[Contains spoilers, many of them.]
My most vivid memory of watching Schindler’s List is the horror I felt while watching that sequence in it in which smiling and waving children are packed onto trucks to be carried to a place where they will be put to eternal rest. Their parents are on the other side of the field, celebrating another day of survival, realizing only too late what’s happening. Chaos follows. I watched with cold dread and a growing sense of numbness.
In Jayaraj’s Ottaal, winner of the Crystal Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 2016, a recently orphaned five-year-old boy is about to be sent to a place that’s going to crush his spirit and ruin his childhood. But he is yet unaware of it. He blissfully celebrates going away to the city to ‘learn’, promising his wise grandfather, a duck farmer with whom he stays in the idyllic marshlands of Kuttanad in Kerala, that he will be back soon. The child’s innocence and simplistic view of the world is matched by our knowledge of it. We realize what’s going to happen to him. The happier he seems, the more heartbroken we become. His happiness is poisonous. I recalled the sequence from Schindler’s List when I felt a familiar pang of dread while watching it.
An adaptation – and a terrific one by Joshy Mangalath – of Anton Chekhov’s 1896 short story “Vanka,” Ottaal takes place mostly in and around the marshlands of Kerala. In these marshes lives a community of fishermen, away from the busy cities, building their own lives in their own little world. A postman, one of the many endearing characters in this film, laments everyday that there are no letters for anyone in Kuttanad, but his tone is hopeful. On the other side of the village, on the banks of a river sits a man with a fishing rod trying to catch fish. Whenever Kuttappayi, the boy, is passing by, he asks him with childlike curiosity whether he managed to hook any. No, he has not. But, the man says, it’s a pleasure just to sit there and hope. It’s a little detail, but a significative one: this is a place untouched by pessimism. This is a place free from worry, where everyone knows everyone, and everyone gives generously to everyone. This is a community that has learnt how to live peacefully.
Ottaal is a film that reveals itself through little moments like this. Jayaraj’s direction is decidedly low-key but assured. Together with cinematographer MJ Radhakrishnan he paints a textured world of sounds and people, like a man who communicates with the others through a few peculiar calls and spends the rest of the time caroling without a care in the world. And Kuttappayi is at the center of this world, a character so tragic that your heart sinks at the very sight of him. His story is revealed through an exchange early on: his parents, deep in debt, committed suicide by poisoning their meal and even gave some to him, but he was saved. His life is far from easy. He’s happy living with his grandfather. His grandfather is secretly ailing but he loves and cares for the boy more than he lets on. He wants to be there for him. His closest friend is Tinku, whose well-off father disapproves of his friendship with ‘duck boy’ Kuttappayi. Tinku’s mother sympathizes with the boy but is unable to provide for him given her failed attempts at softening her dour husband. So Kuttappayi stays where he is, struggling to build his own little life, trying to find acceptance in a world that has been unrelenting to him.
Through these episodes, the film gently hints at how unfairly the world treats a young and poor orphan. Kuttappayi’s life seems to be defined by separation: separation from his parents because of debt, separation from Tinku because of class, and finally, separation from his grandfather because of an illness. He’s just a young lad who has much to offer to the world, but he’s living, both literally and metaphorically, in muddy waters.
Finally, when his helpless grandfather decides to send him away to the city to ‘learn’, the film inches closer to a devastating end. In a skillfully executed scene, the old man has a drink with Boss, his only link to the city. Boss suggests that Kuttappayi be sent to a factory where fireworks are made and half-heartedly adds that he will be happy there. The old man doesn’t dismiss the idea right away. He wants Kuttappayi to be in safe hands, but that seems to be a long shot. Now he just wants him to be under a roof. It’s a fine moment, and Kumarakom Vasudevan, who plays the old man, handles it with aplomb. He captures the turmoil the grandfather is going through and the courage it takes to break the heart of someone you love dearly through a few moments of brooding silence. He does not speak, and yet his eyes tell us all we need to know.
Ottaal is the kind of small film I find easy to love because it’s made with so much heart. It has an important message to impart, and, unlike most Indian films with social messages, this one does not force-feed it to us. We are left with a lasting image of Kuttappayi sleeping in darkness without a blanket with a few boys his age, his fate now uncertain. He has written to his grandfather using the light from a candle. For someone who has suffered so much, he remains optimistic. Come what may, we know he will always light a candle. It’s a thought that brings us much comfort.
