Saturday, October 13, 2007

arabikatha

If you really think about it we should be seeing more malayalam movies based in the middle east. Apart from the very forgettable "Dubai" i dont think there has been another movie that has significant percentage of it set in the "Gulf". Arabikatha that way is the first mainstream movie set in the middle east which does a decent job of capturing the life's of malayalees in that area. (Well it seemed like it did , never lived there long enough for me to know for sure).



In Arabikatha, the directer brings together to very different malayalee realities,Communism and the Gulf dream. These two are poles apart but we malayalees embrace both and when they two meet there is ample scope for interesting incidents. In the movie you will mind many such incidents, all make you laugh , lot of them make you think.



Without giving much away, Arabikatha is the stoy of Mukundan a staunch communist and leader of the party in a small town/village in kerala. He is a leader on the fringes of breaking through to the big time. He is shown as the kind of worker who blindly toes the party line and never questions the logic of the actions he is asked to take.

The drama begins when he is tricked by his political rival and his capitalistic friends into owning up to a huge debt that he must pay back. He is forced to do what an average malayali does first when faced with this problem, that is "Go to Gulf". He lands up in Dubai thinking that he can make some quick petro dollars and pay back his debts.

This is when the movie really picks up steam.The director has the luxuary of exploring two different angles here. First is the "communism in dubai" angle which results is some hilarious sequences. Mukundan is slowly made to realize that his brand of communism has few takers in dubai. Director makes fun of some of the archaic policies that the communist parties in kerala are famous for. Their fight against computerisation and the cola gaints are ridiculed in two memorable sequences. This scenes which deal with this angle is what i enjoyed most.
The other angle is ofcource the life of the malayali expatriate. Director exploits most gulf malyalee stereotypes here.
The "back stabbing" malayalee who snatches a good job from mukundan , the dad who misses his daughters wedding, the guy who struggling to build a house back in kerala all show up in the movie. Though there are no points for originality here , all of these episodes touched me due to some competent acting.
Mukundan meanwhile goes and falls in love with a Chinese lady. That was bound to happen since he considers china a dream nation and all Chinese to be passionate Communists. But she breaks his heart when she disappears along with a large amount of money.

Rest of the movie is nothing much to write home about. It mutates into a revenge drama with Mukundan realizing that he has been tricked into coming to Dubai. he Finlay returns to his home town, still a staunch communist but definitely one who is better in tune with his times.

Though i found the movie quite enjoyable i do have few bones to pick. First and foremost is the characterisation of Mukundan itself. A person who is being considered a likely M.L.A candidate can be anything but dumb. He has to have a large helping of smarts to get to that position. I cant believe mukundan would be such a naive simpleton. I am thinking the writer was a bit lazy here. If he had made Mukundan smarter he would have had to work harder to come up with scenarios that bash Communism.

Overall an enjoyable picture. I enjoyed it more as a movie about the life in the middle-east rather than a political satire. Also have to mention the revolutionary poem that is part fo the sound track. Just loved it..

That was my take on Arabikatha. My first stab at a movie review (don't worry i am not quitting my day job) .
If you stumble across this post please tell me what you though about it and then go get a life!