MALAYANKUNJU

Ho trovato proprio audace e originale il modo in cui Malayankunju tratta l'argomento della discriminazione castale. Il primo tempo ci presenta Anikutta, il protagonista, un uomo spigoloso e profondamente razzista. La sceneggiatura è impeccabile, è come se fabbricasse Anikutta pezzo dopo pezzo davanti ai nostri occhi, senza però dimenticare il contesto in cui vive e che ci viene raccontato con lampi di conversazioni, voci fuori campo, personaggi ai margini delle inquadrature. È una storia minimalista, fatta di dettagli quotidiani. Nessuna tensione nella narrazione.

Il secondo tempo segna uno spettacolare cambio di registro. Il nostro per niente amabile eroe di punto in bianco deve lottare per la vita. Non conta più ciò che Anikutta è ma ciò che potrebbe diventare. Il protagonista perde la centralità nella sceneggiatura, che ora si focalizza sugli eventi, o meglio, sugli effetti degli eventi su Anikutta e sulle reazioni del personaggio. Una sorta di esperimento psicologico: prendiamo un razzista, collochiamolo in una situazione di pericolo, affidiamolo ad una sorta di angelo custode appartenente alla categoria sociale che lui odia (spoiler: la neonata del titolo, che col suo pianto lo guida verso la superficie), e vediamo se il corto circuito lo rinsavisce. Il processo di formazione è per forza di cose poco spontaneo, più indotto che interiorizzato. È una sceneggiatura meno sottile, rispetto al primo tempo, ma molto coinvolgente. E non manca di ironia. 

Il comparto tecnico è di prim'ordine. Non mi riferisco solo alla regia e alla fotografia: la scenografia nel secondo tempo è incredibilmente realistica, frutto di un lavoro pazzesco sia in fase di progettazione che di realizzazione. Fahadh Faasil si muove sul set del tutto ignaro della presenza delle telecamere, con una naturalezza quasi inquietante - non dimentichiamo che l'attore, che è anche produttore del film, ha sopportato notevoli disagi durante le riprese. Fahadh non disdegna di interpretare personaggi sgradevoli, niente lo spaventa, non si cura delle eventuali ripercussioni negative sulla sua carriera e procede come un treno verso traguardi sempre più scintillanti. Irrfan Khan mi manca ogni giorno, ma per fortuna c'è Fahadh Faasil a rischiarare il mondo. 

TRAMA

Anikutta ripara apparecchi elettrici ed elettronici in orari inconsueti. Litigioso e insofferente, vive con la madre, non parla con la sorella, non dimentica il passato. I vicini, appartenenti ad una comunità tribale, hanno una bimba il cui pianto disturba Anikutta quasi più dell'estrazione sociale dei genitori. Arrivano le piogge. Le autorità invitano gli abitanti del luogo a lasciare le case e rifugiarsi in strutture governative, ma Anikutta, che non tollera di condividere spazi angusti con persone di caste svantaggiate, rifiuta di muoversi.

RECENSIONI

The Hindu:

'There is more to this Fahadh Faasil-starrer than just being a survival drama, a rare genre in Malayalam cinema. (...) The well-paced first half effectively captures the life of people, who are used to the devastating effects of Nature’s fury. The timing of the landslip takes viewers by surprise and before they know it, they are with Anikutta, trapped in the debris. The behind-the-scenes video has already revealed that the entire sequence has been shot in a set built in a studio in Kochi. Watching the scenes on the big-screen is an overwhelming experience, thanks to some astonishing art work by the production design team led by Jothish Shankar and camera work by Mahesh [Narayanan], his first as a cinematographer. The lighting - rather the lack of it - and the surrounding voices and noises enhance the cinematic feel. (...) Fahadh is solid as always and brilliantly emotes the pain, anguish and redemption of Anikutta as he goes through a life-changing experience. (...) A story about rebirth and redemption, the film also gives us certain subtle insights that are well-incorporated into the tight script and storytelling - be it Mother Nature losing the forest cover or the need to condemn casteism. Malayankunju is a lesson on what it takes to survive in a mishap, depicted without melodrama'.

Athira M., 22.07.22

Recensione integrale 

Film Companion:

'Fahadh pitches this performance at a controlled note, despite having all the potential to go as berserk as possible. But this is a survival narrative where the disaster actually humbles the character, and the actor interprets the assignment beautifully. (...) The actor plays him with a lot of restraint, maintaining an aloofness that makes both the character and performance quite unpredictable. (...) Mahesh Narayanan's writing shines the brightest when it's set on the surface of the land. (...) This is a well-designed survival film that underplays much of its drama'.

