Reel and Real in God's own country!

Everyone on earth would fall in love at first sight with the landscape of God’s own country. Besides its scenic beauty, the state has several other feathers to the cap such as the highest literacy rate in the country, existence of communism – though in pieces, assertiveness of its people, never-ending interest to learn multiple languages, so on and so forth.

courtesy: Kerala tourism

Of course, the state has its own other side!!!! Of them, there is quite a lot of contradictions seen and heard of late. One such is the reel and real picture of Kerala.

No matter what the grave COVID situation was/is, the state’s film industry has been making quite a number of movies, most of them being good and did not fail to attract attention from a wide audience. Particularly, “The Great Indian Kitchen” evoked a huge (positive) public response for it deals with dirty patriarchy, and the firm stance of the female lead towards the climax. Another latest flick, “Sara’s”, touches upon a sensitive subject – to or not to give birth to a child is the decision of women. This movie again has a strong woman lead, who amidst the conventional rain of questions, decides what is best of her. Not just these, many a number of Malayalam movies give a strong role to female characters.

Such films being on the reel side, real news on the other side gives an ugly picture of Kerala such as women succumbing to domestic violence, early girl marriages, gory dowry deaths and silence acceptance of every other form of abuse. Immaterial of the educational qualification of women, these cases are quite normal and often featured in media.

                                        courtesy: Indian express

That brings me to the point of contradictions! Are these progressive movies a depiction of exceptional instances to be the harbinger for future? Are the movie-makers sincerely progressive enough to think beyond real? Is the Malayalam film fraternity trying to paint the real nasty, offensive behaviour with reformist ideas to please the outside world? Are such movies made to attract mere attention and have a hit at the box office? Are these the genre meant for winning awards? God knows!

Once Tamil Director Mani Ratnam was questioned by a (female) fan as to how and why his movies’ female lead characters – since his early days of movie making – are strong and bold when the reality was/is no way near. He said that he always wanted to see women around him that way and therefore he did/does portray them so. He also added that it was his wish to see women everywhere evolve stronger and stronger like his characters do.

                                            courtesy: Chai Bisket

If Malayalam movies  do the job of making their women tougher and decisive in making their own lives’ path, it is more than fair!  After all, we all look forward to a better world!