Writer-director Ratheesh Balakrishnan Poduval's name has now become synonymous with 'quirky' and 'strange'. If you go in expecting a 'normal' film, you'd end up getting disappointed. Ratheesh's idea of 'normal' is films where the characters seem like they are a "couple of cans short of a six pack."
When it comes to his new film "Oru Durooha Sahacharyathil", though, the number of cans missing is more than just a couple. In fact, it begins to feel like a different set of cans is kept in a pack which is supposed to contain cans of a particular brand. I don't expect all that to make sense. Because the film doesn't.
I don't mind films that contain or shift different genres, but the combination has to look convincing, with organic shifts. "Oru Durooha Sahacharyathil" (ODS) has enough tonal shifts to make one's head spin. What are they trying to say? This is the question that popped up several times, not just in my head, but also in the heads of those sitting close to me in the theatre.
This is one of the most difficult movies to talk about, because the HOW of it would be quite a struggle. Maybe this is what they call "review-proof" movies. It's a term normally reserved for movies that require you to leave your brains at the door — movies that are not trying to appeal to that so-called 'intellectual' who looks like that food critic in the Pixar animated movie "Ratatouille". Maybe it should be reserved for movies like this, which defy description.
It's Ratheesh's most serious film yet and also his most inaccessible. I believe the film is about one man's descent into madness. And for a film with several mentally unstable characters, the aforementioned tonal shifts shouldn't really come as a surprise. However, if the idea is to entertain a large audience, especially on a Vishu holiday, this film unfortunately falls short. Also, all the posters of this film are misleading. One of them has one character walking, but in the film he is actually bed-ridden. Also, don't assume this is an action film judging by another poster.
I'm sure many who came out from the morning screening of the atrocious new Tovino Thomas movie "Pallichattambi" and went into "Oru Durooha Sahacharyathil" ended up getting even more depressed because they expected at least this one to offer them some relief. I'll grant this, though. When compared to that film, ODS feels like the lesser of the two evils. Despite its overall strangeness (not in a good way), it's not without at least a couple of positives.
To start with, it’s a good showcase for the versatile actor inside Kunchacko Boban. His character, Sethu, is essentially someone feeling emasculated in a household that comprises him and his mentally unstable elder brother, Madhu (Dileesh Pothan, excellent as usual). The latter is a die-hard Kamal Haasan fan who also talks to an imaginary friend. But Ratheesh coats these situations with a light touch, perhaps to make us feel at ease before the film takes a darker course in the third act.
ODS feels, in fact, like one of Kamal Haasan's darker films. "Gunaa" was the first film that I remembered, even though ODS is completely different in terms of story or structure. I'm referring to that aspect of the Kamal Haasan performance where the man feels frustrated because nobody can understand him.
Kunchacko Boban completely sells this character, who is carrying the burden of not just one past trauma — the same one shared by his brother — but also the one that left the latter bedridden and mentally unstable. These early stretches of the film might sound to you like they are straight out of a film directed by Bala; thankfully, they are accompanied by some amusing humour and verbal exchanges that offset the inherent grimness of their situation.
But I couldn't help wondering that the film would've probably benefited from having Kunchacko Boban play dual characters, both Sethu and Madhu. That would've made it really look like a Kamal Haasan film, wouldn't it? Or a Vikram film, perhaps — since he also has some experience playing dual personalities in the same film.
One of the film’s neat castings is of Chidambaram (director of "Manjummel Boys"), who makes his full-fledged acting debut in ODS, as Sethu's police officer cousin. His casting makes complete sense for two reasons: 1) he owns the role really well, and 2) the role required someone of whom the audience doesn't have any preconceived notions. He is quite an unpredictable character. Interestingly, he plays a cop who, aside from sharing the same past trauma as Sethu and Madhu, is grappling with professional woes. He recently lost his service revolver and was warned about the consequences of the weapon ending up in the wrong hands.
This conflict, originally found in Akira Kurosawa's 1949 film "Stray Dog", was later paid homage in several films — from Johnnie To's 2003 film "PTU" to Sri Ganesh's Tamil film "8 Thottakal". But this conflict is not among the film's priorities.
Actually, there is no way of knowing what its priorities are because its attention is split between different characters, including an eccentric intruder played by Sajin Gopu ("Aavesham", "Churuli") and a sub-plot about his love story and an episode of recklessness that made his life chaotic.
There are several places where I laughed, but, post-interval, the film becomes a bit of an endurance test, because there's the nagging feeling that the film was made just for the sake of it. Perhaps the filmmaker has some statement to make, or it's just an experimental way of telling a very tragic story.
I wouldn't say we have not seen this kind of storytelling before because we have seen Korean filmmakers do this often — this blending of comedy and tragedy, most notably in "Parasite" — but the individual parts of their stories still feel like they belong to one piece even when they shift genres after a point.
Something like ODS, on the other hand, feels like parts of different movies stitched together. One is left with a feeling of numbness and, of course, many questions.
Film: Oru Durooha Saahacharyathil
Director: Ratheesh Balakrishnan Poduval
Cast: Kunchacko Boban, Dileesh Pothan, Chidambaram, Sajin Gopu, Jaffer Idukki
Rating: 2.5/5
