Kerala Café, film review

The Kerala Café experience (published in The Hindu Metroplus Weekend on October 31)on
CINEMA Kerala Café, a portmanteau film by ten directors, is truly touching, says Prema Manmadhan

The first day, first show of Kerala Café is an experience I will never forget. Prejudiced that 10 short films will not please me, I sit, waiting just to find out what’s new. At the end of two and a half hours, I left the cinema, wondering which of the ten was the best and trying to remember which director directed which. A few scenes refuse to move out of my heart. I am glad I went for Kerala Café.
Eight men and two women (to borrow heavily from Adoor) star in this venture, ‘Kerala Café’ made by Ranjit’s production house, Capitol Theatre. These stars are the 10 directors of as many films woven together by a single thread called Kerala Café, a railway canteen somewhere in Kerala, the one link that brings these diverse subjects under one umbrella, under another label called journey. The ‘sutradhar’ of it all is Ranjit, who is not content to sit back and write scripts or direct movies alone.
Such an experiment, to give the audience a cinematic version of a short story book, has succeeded and failed, though it’s a very new concept. "It has failed where the director has not been able to touch the hearts of the viewers," Ranjit says, confidently, when confronted with this question.
And touch the heart Kerala Cafe did, for all 10 connect with the plight of people. , some the majority and others, the minority. ‘Bridge’, the one directed by Anwar Rasheed, left such a big stone in my heart that not even a two-hour slapstick comedy can lift it off. The fate of the unwanted in society, love notwithstanding, where the practical overrides the emotional as it does in the 21st century, is communicated in great cinematic style. The script, the camera and the actors all merge to make it noteworthy.
Revathy’s ‘Makal’ is another of the social issues that mock society, that is clothed so much in realism that the last scene stings. ‘Mrityunjayam’, Uday Ananthan’s film, belongs to the ‘horror’ genre and is set in today’s milieu. It stars Rima Kallingal, Thilakan and Fahadh Faasil, (remember the guy in ‘Kaiyethum Doorathu’, Fazil’s son?) who plays a journalist. He has since matured into a good actor and a handsome young man. The camera and the ambience take you back into the past but the dilapidated old ‘illam’ and the goings on remain a mystery.
Padmakumar’s ‘Nostalgia’, has the very busy protagonist longs for Kerala at the soirees in his flat, over a drink, in a Gulf country, but actually dreams of pulling down his aristocratic home to build flats: A practical man for whom emotions don’t count, a very contemporary theme, indeed. The other topical subject that is not so serious to many but very worrisome, has been handled by Anjali Menon in ‘Happy Journey’. In long distance buses girls really don’t know who may sit beside them on the plush seats. And that’s the subject. Period. Jagathy and Nithya Menon make this one tenth of Kerala Café memorable.
Shankar Ramakrishnan, an assistant of Ranjit’s gets into independent mode with ‘Island Express’. Prithviraj, with his new hairstyle is dashing with a capital ‘D’. The Perumon tragedy relived by a few whose closest relatives perished then, forms the theme. B Unnikrishnan’s ‘Aviramam’ tackles life during recession, and the hopelessness of it getting to be unbearable. Recession is also the topic that Shyamaprasad deals with in ‘Off Season’, how it has hit westerners too, handled in a lighter vein. Shaji Kailas’ ‘Lalithamhiranmayam’ is again very contemporary, in fact too broad minded for domestic consumption, where the other woman and the official woman don’t tear each other’s hair. Lal Jose’s ‘Puram Kazchakal’ does not make Mammooty into a Pazhassi Raja, but a strong hearted man who keeps his sorrows to himself. Based on C. V. Sreeraman’s story, Lal Jose has handled it with care.
Actors in this big venture are Sreenivasan, Suresh Gopi, Sona Nair, Shantha Devi, Jyothirmayee, Siddique, Salim Kumar, Sudheesh, Dhanya, Jayasurya, Rahman, Sukumari and a few others.
The camera plays a big role in Kerala Café. Credit goes to all these technicians.
Kerala Café was shown at the Middle East International Film Festival earlier this month. "It was a dream I had last May," says the man who dared to gamble with this experiment. The work was stupendous, Ranjit admits when compared to one feature film with one person at the helm. The budget of course is as low as it can get for most of the directors and artistes worked for free, he says. Why isn’t Mohanlal in this venture? "There was no slot for him in any of the scripts as any one can see, that’s why," explains Ranjit.