A lot of hype usually spoils the movie for me. And so I went
to watch 22 Female Kottayam with a whole lot of scepticism. Also watching it at
Chennai’s Ega theatre, a second show,
with howling men all around me isn’t really the best ambience. Most bold
dialogues in the movie were hooted at, a lot of good scenes met with loud
cynicism. But with all this display of male chauvinism around me, when the
movie ended, I walked out many inches taller, my head held high and very very
liberated.
Hats off to Aashiq Abu for making a movie that is the need
of our times, for making a movie that is from the start to the end carried off
entirely by the woman lead, for writing ‘her’ name first in the titles, for
never even trying to make it seem anything other than a woman-centric movie,
for silencing at the end, all the male rants around me.
It is just surprising that all the reviews that were doing
the rounds about 22FK, most of the people who watched the movie, termed it
good, and then ‘shocking’. Yes, the movie upsets you, but given the bold
statement the movie is, there was nothing shocking. It was to say the least,
liberating. And for all the flak I may receive for this statement, the movie
was a revelry of womanhood, her body, her lives, her revenge, hers.
Beginning with the powerful “Chilane” song, the movie
centres around the life of the level-headed ‘Kottayamkari Nasrani’ nurse Tessa
Abraham (Rima Kallingal), from her trying to migrate to Canada, falling in
love, getting brutally deceived, and then coming back to exact her revenge.
Yes, the story line sounds a lot clichéd, I know. But what makes Aashiq Abu’s
movie stand out, is the freshness with which this cliché is portrayed, there is
no melodrama, no guilt or ‘moral’ pangs associated (like a jail inmate in the
film prophesies) and is riveting throughout.
Also, for a change, we have women checking out men, a
women’s jail portrayed as not pitiful but powerful, and a woman exacting
revenge in a way most of us have often felt is the only “right” way for a crime
that is repeated often and any number of times, and every single day, to the
minute I am keying in these words, a crime that stems from the arrogance of
‘being a man’. To every man who has looked down at a woman and told her you can
never win over me for “You are only a woman”, here is a reminder. In your face,
and powerful.
Reading other reviews, the moral stance adopted by many
leave me disgusted. That the movie does not respect women, the movie is in no
way progressive, that it makes the woman use her body to exact her revenge and
so on. When most of us cheered our “heroes” thrashing villains and walking into
the sunset in slow motion and triumph, how come that was not “his” way of using
“his” body (of course, the “hero” was a man of intelligence, too!). When will
we ever tide over our obsession and puritanical notions associated with the
woman’s body, and solely with the woman’s?
And there was also criticism of the movie having a lot of
masala, of it being purely “commercial”. How come we never heard “masala” and
“commercial” being talked about as fervently when the heroine wore skimpy
clothes and danced around trees, battled eyelids and pouted, or heroines
performed item numbers, were generally epitomes of goodness, well-clad and well
behaved and high scorers of the society’s moral marksheet. Of course, the movie
has “masala”, is a “commercial” hit, and entertaining in its own way, but if it
has driven home that message which the filmmaker wanted to, if the meal was
grand and fiery, would you now complain about the salt and pepper?
That is not to say the movie is without faults or is a
milestone for Malayalam cinema. It is not a milestone. It is a necessity, a
breath of fresh air, a new flavour, yet another important chapter in the New
Wave that the cinema of my land is witnessing.
Movies like 22FK are needed every once in a while if not
more often till there is nothing shocking or surprising about them. And so are
performances like Rima’s and Fahad’s. Rima Kallingal has given to Tessa Abraham
more than her all, and never, at any point, has she let down a movie that is
meant to ride to success on the shoulders of the female lead. From being quiet
and sweet, to being the woman in love, to suffering physical and mental
torment, to finding her strength and emerging triumphant, Rima essays a
spectrum of emotions with remarkable brilliance. Fahad Fazil pulls off another
brilliant performance, and asserts with 22FK that he is in a different league
altogether. While much praise is being heaped on Rima, the movie wouldn’t have
been what it is without Fahad’s tempered and subtle acting.
Even with all the questions about the film’s authenticity
doing the rounds, this movie needs to be praised for its sheer guts, it needs
to be promoted for encouraging people to go to theatres to watch good movies
without big banners and superstar tags, movies which acknowledge that women are
more than glamour dolls and tired mothers.
Aashiq Abu and crew, well, you just set a new high for the
forgotten concept of “heroine” in Malayalam cinema. A brilliantly crafted,
beautifully evoked, bold high.
