#malayalam cinema

[desicinema]

AAVESHAM (2024), dir. Jithu Madhavan

[ririsasy]

Watching Jana Gana Mana and my jaw was on the floor at this scene, Prithvi was just so brilliant in this movie and the message was so important as well. Truly impressed with the way they presented this one with many twists in the process. Can’t wait for the sequel that we don’t know yet when it will came out because Prithvi have so many sequels in line (Salaar 2, Lucifer 2, Jana Gana Mana 2. Hopefully we gonna get all the sequels soon!)

[habitual-sadness]

Throne of Capricorn, G. Aravindan, 1975

[masalafilmsrevival]

The Journey/Sancharram (2004)

[ulaganayagi]

Prithviraj Sukumaran and Paravathy Thiruvothu in Vanaville, Koode (2018)

[jackoshadows]

[celluloidrainbow]

PIXELIA (2018) dir. Ratheesh Ravindran Kumar, a bachelor in his thirties leaves his corporate job in Kochi to become a graphic novelist. He embarks on a new life as an Uber driver in Kochi while working on his graphic novel titled Pixelia. One day a trans woman named Mandakini gets into his cab. They keep meeting, gradually bonding and building a relationship as Mandakini helps Kumar come to terms with his identity and future. (link in title)

[grishaxverse]

manjummel boys. that’s it. that’s the post.

[celestesinsight]

Prithviraj Sukumaran as Joshua Thomas in Koode!

[ineffable-opinions]

Little Hearts - Coming Out, Coming Home

സമർപ്പണം - ക്വീ�� മലയാളികൾക്ക്.

This week saw a lot of very interesting discussion about Indian queer media (compilation by @starryalpacasstuff). It coinciding with 13th edition of Kerala Queer Pride 2024 is so serendipitous.

I had drafted this Little Hearts (2024) appreciation post with the aim to finalize it before Kollavarsham New Year but did not get around to doing so. I wanted to take part in the current conversation. So, I am posting it now. I intent to discuss Indian BL: Sting of Lavender and Arotpa Pirang (The Hidden Tears) as well as movies like Kaathal – The Core, Moothon and Ardhanaari (2012) in the future.

Little Hearts (2024) is a Malayalam-language comedy movie available for streaming on Amazon Prime. (CW: heterosexism; PSA: Hema Committee Report) It's not a surprisingly impressive movie by any measure but I had a very nice time watching it. It was one of the best comedies of this year for me. And it tackles coming out in an interesting manner.

contains spoilers

Plot

(names might be spelled differently in the subtitles.)

The movie is set in a village in a high-range region of Kerala. We follow the main character Sibi through his journey, navigating 3 different relationships and their implication on his beloved people. The movie is pretty straightforward in its approach. At the outset, we are introduced to the romantic relationship – the one between Sibi’s father, Baby, and Baby’s childhood sweetheart, Cecily who was deserted by her husband Joey. She has a teenage daughter who doesn't look at their romance favorably. That’s the first hurdle. The other hurdle to their relationship is Cecily’s brother Papan and his feud with Baby. The feud and Sibi’s involvement make for some really fun moments throughout the movie.

The next romantic relationship involves Sibi and his feudal landlord’s daughter. Sibi and his father work in the cardamom estate owned by Johnson. Sibi’s family and Johnson’s basically have a very good relationship. Sibi grew up with Johnson’s kids, calls Johnson "papa" and Anitha (Johnson’s wife) "mummy", and spends a considerable amount of time at their house. Their families are practically one as seen from them breaking bread together on Maundy Thursday – an intimate tradition for those Nasrani folk.

However, there is clear class disparity. Sibi lives in a much smaller house and when dismissed from work, the class difference only becomes clearer.

What gets things moving is Shosha rejecting a proposal for an arranged marriage by lying that she is in a relationship with Sibi.

Sibi, clearly demiromantic, is surprised initially when she starts wooing him but eventually he falls for her. This branded pair’s romance didn’t work as well as it did in RDX (2023) but at least this time around they got their happy ending (a rarity in Malayalam romances).

