view In B Ajithkumar’s Eeda (2018), Anand and Aishwarya play space in Malayalam cinema. “Feminist” has been turned a reimagined Romeo and Juliet. Their families are no Mon- into a bad word by the internet trolls of Kerala, bastardising tagues and Capulets, nor are they Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s it as “feminichi” to bestow it upon outspoken actors like Ram and Leela. Instead, Aishwarya comes from a family of Parvathy TK and Rima Kallingal. In Dileesh Pothan’s communists and Anand is from Thondimuthalum Driksakshi- a family of right-wing national- yum (2017), the town’s famous ists. The Shakespearean narra- right-wing rabble-rouser is sent tive is set against a backdrop of to the police station by his own political rivalry. Eeda minces no wife and mother, whom he dis- words and withholds no images. TRUTH misses as feminists. In this IIn Aishwarya’s home, there is a year’s smash-hit Kumbalangi framed portrait of Lenin. In a BE TOLD Nights, Bobby misbehaves with key scene, the right-wing politi- his girlfriend Baby in a theatre cal party’s chief alludes to the From taking on the right wing to and is taught a lesson on consent violent sacrifi ces that are re- outing everyday sexism, Malayalam while watching Arjun Reddy quired for their movement, near (2017). The choice of fi lm is no a picture of the current leader of cinema enters a new age of woke coincidence considering its tes- India. To the chief’s other side fi lmmaking, fi nds Aditya Shrikrishna tosterone-induced box-offi ce run are images of past RSS leaders. left a trail of fi ery debates on Where mainstream fi lms in oth- misogyny in cinema. er industries shy away from What makes Malayalam fi lms populating their frames with political statements, Malay- unique today is that they are remarkably self-aware. This is alam fi lms revel in them. Not only are Kerala’s made possible by a new wave of young fi lmmakers who have cinema and politics strangely, complexly, fascinatingly in- risen to the challenge. There is diversity in themes and char- tertwined, there is also space for dissent. acterisations—the Dalits erased amid gentrifi cation or the Muhsin Parari, the co-writer of fi lms like Sudani From everyday struggles of a Latin Catholic community in a small Nigeria (2018) and this year’s blockbuster Virus (based on fi shing village, or simply a small-time football club trying to the Nipah outbreak), says, “I think fi lmmakers ought to score goals and make ends meet. Because these fi lms are play their part in fi ghting an oppressive system by being so populated and championed by star actors like Fahadh Faas- free that their honest expressions are themselves an act of il, Dulquer Salmaan, Parvathy TK and Soubin Shahir, they rebellion.” Feminist-forward storytelling is also fi nding its fi nd both critical and box-offi ce success. > 206 VOGUE INDIA OCTOBER www.vogue.in.