Mozhi - The movie, My musings
Like an unassuming passerby straying into a hearty rendition, I walked in to catch this tamil movie primarily to beat the blues of boredom the past fortnight had lambasted on me. But for the visuals of a mirthful foursome cuddled together in a hysterical laughter, gazing at me from the posters pasted all over the place, my mind was a perfect tabula rasa with no predilections whatsoever.
The story set principally in an apartment complex revolves around four primary characters, significant in their own ways, with their sensitivities and sensibilities. There is Prithviraj (as Karthik) and his friend Prakashraj(as Viji) as musicians and Jothika (as a deaf-mute Archana) and her friend Swarnamalya(as a 'widowed' Sheela ) as teachers in a school for the deaf-mute children. And there is a delusional professor (played by M.S.Bhaskar) for whom time had frozen in 1984 following his irreconcilability to the death of his young son in an accident. Whilst what could’ve been a perfect recipe for some melodrama, has been created into an incredibly feel-good film, the taste of which lingers on long after the visuals are gone.
For an unwary viewer, ‘Mozhi’ could just be a story of a musician’s love for a deaf-mute girl who does not believe in love and the like, spruced up with adequate laughter.
For me, ‘Mozhi’ has been particularly special for its subtle yet manifest flick with feminism. When was the last time the tinsel town churned out a differently abled woman that was admired and LOVED for her indignation and independence? Where a woman’s wrath is regarded a 'vice', to be scorned at and restrained and tamed by the male ego, here the man is bowled over, not by the manufactured, essentially masculine constructs of the woman’s ‘beauty’ or ‘humility’,but, by her valour. Where women are portrayed as weeping willows, here is a deaf-mute woman for whom tears is a sign of weakness, sympathy is a sacrilege and life is to be lived on her own terms. And we have a man with functioning tear glands, laughs even when he is lovelorn and fleetingly plasters his ears with cotton to experience the silence of his ladylove’s world.
When patriarchy and condescension chiefly towards women and the differently abled is regarded a given and not as an irksome misnomer that deserves to be anathematized, Prithviraj’s character signifies a more sensitive strand amidst multiple masculinities that is often derided. His is an antithesis of the dominant discourse of masculinity and its inexorably entrenched & revolting machoism that invariably piggybacks insensitivity as its adjunct. When Prithviraj’s character, Karthik begs pardon for an unintended faux pas, he deconstructs his masculinity metaphorically through those wonderful lyrics of Vairamuthu “Poovai varaindu adilae meesai vaikamataen’- ‘I shall not sketch a flower and add a moustache to it’. This is marked when Archana facetiously flexes her muscle after assisting a cart puller with one of his sacks with ease while Karthik struggles with it. The sensitive man is palpable, be it when he pleads with her to accept his love and accommodate HIM into HER muted world or when he pines for his momentarily unrequited love, yet fails not in his unassuming little deeds of compassion to the world around him. And when queried upon how his prospective wife should be, he would respond by saying, she ought to be well read, ought to have a mind of her own and that she would derive her beauty from these two attributes. When was the last time the archetypal celluloid man sought after a wife with a mind and a will of her own? And the most exquisite feel, was to see the two men in the movie fall in love and emphasize that they just want to ‘share their lives’ with their respective women and that it should not be construed as their ‘offering them a life’.
It is this use of male agency as acquiescent spokespersons of an egalitarian responsive feminist world view not through compulsive verbal rhetoric but through realistic yet mirthful jocular exchanges in the movie, that makes a rupture with the regional cinema’s past and its few such staid exclusive feminist ventures.
And the narrative is not a linear singular narrative. The parallel yet ephemeral narrative revolving around the delusional professor and Prithviraj’s character is poignant sans being patronizing. At a personal level, it reminded me yet again that there is a story behind each individual and there is a story in the making through every new encounter with no single encounter constituting a whole but parts of that whole. These wonderful characters do not protagonise anything from the rooftop. These are ordinary people who live their lives despite their foibles and do so taking the unguarded viewer on a laughter jaunt.
However, what did disconcert me was the homophobic comedy possibly 30-second track that ought to have been avoided. Homophobia, one of the several vulgar manifestations of the ominous patriarchal discourse should not have inveigled an entry even so briefly in an otherwise enervating movie like ‘Mozhi’.
Finally, what a respite from the larger than life image of the macho man of the regional filmdom who refuses to tire himself of his condescending sermon on women’s attire and delving on ‘their ‘purpose’ in life’. Even supreme, was the respite from the ubiquitous nauseatingly self-effacing celluloid women, condemned to fatalism, with no power of agency whatsoever.
Now, this is not to suggest that ‘Mozhi’ epitomizes cinematic excellence. Despite its marked departure from the dominant narratives of the patriarchal juggernaut, it would be precocious to proclaim dead, those chiffon clad damsels in distress and their knighty mighty men in shining armours in celluloid. And it definitely does not signify the dawn of a consciousness-rattling revolutionary social change.