The queer sub-plot arrives when Johnson’s firstborn, Sharon, returns home after a long while. While his parents prepare to arrange his marriage, Sharon confides in Sibi that he's actually getting married next month to his foreigner partner. The only thing Sibi enquires about is if Sharon’s partner belongs to the same community as himself (Catholic). When he gives a positive reply, Sibi asks him to invite his partner over so that Sibi can present the news to Johnson and Anitha on Sharon’s behalf. At the airport, Sharon welcomes his boyfriend Nathan and Sibi is shocked.

Agitated, Sibi is rude towards Sharon initially. However, he agrees to take Nathan and Sharon to visit tourist spots in exchange for Sharon meeting the woman his parents are trying to arrange his wedding with. During their excursion, Sibi warms up to their relationship while watching them interact. He also puts in effort to learn about queer people.

As promised Sharon meets the girl and rejects her respectfully. Nathan grows uneasy as Sharon drags his feet. Their relationship strains. Sharon’s mom notices but isn’t sure about what’s going on. Sibi’s efforts to talk to Johnson are unsuccessful. Hopeless, Sharon asks Nathan to leave by himself as he needs more time. Nathan asks Sibi to take care of Sharon and returns.

Anitha learns from Sibi about Nathan’s relationship with Sharon and, from her Johnson. Unable to process this information, Johnson consults Baby. Drunk out of his wits, Baby not only scolds Johnson for not accepting Sharon but also reveals the love affair between Sibi and Shosha. They fight and Johnson hits Sibi and forbids both son and dad from entering either his house or his land. Moreover, Sibi and Shosha’s relationship takes a turn for the worse as their stubborn attitudes worsen minor conflicts between them. 

Right when Sibi with the vicar’s intervention gets Cecily’s daughter's approval for their parent’s relationship, Joey appears. Turns out Joey held a grudge against his brother-in-law, Papan, who had hurt and humiliated him. Joey exacts revenge by whipping and stabbing Papan during the Way of Cross performance on Good Friday. Finally divorced, Cecily can finally move on and marry Baby.

While Shosha tries to be the bridge between her father and her brother, she fails to do so for her relationship with Sibi. Sharon calls her out. The movie ends with Baby and Sibi getting married and Sharon and Nathan joining them on a video call after the ceremony.

Analysis

The predominant narrative of “coming out” is built on a particular kind of queer experience and geography, which is usually from the standpoint of white, middle-class, urban U.S. citizenship.

Shuzhen Huang & Daniel C. Brouwer (2018) Coming out, coming home, coming with: Models of queer sexuality in contemporary China

Nathan is an upper-class, white, Christian man with an accepting family emblematic of the Western take on queerness we all are familiar with. Sharon, on the other hand, is from this little agricultural village in Kerala where everyone knows everyone else and queerness does not get accepted and protected the way it does in the West. That’s why he had migrated. That’s why he did not visit more often. His desires are mediated by his circumstances. Leaving home is a decision that a lot of queer people living in villages like his adopt, whether it is to urban regions within the nation or abroad. Queer migration is a very common phenomenon in India and I hope to discuss it further in relation to other movies such as Moothon and Sancharam.

Migration is expected to offer queer individuals distance from the daily pressures of heteronormativity and cis-heteropatriarchy. It can secure them better employment opportunities, higher incomes, and improved standard of living and savings that would help them support themselves (and their parents) in their old age in the absence of offspring and substantial social security benefits. It can also provide them with relative anonymity to explore their sexuality, improved chances of finding partners, friends, and other queer folk in general whom they can support and be supported by.

Sharon choosing to introduce Nathan to his family through Sibi might come off as strange, but that’s very much not the case. Arranged marriages are the norm in Kerala. Even if your marriage is not arranged via match-makers (and increasingly via dedicated websites), it is not unusual for the couple to get their parents to ‘arrange’ their love marriage on their behalf. Marriages are grand affairs, with creation and merging of families, transfer of different sorts of wealth and capital, a well-mediated social project where familism rather than individualism dominates, with relatives and neighbors having a say in everything.  

Shane Nigam, the actor who played Sibi, has other movies in which he does the exact same role for heterosexual couples. In RDX, he is tasked with presenting his brother’s relationship with his future sister-in-law to his father and getting his father’s approval.

