22 FK-ing BOLD.

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.