Akilan Nagarajan, 22.07.22

Recensione integrale

Cinema Hindi: *** 1/2

Punto di forza: l'approccio singolare, Malayankunju dimostra che è possibile lanciare un messaggio forte anche intrattenendo lo spettatore. Fahadh Faasil è esemplare. I set nel secondo tempo.   

Punto debole: la lunghezza del primo tempo in rapporto alla durata generale del film.

SCHEDA DEL FILM

Cast:

* Fahadh Faasil - Anil Kumar alias Anikutta

Regia: Sajimon Prabhakar

Sceneggiatura e fotografia: Mahesh Narayanan

Colonna sonora: A.R. Rahman. Un po' spenta.

Scenografia: Jothish Shankar ****

Montaggio: Arju Benn

Lingua: malayalam

Traduzione del titolo: la comunità Malayan è una comunità tribale stanziata in Kerala, kunju significa bambino/a.

Anno: 2022

Trailer

RASSEGNA STAMPA

* Mahesh Narayanan: Post-Covid, audience want films to function like a circus, Sajin Shrijith, Cinema Express, 27 luglio 2022 - Intervista concessa da Mahesh Narayanan, sceneggiatore e direttore della fotografia di Malayankunju:

'CE - These days, one rarely sees characters revealed through behaviour without relying on exposition. I found the restaurant scene - dropping a curry bowl and asking for a new one - interesting.

MN - That's something I saw happen in real life. (...) People with a strong upper caste spirit tend to do things like that. What I've done with Anikutta is a collective representation of such folks. An attempt was also made to analyse the reasons for his behaviour. I don't think Anikutta was that way from birth. I don't believe anyone is a certain way from their birth. It's their circumstances that prompt them to look at someone's colour or race in a certain way. More than a survival story, I see it as a very personal humanistic story. It reaches a point where Anikutta can't live without the infant and vice versa. Many things were deliberately left unsaid. As you may have noticed already, we didn't show what happened before the neighbours brought home their child. (...)

What factors compelled you to do a character study like Malayankunju?

I've been thinking of shaping a story from one man's perspective for a while. (...) I wanted to (...) write something that gives sufficient space for the characters, and I had the feeling that people can relate to it. (...) How does an individual react to the changes in nature? How do they transform after a calamity? I wanted to convey those things.

Was there a reason why you wanted Anikutta to be casteist and have his life impacted by a debilitating landslide? Did you imagine any other natural disaster before this?

I came across an old news piece about a dog that was with the disaster management team, and how it was barking non-stop for three days. When they realised why it was doing so, they decided to dig and found a child's lifeless body. I asked myself: What if that child lived? That's where it all started. I actually saw the ending of the story first and then wrote the rest later. In the beginning, Anikutta wasn't there; just the baby. And this whole idea about being affected by a baby's cries... I've always been fascinated by how a baby's sounds change over a month's time. As a father myself, I've felt its strong, jarring effect. And when Anikutta came into the picture, I thought of how a man's surroundings had affected his personality. 

I found it interesting that you employed static and graceful camera moves in spite of the character's chaotic state of mind.

I'm not a trained cinematographer. I believe in doing just what the story demands. I believe that when you are telling a personal story, the camera should stay close to the character so the audience can get a clear sense of what they are. (...)

How did you design the post-interval survival portions? Did you wait for the set to be built first before writing it?

First, we thought of what we could do within our limitations. We studied details of similar locations, the still-remaining debris and various ecological factors. Jothish Shankar (production designer) is very much rooted in those kinds of things. His work included taking measurements of each and everything and then creating miniatures to give Fahadh [Faasil] a sense of how things should progress. We also deliberately opted to not establish the geography in the beginning. There's only one instance where Anikutta walks through the trees. It's only in the climax that we show, through an overhead shot, how the entire location looks. Our limitations dictated such choices. And Jothish was great at making everything seem natural. Take the rocks, for example. He makes sure that no two rocks should look alike - basically studying the original specimen thoroughly and recreating everything exactly as it is. It would've been difficult to shoot this film in a real location because the earth behaves differently every day. It was a huge challenge.

How did you light the set?

The main challenge there was that Fahadh had to give us the light we needed. So we brought a flashlight made in Ukraine, which has varying temperatures. It's basically a cinema lamp used for weddings there. This light had to bounce and illuminate him. What's also challenging is that Fahadh had to do all the makeup and costume changes by himself. Once he gets in, no one else could go in. (...)

By the way, that accident of Fahadh must've caused a major panic on sets...

