Totally Filmi

Kalla Nottam (“The False Eye”, dir. Rahul Riji Nair, 2020, Malayalam)

 

 

A shopkeeper is gifted a GoPro camera from his brother who works in the Gulf, but he decides that the most practical use of the device would be to record what happens in his shop, a kind of artisanal CCTV.  The irony in all this, of course, is that while he steps out of his shop for a moment, a boy runs in and steals the camera.  Ten-year-old Vincent (Vasudev Sajeesh Marar) meets up with his friend, Kishore (Suryadev Sajeesh Marar), who worries about whether they’ll be caught for stealing, but Vincent tells him not to worry, they’ll return it.  When Kishore wonders why he’d steal it in the first place, if they’re only going to return it, Vincent’s reply is that he wants to try making a film.  Kishore immediately wants to be the film’s hero, and when Vincent hesitates, wondering if his friend even looks like a film hero, Kishore insists that he either becomes the hero, or he’ll tell the police about the theft.

The two boys are like many of us when first presented with a new toy – they begin playing around with it, randomly filming anything that catches their attention, with Kishore acting up in order to do anything to be on camera, much to the annoyance of Vincent.  Kishore suggests that they’ll also need a heroine for their film, and they start by asking another friend, Rosy (Ansu Maria Thomas), to play the part.  Kishore enjoys the chance to play the hero, putting on sunglasses and pretending to smoke a cigarette (“Every hero smokes a cigarette,” he affirms when Vincent wonders what he’s doing).  And much of the interest and humour in the early part of the film comes from viewing what the children know about filmmaking based on the films they’ve seen.  Rosy sings and dances to “Entammede Jimikki Kammal”, the song from Lal Jose’s Velipadinte Pusthakam that enjoyed great popularity when it came out.  Kishore, on the other hand, is a total ham, insisting on being the centre of every frame, forcing his way into the frame first by dancing in the background, and then by pushing Rosy aside, telling Vincent that the hero has to be in front.

An argument breaks out amongst the three friends, with Kishore continuing to insist that Rosy is a terrible actor and they shouldn’t use her, that he is the hero and that’s who people come to see, and that he had to cut into her scene because she was so terrible and even just stopped acting partway through, finally breaking into the song “Scene Contra” from Premam, essentially telling Vincent that Rosy is not needed (as the lyrics suggest, “avalu vendra, ivalu vendra”, not needed, not wanted).  Rosy, fed up, refuses to participate in their film.  Furthermore, when Rosy learns the camera is stolen, she tells Vincent that his film will not prosper, because her father told her you never prosper with things that aren’t your own.  Learning that the camera is stolen is the last straw for Rosy, who heads home, leaving the two boys on their own. 

Discouraged, Vincent thinks that Rosy might be right, that their film is ill-fated from the start, so the boys decide they should return the camera.  After several failed attempts to find a place to leave the camera that won’t implicate them in the theft, Kishore returns home, and Vincent meets some men he knows on a bridge, who confront him about why he has the camera, learn he has stolen it when they check the footage on it, and then use it themselves to film a couple making out in the woods, oblivious that they are not only being watched, but that they are also being filmed.  Worse, the woman turns out to be Kishore’s sister, Neenu (Vinitha Koshy).  A brawl breaks out, and everyone involved, Kishore, his sister, her boyfriend and his friend, and the men who tried to film the couple, all end up at the police station.

The final section of the film, set in the police station, shows us that the camera only reveals part of the story here – perhaps why the film is called “The False Eye” – it may show us what was happening between Neenu and her boyfriend Sachin, and it contradicts at points the lies the men tell (essentially, that it was the others who started things, that Vincent was there to film his sister, when clearly they’ve taken the camera from him and are the ones filming, since he’s in the frame).

Cameras can reveal what is hidden, or what is in the background, not immediately apparent to the person holding the camera.  What’s more interesting than what the boys film is often what ends up in the background, or shot by chance.  Even then, what the camera records might not always be the whole truth.  The police inspector looks at the camera footage, but that only tells him part of the story.  It’s when he investigates further, when he looks at the phones of the boyfriend and his friend, that it’s discovered that Neenu was already a victim even before the “moral policemen” (the men on the bridge) turned up. 

The revelation is devestating for Neenu, and this is the moment when we begin to understand the B.R. Ambedkar quote at the beginning of the film: “I measure the progress of a community by the degree of progress which women have achieved.”  How much progress have women attained?  Whether it’s Rosy, reduced to playing a secondary role to a hero who only ridicules her abilities, or Kishore’s mother, arguing with her husband about his wanting to sign over their home for what will likely be yet another failed business, while she’s the one who works and keeps the household running properly, or Neenu, trusting in a man she loved, and who believed he loved her, but is betrayed by him?  How do you judge a community’s progress when at every stage of a woman’s life – childhood, adolescence, adulthood – the boys and men in their lives act in ways to diminish them, to the point of tragedy?  Kalla Nottam, the false eye of the camera, makes no judgements; it merely reveals how ingrained mysogyny is, even from a very young age, and how quickly child’s play can turn to tragedy.