In Kumbalangi Nights, Shane's character has to convince his brother to bring up the matter of his marriage with his girlfriend’s brother-in-law in the absence of their parents.

While cis-heterosexual pairings enjoy better acceptance at some level compared to others, that acceptance is conditional. India more broadly and Kerala specifically has a fairly long-standing tradition of “marrying” within one’s caste and creed. (There were other not-exactly conjugal ties in Kerala like sambandam that were inter-caste.) Exogamy is strongly discouraged and punished through deprivation of essential social capital and in extreme cases through honor killings. It is in this context that Sibi asks Sharon if the one Sharon is going to marry belongs to their community – they are Nasrani Catholics. When Sharon affirms that although his partner is a foreigner but catholic, Sibi is relieved (in a very comphet way which he regrets soon enough).

Sibi, in a heterosexist outburst, uses “kundan” intending to hurt Sharon. Sibi is a stand-in for most Malayali folk whose understanding of queerness, is rooted in local forms of expression of sexuality. While married folk are expected to fall in love and stay faithful and carry on the bloodline, that is only the intention for and not the basis of marriages. Sexuality, especially non-heterosexuality, leading to marriages and households is a fairly unusual concept. Please keep in mind that even the idea of a household being one that had its basis in marriage is fairly new. Till the 20th century, a normal Nair (a community in Kerala) household (tharavaadu) meant sisters and brothers living with the sisters' children, and these children's fathers would continue to live with their own sisters.

Sexuality that made one “kundan” lie outside the conjugal sphere if not for marriage equality activism and movements seeking legalization of non-monogamous kinship arrangements. I have discussed this form of male-male sexuality, the term kundan and its connection with BL, in my post on Kubi and Gohatto.

Sibi struggles with the task Sharon entrusted him with. He has to learn about queer people (he is seen browsing the internet and watching videos to learn), understand the couple he is expected to introduce, and present it in a manner that would not spook Sharon’s parents (for example, the conversation about food preferences) and would instead make them root for their son. Sibi’s hesitation costs the couple time and drives a wedge between them that widens enough to tear their relationship apart.

Sharon’s mother is the first one to learn of his relationship with Nathan. She responds in a way that would be best explained by the Chinese phrase “rugui” (entering the closet) which refers to the initial and depressive stage [many Asian] parents enter upon learning about their child’s queerness. It is a painful psychological state consisting of shock, anger, grief, disbelief, and self-blame. These parents then must work their way back to a balanced state.

It is clear that she was suspecting and that is why she had insisted on speaking to Sibi at the church. After learning the truth, she chooses to walk back home and breaks down while hugging her son, upon finally realizing the pain he has been in all this time and the reason behind the pain.

Sharon’s father learns the truth from his wife. The second stage of his reaction is what the Chinese call “jiating chugui” (familial coming-out) wherein a parent seeks moral support from someone he trusts. However, his decision to confide in Baby backfires.

Drunk out of his wits, Baby reprimands Johnson for hesitating to accept his son. Interestingly, Baby uses a lot of slang popular on the internet among Malayali folk online including those relating to political correctness and progressive thinking. Baby is disingenuous since he is not free from heterosexist bias himself. However, learning that Baby and Sibi have been keeping a bunch of secrets from him breaks Johnson who was already emotionally vulnerable. He lashes out at Baby and Sibi as well as his son, whom he prevents from leaving the country by withholding his passport.

Shosha, Sharon’s sister is upset with Sibi for hiding about Sharon’s relationship. However, she is able to offer the good counsel that Johnson had fruitlessly sought in Baby. Sharon and Johnson renew their bond over alcohol. Finally, at peace, Sharon is able to set Shosha straight too.  

There has been criticism that the movie failed to do justice to the queer theme by focusing uneven amounts of energy on heterosexual couples. But, I think Little Hearts did a good job of upsetting the conventional idea that heterosexual relationships are automatically normative and easily accepted. Even with heterosexual relationships being intra-caste, class is a powerful enough divide to try and force couples apart through familial/societal disapproval (from Papan against Baby and Johnson against Sibi). Consider the fact that Kerala is yet to have an on-screen inter-caste heterosexual couple have their happy ending. By calling into question what can be considered queer in Malayali society, the movie manages to critically examine the emergent theme of Christian Nasrani familialism.

