Director: Lenin Rajendran; Writer: Lenin Rajendran; Cinematographer: Madhu Ambat; Cast: Raghuvaran, Srividya, Thilakan, Vineeth, Sudheesh, Siddique
Duration: 01:41:50; Aspect Ratio: 1.825:1; Hue: 19.446; Saturation: 0.208; Lightness: 0.252; Volume: 0.322; Cuts per Minute: 10.782
Summary: Based on the writings of noted author
Mukundan, the film is set near the river
Mayyazhi (Mahe) in an ex-French colony with
continuing cultural links to its former colonial
power. Father Alphonse (Raghuvaran), a
French-speaking priest, amateur magician and
alcoholic, decides to stay when Independence
comes and the colonial functionaries depart on
the last ship to Paris, much to the despair of his
Francophile wife Maggie (Srividya). Years later,
when their son Michael leaves for France in
search of the ‘good life’, he shatters Maggie’s
hopes for redemption. Their daughter Elsie
becomes pregnant by her childhood friend
(Vineeth), the son of a landlord and former
Congress Party worker (Thilakan), and
Alphonse’s only remaining acquaintance. The
younger son of this landlord quits a potentially
successful career at University in order to join a
radical Naxalite group. The original novel
attempted to investigate the conditions of
culturally marginalized communities in
Independent India. Rajendran, who contested
elections supported by the CPI(M), proposes a
critique of the ruling Congress Party,
presenting it as a once-radical movement now
infested with corruption and challenged by the
progressive Left. The cinematographer Ambat’s
work is, as usual, outstanding, especially in its
creation of claustrophobic spaces.
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