Vijay Bond (dir. Shanoob Karuvath, 2019, Malayalam)

Vijay Kunnamel is an aspiring actor who attends every audition put on by the AJ Casting agency, no matter what the role.  He takes his auditions seriously, asking the casting directors, Anand and Raja, what kind of shot they’re using (Tight-shot? Mid-shot.), asking questions about character motivation and situation.  We are first introduced to him through his self-introduction for an audition, where we quickly learn he’s been auditioning for five years, for a wide range of roles.  He painstakingly lists skills he has learned apart from acting – horse-riding, kung-fu, karate, classical singing, dancing – that he feels enriches his ability as an actor.  Vijay is upbeat and tries to exude confidence, pointing out the website URL (which he has taped to the front of his tee-shirt), assuring the casting directors that it contains all of his demo reels which will reveal his abilities in a range of avatars.

When asked what he has prepared for the audition, he states that he never prepares anything, as that would just be monotonous, confidently stating that he is “a director’s actor”.  Anand and Raja look a bit skeptical, but decide to present him with a situation from their script to see what he can do in a restaurant scene.  Vijay’s first response is to ask what kind of restaurant it is (Three star? Five star?)  Vijay continues to pepper them with questions about the situation (where can he move so he’s still in the frame?  Can he try out something he's been working on, the reactions of a Chinese guy to the food?)  Everything seems to be going well as Vijay reacts to the prompts from the director, until he reaches the point where he tastes the food brought to the table, when he suddenly looks like he’s having a fit.  "Are you portraying epilepsy?" they wonder.  Vijay reminds them that he’d planned to include his variety number, noting that Chinese people can’t tolerate Kerala food, because it’s too spicy.  It’s sad in a way, because Vijay thinks he’s doing a great job – and he is, right up until the point of his Chinese character improvisation, which effectively skewers his audition. 

But Vijay continues to come to every audition arranged at AJ Casting.  He listens to the casting directors, but always has questions to ask about the role.  During an audition in which he must imagine he’s skydiving, he’s at first frantic and fearful, but what they want is someone who is passionate and delighted by the experience.  Vijay, true to form, wonders if his character would have eaten before skydiving --  wouldn’t he throw up if he’d eaten before the jump?  Vijay’s dedication is palpable, but Anand and Raja grow increasingly disenchanted with Vijay and his constant questions at each ad audition (is the car manual or automatic?  Is my wife in the front or back seat?  Can I hold her hand while driving?)  We, the audience, know that no matter how many times he auditions, Vijay is never going to be cast.

Contrast this with Sagar, who comes to an audition for a cold drink commercial at the same agency.  He follows directions exactly, though they find him a bit flat.  When the casting agent asks him to repeat what he’s done, but this time following a running commentary, he manages to improve on his first attempt.  You can see that Sagar’s ability to “follow directions well” will win him a role over Vijay’s enthusiasm that is peppered with questions and a need to understand motivation.

When Vijay turns up at the agency for a dancing audition (which they don’t even bother to film, thinking it a waste of batteries since they know they won’t cast him), one of the casting agents receives a phone call about an actor they cast for a spy film, who has been rejected, a problem for the casting agents, who just want to get rid of Vijay so they can deal with the issue.  Vijay picks up on the fact that they will need to re-cast the spy movie role, researching by watching Rowan Atkinson in Johnny English, sporting sunglasses and using his hair dryer as a gun to practice moves in the mirror. The casting agents don’t even want to let him audition this time, telling him they have a brief from the client that doesn’t suit his character at all – the height, for example. The client has asked for someone 6 foot 3 inches, which Vijay is not.  Why bother when you don’t even fit the first criteria?  Vijay insists that these kind of disadvantages can be turned into advantages, for the first time showing how desperate he is to get a role.  It works, because the casting directors decide to give him that chance, but stipulate that he will not stop at any time between “action” and “cut” to pepper them with his usual questions.  Vijay agrees, and they begin the audition.

The casting director talks Vijay through the situation, correcting his mistakes for each take – Vijay starts out crying when he’s hit, calls for his mother, but the casting director reminds him he’s a brave spy who would never cry out, and instead asks for more intensity.  Vijay – it’s as if he can’t help himself -- pulls out a twist, confronting them with a gun. The casting agents object, but Mithun, the spy film director, arrives just at this moment, and is thrilled with Vijay and his improvisation, calling him “Vijay Bond, 008”, and casting him in the film. 

We jump ahead to two months later, somewhere in the USA, where the spy movie is being filmed – Vijay’s character arrives in his Mercedes Benz, and I love the little hero touch they give him, shooting his foot first as he exits the car.  Snips from the film screen as the credits roll, and I also love the fact that they include things that Vijay has already done or mentioned in his auditions, like horse-riding, skydiving and car driving, all of it with music that echoes the Bond theme on a sitar.

Vijay Bond is funny and entertaining, but it’s also effective at conveying Vijay’s growing despondency, using colour (like a mauve filter that deepens in colour to show the depth of his sadness, or a blurry frame that, upon focussing, shows a saddened Vijay, or a mauve filter with pouring rain as Vijay sits by his phone, waiting for a callback).  Shanoob Karuvath (who also wrote and edited) packs a lot into his short film, and his actors (Renjith Ravi as Vijay, and Arun Sunny and Ramesh Menon as the casting directors) give us performances that are deft and compact, subtly showing us the shifts in the relationship dynamic of this hapless actor and the casting directors who see him for every audition.  I found myself rooting for Vijay to get his break, and happily, Karuvath gives it to him.