Pertinent to the times

Film: Kaadu Pookkunna Neram

Cast: Rima Kallingal, Indrajith, Indrans

Direction: Bijukumar Damodaran

Maoist, ‘anti-national’, ‘foreign agent’ – there are tags galore to brand and muzzle anyone who dares go against the dominant State-supported narratives. Reducing an individual or collective voice to that faceless branding is enough to end the argument, whether they stand for the ideology they are being branded with is immaterial. This is probably why Bijukumar Damodaran eschewed names for his protagonists in Kaadu Pookkunna Neram. They are just the ‘police’, ‘maoist’, ‘teachers’ and ‘students’.

The timing of the film’s release couldn’t have been better, coming as it does amid heated discussions in the State on arbitrary arrests of human rights activists and artists. The film begins with the looting of food grains from a godown at night. The incident raises a ‘Maoist scare’ and soon a police party sets up camp at the small shed housing the only government school in the area, at the edge of a forest. Two anonymous posters and two stone throws later, a hunt for the Maoists begins, leading to a policeman, played by Indrajith, getting trapped inside the forest with a woman (Rima Kallingal), a suspected Maoist. The power equations change, with the policeman needing the help of the woman he has taken into custody, to get out of the forest.

The film carries itself well in those phases where it conveys ideas silently. But, things are not so smooth when it comes to dialogue delivery, especially the one lengthy conversation between Rima Kallingal and Indrajith, which is almost like a run-of-the-mill speech one gets to hear at protest meetings.

Another instance is of Indrans giving a lesson on Constitution and fundamental rights, on the day the police occupies their school and they are forced to take their lessons under a tree. A little more subtlety, please.

Kaadu Pookkunna Neram, even while being critical of the State and the police, takes a nuanced, sympathetic position on individual policemen, of themselves being victims of their upbringing, and the sum total of their personal experiences, though this line is explored only in passing. The film itself is not about Maoism, but about how that branding is an excuse to shut down legitimate questions that the State faces.

With some pruning and a liberal dose of subtlety, the film could have gone a notch above the average watch that it is now.

S.R. Praveen