Worth a tour

Film Review: Tourist Home

Film: Tourist Home (Malayalam)

Director: Shebi

Cast: Rajath Menon, Sreejith Vijay, Maniyan Pilla Raju, Kalabhavan Mani, Nedumudi Venu, Lena, Meera Nandan

Linear narratives revolving around a central character are a passé and experimentation seems to be the buzzword in Malayalam cinema today. Into this changing cinemascape opens director Shebi’s Tourist Home with its tall claim of being the first Indian cinema to be canned in a single shot with 10 stories penned by 10 authors.

Set in different rooms of a decrepit lodge with discoloured walls and grimy washrooms are different sets of characters and their stories. How their lives change in a span of less than two hours, the duration of the movie, forms the plot.

A set of gamblers; an astrologer unsure of his own future; a woman who tries to raise money for her husband’s treatment; a grandfather awaiting his grandson’s medical diagnosis; a pair of lovers in trouble; a couple of thieves; a policeman and a prostitute; an unemployed youth and his friend; a mother trying to win her daughter a slot in a reality show, a pair of young, nervous lovers and two students with a hidden past people the lodge and set the drama rolling. Anticipation hangs heavy in most rooms.

There is no edge-of-the-seat drama, no adrenaline rushes, no entwining of plots, but a natural, and at times predictable, course of events set entirely within the confines of the ‘three walls’ of the lodge. Privileged to getting glimpses of the secret lives of the characters, the viewer almost feels like a voyeur.

The outside world trickles in through mobile phone conversations, some visitors and the ubiquitous 24x7 news channels.

Touching upon themes of lust, greed, infidelity, political influence, spirituality and crime, the film attempts to be a social commentary of the times. The done-to-death image of the ‘lodge’ as a den of immoral and anti-social activities comes as a downer, but an ensemble cast and some compelling performances make up for the shortcoming.

The single shot format with the camera moving across rooms takes time getting used to, but given the narrative pattern, never comes across as unnatural.

Each of the stories has been well-conceived and the well-crafted characters strike a chord with the viewer. Director Shebi and cinematographer Firoz Khan deserve praise, first for trying their hand at experimenting, and second for saving it from falling flat.

Save for a few clichés and stereotypes, the film catches your fancy and does not disappoint.

Tourist Home is no landmark, but nevertheless, worth a visit.

The review was first published in The Hindu, July 7, 2013