Nonetheless, ‘Mozhi’ for me, is simply a surreal feel of being seated on a beanbag and dipping into some nice hot chocolate fudge on a rainy evening.
The story set principally in an apartment complex revolves around four primary characters, significant in their own ways, with their sensitivities and sensibilities. There is Prithviraj (as Karthik) and his friend Prakashraj(as Viji) as musicians and Jothika (as a deaf-mute Archana) and her friend Swarnamalya(as a 'widowed' Sheela ) as teachers in a school for the deaf-mute children. And there is a delusional professor (played by M.S.Bhaskar) for whom time had frozen in 1984 following his irreconcilability to the death of his young son in an accident. Whilst what could’ve been a perfect recipe for some melodrama, has been created into an incredibly feel-good film, the taste of which lingers on long after the visuals are gone.
For an unwary viewer, ‘Mozhi’ could just be a story of a musician’s love for a deaf-mute girl who does not believe in love and the like, spruced up with adequate laughter.
For me, ‘Mozhi’ has been particularly special for its subtle yet manifest flick with feminism. When was the last time the tinsel town churned out a differently abled woman that was admired and LOVED for her indignation and independence? Where a woman’s wrath is regarded a 'vice', to be scorned at and restrained and tamed by the male ego, here the man is bowled over, not by the manufactured, essentially masculine constructs of the woman’s ‘beauty’ or ‘humility’,but, by her valour. Where women are portrayed as weeping willows, here is a deaf-mute woman for whom tears is a sign of weakness, sympathy is a sacrilege and life is to be lived on her own terms. And we have a man with functioning tear glands, laughs even when he is lovelorn and fleetingly plasters his ears with cotton to experience the silence of his ladylove’s world.
When patriarchy and condescension chiefly towards women and the differently abled is regarded a given and not as an irksome misnomer that deserves to be anathematized, Prithviraj’s character signifies a more sensitive strand amidst multiple masculinities that is often derided. His is an antithesis of the dominant discourse of masculinity and its inexorably entrenched & revolting machoism that invariably piggybacks insensitivity as its adjunct. When Prithviraj’s character, Karthik begs pardon for an unintended faux pas, he deconstructs his masculinity metaphorically through those wonderful lyrics of Vairamuthu “Poovai varaindu adilae meesai vaikamataen’- ‘I shall not sketch a flower and add a moustache to it’. This is marked when Archana facetiously flexes her muscle after assisting a cart puller with one of his sacks with ease while Karthik struggles with it. The sensitive man is palpable, be it when he pleads with her to accept his love and accommodate HIM into HER muted world or when he pines for his momentarily unrequited love, yet fails not in his unassuming little deeds of compassion to the world around him. And when queried upon how his prospective wife should be, he would respond by saying, she ought to be well read, ought to have a mind of her own and that she would derive her beauty from these two attributes. When was the last time the archetypal celluloid man sought after a wife with a mind and a will of her own? And the most exquisite feel, was to see the two men in the movie fall in love and emphasize that they just want to ‘share their lives’ with their respective women and that it should not be construed as their ‘offering them a life’.
It is this use of male agency as acquiescent spokespersons of an egalitarian responsive feminist world view not through compulsive verbal rhetoric but through realistic yet mirthful jocular exchanges in the movie, that makes a rupture with the regional cinema’s past and its few such staid exclusive feminist ventures.
And the narrative is not a linear singular narrative. The parallel yet ephemeral narrative revolving around the delusional professor and Prithviraj’s character is poignant sans being patronizing. At a personal level, it reminded me yet again that there is a story behind each individual and there is a story in the making through every new encounter with no single encounter constituting a whole but parts of that whole. These wonderful characters do not protagonise anything from the rooftop. These are ordinary people who live their lives despite their foibles and do so taking the unguarded viewer on a laughter jaunt.
However, what did disconcert me was the homophobic comedy possibly 30-second track that ought to have been avoided. Homophobia, one of the several vulgar manifestations of the ominous patriarchal discourse should not have inveigled an entry even so briefly in an otherwise enervating movie like ‘Mozhi’.
Finally, what a respite from the larger than life image of the macho man of the regional filmdom who refuses to tire himself of his condescending sermon on women’s attire and delving on ‘their ‘purpose’ in life’. Even supreme, was the respite from the ubiquitous nauseatingly self-effacing celluloid women, condemned to fatalism, with no power of agency whatsoever.
Now, this is not to suggest that ‘Mozhi’ epitomizes cinematic excellence. Despite its marked departure from the dominant narratives of the patriarchal juggernaut, it would be precocious to proclaim dead, those chiffon clad damsels in distress and their knighty mighty men in shining armours in celluloid. And it definitely does not signify the dawn of a consciousness-rattling revolutionary social change.
Nonetheless, ‘Mozhi’ for me, is simply a surreal feel of being seated on a beanbag and dipping into some nice hot chocolate fudge on a rainy evening.
posted by P.V.Srividya at 10:25 AM
3 comments
