Iyobinte Pusthakam

Iyobinte Pusthakam

By Lt Col D Purushothaman Pillay (Retd)

This insipid, amateurish period movie is an utterly disappointing, soulless, self-indulgent, lavishly mounted but ineptly directed Amal Neerad film; which is magnanimously being touted by the media, especially online, as a cult classic.

Making a period film is not a joke, but then one is not also allowed to make a joke of a period film either. This movie did meticulously tick off all the right boxes for all those clichéd must haves in a period movie; starting with a few vintage cars, a Union Jack, a small number of white backpackers masquerading as Burra Sahibs, a British Bungalow, an isolated hillock without electric posts, a palanquin stretchered by slaves, pastel lacy parasols for the Memsahibs, the occasional swarthy bleeding backs mercilessly lashed with leather whips, historical maps, a retractable monocular, antiquated firearms, curved daggers, steel sabres, some faux antique bric-a-brac strewn in a parlor with a central fireplace, a couple of characters donning round Gandhi glass frames, characters with beards and twirled mustaches, wearing Battle Dress Serge uniform breeches, cotswool shirts with suspenders, in riding boots and a few customary horses. But did that make it a convincing period film. Absolutely not.

Amal Neerad’s attempt at aestheticization of violence, following the Quentin Tarantino neo-noir school of film-making, was a failed effort to wallow in sybaritic splendor. It was at best a self-indulgent exercise, to satiate the cinematographer in him, to frame his shots in apt and exotic locations, which would serve as springboards, for him to capture scenes graphically and make the look and feel, visually opulent. This conspicuous bias towards visual appeal, robbed the rich story of its soul. I would never fault the setting and construct of the story, it is the direction given by the helmsman, which doomed its destiny.

I was an innocent victim of my curiosity, which had led me to visit the Wikipedia page of this film, from where I was ushered to a few links of reviews available online, that proclaimed it as a classic motion picture. For instance, Filmibeat.com calls it "Amal Neerad's painting with a camera....One of the bravest attempts of Malayalam cinema in recent times.....a complete visual treat.....the best ever visual experience of Mollywood". The Nowrunning web portal describes the movie as 'At once a contemplative and strapping work of art, 'Iyobinte Pusthakam' is the best Malayalam film as yet, to have hit the screens this year!', on reading such and other similar reviews, repeatedly cloning the same sentiments online, one is tempted to take the plunge, expecting an unprecedented cinematic experience. Coming as it is, in a year which saw beautiful heartwarming stories like "1983", "How Old Are You" and "Bangalore Days", one tends to believe such hype and get sucked through those turnstiles.

All any lover of cinema expects, especially when acclaimed critics extol movies, is to experience a coherent, well-told, soulful story that is skillfully narrated by the chosen characters. However, sadly that was not the case with this film. One comes away exhausted by the meaninglessness of the blood-soaked violence, in a bid to bring a hasty closure to the story. The 2 hour 40 minute murderous ordeal leaves only the two of the main protagonists standing, as the rest of the cast end up as spangled corpses, littering the green slopes of the Munnar woods, all eliminated with increasing degrees of cruelty and gore.

There is hardly anything worthy of review really, even that overhyped buzz around the music and background score of the movie, provided by an unknown debutant duo, is exaggerated. I found the acoustics, instead of aiding the flow of the narrative, often imposed an unaccustomed loudness that overwhelmed scenes, that otherwise needed to be handled with more subtle tonal timbre. The songs, many of which were unwanted and misplaced, looked like retro music videos of the 90s, which would do MTV proud. Even the choice of costumes were limited, the characters pretty much walked the whole film in the same get-up. At other times it was inexplicably ludicrous, for instance, one is left baffled as to why the character of Martha, a supposed sorceress played by Isha Sharvani, the lonely daughter of a tribal woman, who was disenfranchised while she was in the womb, is walking around in Western clothes, just because she has fair skin, inherited from her British father, who had died even before she was born.

Having said all of the foregoing, the characters of Lal; as Iyobe the penitent patriarch; Jayasurya, as Angur Rawther, the crafty usurper; and charming Fahadh Faasil, as Aloshy the rebellious soldier turned revolutionary, continue to linger on in our minds, despite all that mayhem. This is not a family film, which one would take the young ones along, to watch. Hence, if I was adequately warned, it is one of those films that I would have preferred to wait for the DVD to watch it in private.

I am positive that the make believe marketing strategies, gimmicks and hyperbole supported by slick image-intensive trailers, which look very convincing and nice on social media in their abbreviated avatars; will ensure that this movie will draw the crowds in droves and they will rake in the moolah, to be deemed a hit in due course. But I hope the immensely talented National Award winner Amal Neerad, would give us a better movie the next time round.

I would rate it a 2 on 5 at the most, that too, when in a very generous mood.