Audience of Kerala How Responded to Movie µArabikadha¶
Malayalam movie industry was once famous for its realistic movies and quality of movies. But with time, the rationality of audience and realistic pattern of movies decreased in the Malluwood. We should compare this to the political situation of Kerala too. Kerala was the first Indian state which elected a communist government through elections. It had a good political history and it was famous for its political awareness and its literacy rate. But now we can see a clear degradation of political awareness in the Kerala society and more people are becoming apolitical. The interesting thing about those people who is part of politics is, they are not even aware about the political ideologies of their own parties. Here I¶m going to analyze the impact of movie µArabikadha¶ in the Kerala audience.
After a long gap the Malayalam movie lovers got a good political satire, ¶Arabikadha¶, in 2007. It was by director Lal Jose who already established his name in the film industry and in the heart of common audience by the movies µClassmates¶, µChandupottu¶, µMesamadhavan¶ etc. Sreenivasan, Changshumin, Samvritha Sunil, Jagthi Sreekumar and Salim Kumar did the major roles in the movie. Iqbal Kuttipuram was the script writer and H. Hussain was the producer. The story is about the life of a leftist Cuba Mukundan, by Sreenivasn, who migrated to Gulf to find money from there.
Cuba Mukundan is an ardent fan of Fidel Castro and loves his party than anything. He and his father 'Society' Raghavan, who brought the communist party in the village, who run a tea shop, are the torch bearers of the party at Chemmanur (which means the land of red soil) in Kannur district. Being the local secretary of communist party, he criticizes and resists everything that is forbidden by the party texts. And so he is against cola, bourgeoisie, bribery, computers and even don't believe in gods. As Marx somewhere suggested that he rethought many times about his decision to enter into marriage, Mukundan also don't like to enter into matrimony. But all in the party were not like Mukundan. People like Karunan, a party leader who wants to take over the party in the village from Mukundan, for his own selfish reasons.
The film opens with the lathy charge on µCuba¶ Mukundan and his party men, who are making an agitation against the leather factory in the village, set up by Kunjunni (Jagathy Sreekumar) a rich NRI. The party resists the factory due to environmental reasons and the industrial pollution that it creates. But Karunan has a secret deal with Kunjunni, to somehow avoid the agitation. But soon the court rules to close down the leather factory. Kunjunni now agitated, plans with Karunan to frame Mukundan¶s father Society Ragahvan on a scandal related with society¶s expenditure. They succeed in that, when Raghavan is at hospital with a fatal stroke. 'Cuba' Mukundan believes the cooked up scandal story and suspends his father from the party for the involvement, but soon the old man passes away. Now Mukundan decides to repay the 'misappropriate' amount involved and take leave from the party. The district committee suggests Mukundan to go to gulf so that he can make the big amount of 20 lakh to repay, within a short time.
Mukundan, who has no gulf dreams says,"I would rather go to Cuba or China than Dubai, to learn the working class movement". Finally Mukundan abides by the party line, and lands up in gulf. The scorch of the sun in his life starts here, as he is put on the job to do menial work by Karunan's nephew Siddharthan, who arranged his visa and helped him to find a job. Mukundan who realizes that he cannot do any menial labor finds it hard to survive and very soon realizes that he has been working in the company of Kunjauunni, who reminds him that the leadership of a party of the working class, are not used to doing hard labor, nor do they know how to operate a laptop and he is too useless with little knowledge of anything other than communism. Finding the old dogmas of communism dead, Dubai for Mukundan becomes the beginning of a new world, He also meets every type of Malayalees who are working there for a number of reasons and a Chinese girl Shu Min (Zhang Shu Min) whom he starts admiring as because she is from China, a great Communist country. Very soon, the Chinese girl too takes advantage of the Mukundan's silly beliefs. Arabikatha is a ungenerous indictment of how the ruling communist parties in Kerala, has moved away from the ordinary people and its ideals, to become a party controlled by a corrupt leadership and business tycoons devoid of social commitment.
Response of Audiences
The movie was one of the super hits of 2007 and got good support from all types of audience. The songs of the movie was the highlight of the movie especially the song µChora vena mannil ninnu oyarnnu vanna poomaram««.¶ about the history of communist party and current status of party. The famous song writer Anil Panachooran did a good job in this movie. Actually the song criticizes the current stage of party and reminds the party leaders and workers about the history of party and those gave their life to party. Song got immense publicity and almost all party workers and local leaders used this song as their caller tones and ringing tone in their mobile phones and also it was the song that was widely used before the political meetings of communist party at that time. About this issue once Anil Panachooran made a statement in a public meeting that ³the party leaders of communist party are brilliant to know the meaning of the song, that is the reason why they are not ready to give the award to the song and the common party workers are using song in the public meetings and their personal mobiles etc. without knowing the meaning¶¶ and also he adds ³the brilliant party leaders should change their mind to change the bad tendencies of the party´.
Also the director showed his bravery to tell the bad decisions taken by the communist party especially the agitations against computer and the shift in the ideologies of Russia and Communist China etc. and also blames the party of Kerala which is not ready to accept the social changes happened around the world. In a ³Face to Face´ programme organized by press club in Thiruvanathapuram after the release of movie the hero of the movie Sreenivassan said the film was not an attack on the CPI (M). ³It was more an attempt to highlight the negative trends in the party´.
We should study the audience responses according to the internal problems of CPI (M). Once the communist party was the solution for the all the problems of common people in Kerala but now the internal problems in the party made the situation worst. Now a day, the group fights which were common in the Congress party of Kerala became essential part of Communist party too.
We can consider the responses of the audience as three types. In the first some people considered the movie as something that against the communist party of Kerala. There are some scenes which try to blame party¶s ideologies, (e.g. against computer). Some people also pointed out that the names of the major roles have a similarity with the names of the party leaders of CPI (M) like the hero¶s name Mukundan with V S Achudandan and the villain P Karunan with Pinarai Vijayan. The pro-communist party magazines published articles about the movie that saying the movie is against the party. They considered the movie as another attempt of µmedia syndicate¶ (a term by communist thinkers of Kerala to represent those media which is writing against party) to destruct party.
Some people considered the movie as an attempt to change the bad actions of communist party. It was clear that because of the internal fights the party was going away from the common man. It has proved in the last elections too. But the party leadership was not ready to accept the fact. The villain Karunan was representing the current face of the party and the movie ends with return of Mukundan and also reveals the real face of Karunan. In the last scene we can see that the people of Chemmannor welcoming Mukundan with µInquilab Sindabad¶. In the cinema websites and other magazines, we can see that many people, especially Keralites who are working outside Kerala responded to this scenes as it as the attempt to purify the party and also establish the common man¶s faith in the party. Also many people considered the director as the representative of those people who is very sad about what happening in the party and who wanted to change the current situation.
On the other hand there was a group of people considered the movie as the pro-communist movie. Most of them only noticed the parts of the movie where it praising the communist party¶s ideas and propagandas. The most interesting fact was that it was this people who gave mouth publicity to this film. Most of them belong to the people from DYFI (Democratic Youth Frond of India), the youth wing of party and SFI (Student¶s Federation of India). They celebrated the movie scenes, songs and dialogues.
For the producer of the movie, the response of the audience was a very positive one but that response was different that the movie makers expected. The movie makers expected the movie will awake party members who blindly supporting the leaders without realizing the facts. They also thought that it will ignite some serious discussions in the public and the media too. The irrationality in Kerala society can be seen in the response of this movie.