My most vivid memory of watching Schindler’s List is the horror I felt while watching that sequence in it in which smiling and waving children are packed onto trucks to be carried to a place where they will be put to eternal rest. Their parents are on the other side of the field, celebrating another day of survival, realizing only too late what’s happening. Chaos follows. I watched with cold dread and a growing sense of numbness.
In Jayaraj’s Ottaal, winner of the Crystal Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 2016, a recently orphaned five-year-old boy is about to be sent to a place that’s going to crush his spirit and ruin his childhood. But he is yet unaware of it. He blissfully celebrates going away to the city to ‘learn’, promising his wise grandfather, a duck farmer with whom he stays in the idyllic marshlands of Kuttanad in Kerala, that he will be back soon. The child’s innocence and simplistic view of the world is matched by our knowledge of it. We realize what’s going to happen to him. The happier he seems, the more heartbroken we become. His happiness is poisonous. I recalled the sequence from Schindler’s List when I felt a familiar pang of dread while watching it.
An adaptation – and a terrific one by Joshy Mangalath – of Anton Chekhov’s 1896 short story “Vanka,” Ottaal takes place mostly in and around the marshlands of Kerala. In these marshes lives a community of fishermen, away from the busy cities, building their own lives in their own little world. A postman, one of the many endearing characters in this film, laments everyday that there are no letters for anyone in Kuttanad, but his tone is hopeful. On the other side of the village, on the banks of a river sits a man with a fishing rod trying to catch fish. Whenever Kuttappayi, the boy, is passing by, he asks him with childlike curiosity whether he managed to hook any. No, he has not. But, the man says, it’s a pleasure just to sit there and hope. It’s a little detail, but a significative one: this is a place untouched by pessimism. This is a place free from worry, where everyone knows everyone, and everyone gives generously to everyone. This is a community that has learnt how to live peacefully.
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| Image source: www.berlinale.de |
Ottaal is a film that reveals itself through little moments like this. Jayaraj’s direction is decidedly low-key but assured. Together with cinematographer MJ Radhakrishnan he paints a textured world of sounds and people, like a man who communicates with the others through a few peculiar calls and spends the rest of the time caroling without a care in the world. And Kuttappayi is at the center of this world, a character so tragic that your heart sinks at the very sight of him. His story is revealed through an exchange early on: his parents, deep in debt, committed suicide by poisoning their meal and even gave some to him, but he was saved. His life is far from easy. He’s happy living with his grandfather. His grandfather is secretly ailing but he loves and cares for the boy more than he lets on. He wants to be there for him. His closest friend is Tinku, whose well-off father disapproves of his friendship with ‘duck boy’ Kuttappayi. Tinku’s mother sympathizes with the boy but is unable to provide for him given her failed attempts at softening her dour husband. So Kuttappayi stays where he is, struggling to build his own little life, trying to find acceptance in a world that has been unrelenting to him.
Through these episodes, the film gently hints at how unfairly the world treats a young and poor orphan. Kuttappayi’s life seems to be defined by separation: separation from his parents because of debt, separation from Tinku because of class, and finally, separation from his grandfather because of an illness. He’s just a young lad who has much to offer to the world, but he’s living, both literally and metaphorically, in muddy waters.
Finally, when his helpless grandfather decides to send him away to the city to ‘learn’, the film inches closer to a devastating end. In a skillfully executed scene, the old man has a drink with Boss, his only link to the city. Boss suggests that Kuttappayi be sent to a factory where fireworks are made and half-heartedly adds that he will be happy there. The old man doesn’t dismiss the idea right away. He wants Kuttappayi to be in safe hands, but that seems to be a long shot. Now he just wants him to be under a roof. It’s a fine moment, and Kumarakom Vasudevan, who plays the old man, handles it with aplomb. He captures the turmoil the grandfather is going through and the courage it takes to break the heart of someone you love dearly through a few moments of brooding silence. He does not speak, and yet his eyes tell us all we need to know.
Ottaal is the kind of small film I find easy to love because it’s made with so much heart. It has an important message to impart, and, unlike most Indian films with social messages, this one does not force-feed it to us. We are left with a lasting image of Kuttappayi sleeping in darkness without a blanket with a few boys his age, his fate now uncertain. He has written to his grandfather using the light from a candle. For someone who has suffered so much, he remains optimistic. Come what may, we know he will always light a candle. It’s a thought that brings us much comfort.
(Not For Reproduction)
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