I have always found movies about slum children or people who dwell in the slums to be slightly manipulative. Often in such films we are subjected to repeated and exploitative shots of the dreadful living conditions in the slums as a means to invoke empathy, and how this small world has been preexisting discreetly while we walk past it everyday. While Slumdog Millionare resorted to brash exploitation to stir up the compassion needed to invest into its story, Mira Nair's Salaam Bombay offered a more realistic and subtle picture.
It comes as such relief, then, that Kaaka Muttai, one of the more extraordinary debuts one is likely to see this year, neither glorifies nor exploits poverty for sympathy, but tells an uncommonly charming story about two slum boys yearning to taste a luscious pizza with a lot of heart. In the process, as is inevitable and in a way obligatory also, it delicately emphasizes on the discrimination between the rich and the poor in India, and how the people involved deal with it.
It's a tragedy, naturally, but director M. Manikandan is too shrewd an artist to fall for that stereotypical trap. He sidesteps the despair in his tale and shifts his focus to the optimistic bit, thereby delivering an uplifting adventure that has a gloomy undercurrent we rarely have to confront. It is a film that celebrates morality in a cruel world, and conveys this through the shenanigans of two boys obsessed with a snack that even the people who can afford to munch on it consider to be harmful.
It is the perfect recipe for a quasi-preachy film that would have characters delivering routine sermons, but Kaaka Muttai rebuffs that approach entirely. Through humor and heartbreak and tenacity, it teaches us a bit about the world we live in, a bit about us, and it never slips into the melodramatic territory. It is predictable, yes, but the most notable triumphs as far as films are concerned are those that follow a path from the outset that is foreseeable till its conclusion, yet it manages to win you over. Kaaka Muttai is one of those films. It reflects a world that we know, is inhabited with characters we might have met at some point in our lives, but it is its honesty that eventually sways.
While also commenting the effects of globalization on the country and on the mindset of its people, Manikandan's dense debut switches tones rather skillfully as it oscillates between tragedy and comedy. It's a film about a mother's desperation to bring her family together and her diminishing hope, about how she tackles the absence of a father figure in her sons' lives. It is a film about her concealed sacrifice. But at its core, it is a film about entrepreneurship. It's a film about the naivete of two lads when the odds are stacked against them and how they beat it with their steadying optimism. These layers form an exquisite blend that drives the narrative. Each scene is put to good use to sculpt either the characters or the plot, and with each passing moment, Kaaka Muttai reinvents itself. In many ways, that is a rarity.
The allure of Kaaka Muttai, like most great films', lies in the little throwaway but carefully handled details. In one the scenes deep into the film, the boys unknowingly turn up in dapper clothes only to come up against a catastrophe, and their mother washes her feet on their brand new clothes as a means for salvation. In another, possibly the most vivid of all sequences, a rich kid offers them each a piece of pizza, which they initially gape at but then reject it as they take the offer to be an unfounded insult. The rich kid's confusion is both funny and evocative, for he's completely oblivious to what his actions have led them to feel. After all, he was doing that in good faith. It is marvelous how many perceptive details are crammed in each scene, and how relevant they are in shaping our impression of the characters. Perhaps, this is one of the copious things that I would go back to the film for.
But this film wouldn't have worked half as well if it wasn't for the fabulously understated performances. Admittedly, I'm not as well acquainted with contemporary Tamil cinema as I would have liked to have been, but this committed ensemble only enhances a fine script. The young actors at the heart of this coup have such a strong screen presence, it feels awkward to even imagine for a second who could have played their roles if they had not, and their scenes with Iyshwarya Rajesh, who plays their mother, are doozies. There is no better actor here; only actors who complement each other like actors should.
My only gripe with Kaaka Muttai is that the story goes slightly awry in the second-half, almost surrendering the logical consistency it maintained throughout for some needless drama. But looking at the bigger picture, it isn't something that would tarnish the joy that it bequeaths to us. Some of the finest Indian films in recent years have been debuts, and Kaaka Muttai proudly upholds that tradition. It is absolutely wonderful.
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