemed to be good. Techniques of narration were wonderful. For example, there is a scene where Harridans stands near the river and says, ‘Manikyam lived in Paleri only for 11 days and that was between these two boat journeys’, and In the background one could see, a boat coming in with a just married and blushing Manikyam to the village, and on the other half of the screen it’s the same boat that’s taking the corpse of Manikyam for postmortem to a remote town. 

Movie also has got a hummable title song sung by the director himself, and also a Gazal in the climax scene.

Movie also has an Easter egg in it. There’s a single form of evil which is shared by all three characters, the good, the bad, and the ugly, regardless of their classification.  All these characters are fond of other’s women in one or other way. When Kabeer lives in deep cover, Ahamd lived publicly in his ways, and finally Haridas in his most clean attire visits the village as part of the investigation with some one else’s wife leaving his own family back in a remote city, clubbing his trip with an adulterous pleasure drive.

 In short ‘Paleri Manikyam’ is a gift to Malayalam Cinema which will be remembered for its aesthetic beauty if one can forget the un-realistic hyper melodrama in the climax. Mamootty lost the national award to Amitabh Batchan in the race which gets tarnished with active lobbying year after year. But this time it was highly unfortunate as it was a brilliant performance of him which was ignored by the jury. After all it was Amiabh Batchan again who denied the coveted national award to the Brilliant Malayalam actor Thilakan for his stellar performance in ‘Perunthanchan’ in early 1990’s. Thilakan was heard commenting like, ‘Acting is not like jumping from one Truck to another Truck’. He was clearly being sarcastic about Batchan’s pefromance that won him award. After all this is India, and personality and popularity not the talent, which are often accepted and appreciated.