It’s the summer of red in Malayalam cinema. Young stars, quite often blamed for being part of ‘apolitical new-generation’ films, are all now marching with raised fists and fiery slogans.
Some of the makers of such films are obviously looking just at the market, at the prospect of reaping quick bucks by making products based on the dominant ideology. Such market-dictated products exposes itself, in one way or the other.
Siddharth Siva’s Sakhavu , even with all its pandering to popular perceptions, does not limit the red to just its clothing, as seen in a recent ‘Mexican’ film. In other words, it does not fake what it is not. Rather, it tries to stay true to its label.
For this, Siddharth employs tropes that have been used before in Malayalam films on Left politics. The one such main trope that runs through the story is that of the ideal communist of yesteryear as opposed to the present ones, who are shown as corrupt and crooked. Krishna Kumar (Nivin Pauly), a member of the Left students’ group is someone who will go to any lengths to clear his way to the top. He is asked by the party to donate blood to an old comrade, who is admitted to a local hospital. For Krishna Kumar, it is just another occasion to hog some free food, until he starts hearing the life story of comrade Krishnan (Nivin Pauly in a double role), through a former police officer, through the comrade’s daughter, and his wife.
- Direction: Sidharth Siva
- Starring: Nivin Pauly, Aishwarya Rajesh, Aparna Gopinath
While the script gives hardly any redeeming quality to the young Krishna Kumar’s character, the opposite is the case for the old ‘Sakhavu,’ treated almost like a mythical character who can do no wrong. The younger one gets the light-hearted scenes, while the older one is all intensity. The contrast is just upped so many levels so that no one misses it. This gives Nivin a lot of scope to perform, which he uses to the hilt too.
Where the film lags is in spending more time on the sepia-tinted sequences of yesteryear, of how he brings rebellion to the tea plantations, where workers are facing exploitation. These extended sequences, with predictable outcomes, are interesting only in parts. Like, the scene where he speaks to the Principal of his daughter’s school on the meaning of education, his reply to someone asking his surname to guess his caste and his line to Comrade Janaki (Aishwarya Rajesh), a play on the famous misogynistic dialogue from Narasimham .
Much of the film leans on dialogues, and less on visual storytelling. So it takes on the character of a stage play at times. Sakhavu works more effectively as an ‘agitprop’ film.