It happened on the first day of shooting the survival sequences - when Fahadh's bed fell down, as you saw in the film. He was placed at a considerably scary height. Fahadh even insisted on multiple takes, and I said I couldn't. Also, he used to have multiple cuts on his legs every day on account of the roughness of the water-resistant fibre coating. Whenever Nazriya [Nazim, attrice e moglie di Fahadh] called, I used to worry that she would ask us to stop shooting. (Laughs)

One of the interesting visuals is that of Fahadh curled up in a foetal position, the underground space resembling a womb. He also carried a toy when he crawled out of there.

That's exactly how we imagined it too. As for the toy, it was an improvisation. It was not there at first. It was Jothish's idea, which Fahadh loved. Once he started performing with it, he said it was a clever choice because he would've felt stuck otherwise. A lot of things evolved like that on set'.

* Art director Jothish Shankar on creating the massive set for Fahadh Faasil’s survival thriller, ‘Malayankunju’, Athira M., The Hindu, 29 luglio 2022:

'Art director Jothish Shankar admits that when he came on board Malayankunju (...) he had no clue what he was getting into. His team had to construct a set that resembled the mud, debris and rubble where the lead character, played by Fahadh Faasil, is trapped after a landslip. “None of us knew how it would be beneath the soil, in the aftermath of a landslip. So we had marathon discussions and brain-storming sessions that went on for months. It was not easy,” avers Jothish. (...) He is relieved that the art work is being discussed and appreciated by critics and the audience. “That happened probably because the behind-the-scenes video was released prior to the movie. It was a conscious decision to do so because otherwise viewers would not have realised that it was a set that we made from scratch. There have been occasions in the past when our hard work went unnoticed because people thought the locations were ‘real’,” say Jothish, recipient of the Kerala State film award for best art direction for Kumbalangi Nights and Android Kunjappan Version 5.25 in 2019.

Behind the scenes

The set was constructed on a “160 ft long and 80 ft wide” studio floor in Kochi. “We had to imagine what all elements would probably be buried under the earth. We made a miniature version with a cross-section of the soil beneath before proceeding to the actual set. We could have taken the easy way out by using some rocks, water and other elements. But we wanted the audience to feel that the person is actually trapped underground,” he says. It took one-and-half months for 100-odd people to complete the construction. The set had four portions. One was a lift to shoot the sequence where the character falls down during the landslip. Then they made three tanks, each 40 feet deep. “Inside these tanks were the well that caves in, underground water pipes, the portion where a new-born is stuck, rocks, roots of plants, carcass of animals and birds, and different things on the surface that came crashing down during the landslip, which included a jeep,” he explains. The shoot lasted 24 days. The crew waded through or stood in mud and slush for the shoot. Rocks, stones and roots were made with sponge to ensure a safe working environment. There were days when they had to stop the shoot after two or three hours because it was exhausting for the actor and the crew. “We would come up from the tank to take a break and go in again. Fahadh had bruises all over from moving inside the tank.”

Preparations involved

A lot of research went into the process, Jothish adds. “I browsed through videos and photographs of landslip-hit areas and had some 25,000 photographs with me to understand the aftermath of landslips. There were days when things didn’t go as per our plan and I would ask myself why I said yes to the project because I was not sure if the idea would succeed. (...) However, after a point, I was hell-bent on executing it. I could pull it off only because of teamwork,” he asserts. Amidst all this, the safety of the crew had to be given priority, especially when they had to move through dirty water. “Since it was not possible to stand straight in that space, some crew members had to be seated in a harness.” Jothish is all praise for Mahesh [Narayanan], who is also the cinematographer of the movie. “It is his first project as a cinematographer and it was his confidence that kept us going. He managed to find the right camera and lens to shoot within so many limitations,” he says. The team also constructed include Fahadh’s cluttered workspace, the house of the new-born next door and the area hit by the landslip, which is shown towards the climax. “The landslip-affected area was created at Erattupetta. It used to be a rubber plantation,” he says.

An alumnus of Raja Ravi Varma College of Fine Arts, Mavelikkara, where he studied sculpture, Jothish worked as a sculptor before he decided to jump into cinema. “There are no artists in my family. Neither did I know anyone in the film industry. But I wanted to try my luck here,” he says. (...) His first independent work was Adaminte Makan Abu (2011). He has done over 60 films. (...) Jothish stresses that he takes up a project only if he is convinced about executing it, irrespective of the challenges involved. “For example, the dilapidated house in Kumbalangi Nights where the four brothers live was built from scratch. We allowed the moss to grow on the walls to make it look real. (...) Before signing off, Jothish says: “My approach to art direction is that it should blend with the subject. It can be a realistic setting or something that I create. The quality of the space plays a huge role in the success of a movie”.'