Anita Paikat
Thiruvananthapuram, 15 Dec 2017 8:00 IST
However, as the filmmakers have themselves admitted, Maravi is meant for a limited audience that has the understanding and the patience to sit through a slow film.
Satish and Santosh Babusenan are known names in the independent cinema circuit. Their Malayalam film The Painted House (2015) was embroiled in a legal battle with the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC). Their second film, Ottayaal Paatha (The Narrow Path) (2016) won the Kerala State Award for Second Best Film, and the Silver Gateway Award for Second Best Film at the Mumbai Film Festival in November 2016.
Maravi is the director duo’s third feature. The Malayalam film is about a retired policeman (Kaladharan) who one day, without informing his family, drives to a remote mountain village. Strangely enough, he can’t remember the reason he came there. Back home, his daughter (Nina Chakraborty), along with her boyfriend (Sarath Sabha), sets out in search for the father and has an experience of her own.
The film questions and comments on many layers — why do we forget? Does it have something to do with our conscience? Do we really know everything we think we know?
The film is slow, as the directors warned before the screening began. With no camera movement, the actions and conversations take their own time to unfold. This tempo makes the film more and more realistic, because in reality that is how we talk, we move, we react.
For this reason, the dubbing becomes something out of place. A sync sound recording would have added to the flavour of the film.
The actors have done a fairly good job and have adapted well to the slow form of the film. Kaladharan, as the man hounded by his conscience, is the right choice for the film. Chakraborty and Sabha’s journey is not only in search of the father, but also of themselves. The only scene that felt a bit stretched and unreadable was when Chakraborty's character gets a panic attack.
Technically, too, the film is well made. The cinematography, also by Satish and Santosh, is commendable, as the film travels through the beautiful sights of Kerala. The brothers have their aesthetics in place, and are skilled at using day to day materials to convey a deeper meaning, without being preachy. For example, the night before the father leaves, he is shown sleeping on the bed with a fish bowl on the bedside table. The movement of the fish in the twirling water emulates the uneasiness of his mind.
The direction is praiseworthy too. It takes a deep focus and understanding of the subject to be able drive your actors and team to successfully convey ideas, that are suppressed in the conscience, through a very simple story.
However, as the filmmakers have themselves admitted, Maravi is meant for a limited audience that has the understanding and the patience to sit through a slow film.