-

notes:

Hema Committee report - Wikipedia

Baburaj, the actor who played Baby, is one of the post-report accused.

2. Shine Tom Chacko previously played a queer character in the 2022 action thriller Bheeshma Parvam.

[desicinema]

TOVINO THOMAS in THALLUMAALA (2022)

[ririsasy]

Who wants to hold this hand?

May I?

[tee-jay-666]

Kaathal - The Core (2023)

[drivingsideways]

Year-end discussion in the Indian film space was dominated by the success of controversial film maker Sandeep Reddy Vanga's latest offering of undiluted misogyny and rage, appropriately titled "Animal"; but the best commentary I've seen on failed fatherhood and violent, toxic masculinity this year comes in a 2 minute scene in Kaathal: The Core, where a wizened old man testifies quietly in a family court that yes, he always knew that his son is gay, and still coerced him into a heterosexual marriage.

Kaathal: The Core isn't a film without flaws; one could argue that it's the quintessential film made about queer people by straight allies- actually more interested in the reaction to queerness and the adjustment to queerness by cishets, than in queer lives; that it has a one dimensional view of the reality of queer living in India. It has its moments of what I call "educational speechifying" that feel tonally at odds with the rest of it, but again, this paternalism in Indian cinema of the self-consciously "progressive" variety isn't unfamiliar.

The ending feels a little trite, and some artistic choices- an actual rainbow in the sky appears as the two lovers drive off into the sunset of their newly liberated lives-feel particularly anvil-like- much like the ending of another of director Jeo Baby's films, The Great Indian Kitchen, which was an exploration of the brutality of Indian-flavoured patriarchy. In short: a movie filled with intricately and deliberately placed subtleties that occasionally - somewhat inexplicably-loses confidence in its audience, and chooses to remedy that by being a bit over the top.

But those are minor quibbles. This movie gutted me. The story revolves around a middle-aged closeted gay man from a small close knit village community in Kerala whose life- and the lives of those around him- is thrown into disarray when his wife of twenty years files for divorce citing his gayness as the reason for the breakdown of the marriage- a step she takes just as he's nominated as his party's candidate for the local elections. With this premise, you'd be forgiven for expecting the movie to be high decibel melodrama- and possibly a tragedy- from start to finish. Instead, it deliberately chooses the quieter route, the most tender one; while not flinching away from the grim realities of widespread homophobia, it portrays both individuals and a community who , in a moment of crisis, discover that they are better than they think they are. And it does this not from a jingoistic, self-congratulatory ethno-nationalist perspective- but from a place of genuine love- as a reminder and a beacon in these dark times.

All of this is anchored in some fantastic performances- Mammootty once more showing up to remind us why he's one of the greatest living actors in the world, and Sudhi Kozhikode as Thankan in what should be a multiple-award winning performance as his long time lover. I've rarely seen an actor make so much of their limited screen time. When I say that minutes 50-52 of this film are the most devastatingly tragic-romantic moments in world cinema, you'll think I'm exaggerating and perhaps I am, but I can also guarantee that you're going to want to rewatch that sequence at least ten times and cry about two old geezers in love. Lives were changed in those moments, no lie.

My one disappointment in terms of performances is Jyothika, playing Omana, the long suffering wife. Omana is one of the stand-outs in the history of female characters in Malayalam cinema, and Jyothika is- barely adequate. When you contrast it with a similar role - say Hsieh Ying -xuan's performance as Liu San-lian in Dear Ex (2018)- the flatness is even more jarring. Still, the sheer love with which her character and her relationships, especially with her husband, are written carry the film through.

Tl;dr: watch it on Amazon Prime or at a theatre near you! You will not regret it.

[habitual-sadness]

Throne of Capricorn, G. Aravindan, 1975

[cinemashotz]

BEST OF 2024 Manjummel Boys മഞ്ഞുമ്മല്‍ BOYS Directed by Chidambaram