Tag Archives: Kerala

Film Reviews

Film Review: The Kerala Story (2023)

STORY

Shalini takes admission in a college and befriends three other girls in her hostel. One of her roommates Asifa successfully manipulates and misguides Shalini and another girl Geethanjali towards Islam and destroys their lives in deception by love jihad. Consequently, hell breaks on them while seeking heaven.

BACKLASH

‘The Kerala Story‘ sparked nationwide criticism and ignited deadly religious tension in India. Several petitions were filed at the Kerala High Court, the Madras High Court, and the Supreme Court of India to ban the film. Eventually, the West Bengal government banned the film for hate speech.

The Kerala High Court did order to remove the teaser of the film that claimed 32000 girls to have converted to Islam to get recruited to ISIS. 32000? The film begins with a disclaimer stating that there is no authenticity to back the claimed figures. But in one scene, a character does press to be more than thirty and even quotes that the unofficial number is 50,000. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, approximately 30,000 fighters from at least 85 countries had joined the ISIS until December 2015.

BJPWOOD

Although, countless films have been produced in India for decades about Islamic terrorism and the militants waging a holy war or a crusade against India funded by Pakistan. The speciality of ‘The Kerala Story’ is that the film worked on the audience as a reminder to distance themselves from the Muslim community because there is every deliberate chance of pushing you towards Jihad. And especially, if you are a non-Muslim female, then be prepared to spread your legs for “Muslim Mujahideen” as one of the babas suggests in the film to the young recruits to impregnate the girls.

I do not deny about the forced conversions of non-Muslims towards Islam worldwide. This is happening in many countries. And let me inform you that forced conversion is not only a Muslim thing now, this physical and spiritual abuse is happening in all major faiths around the world. Also, keep this in mind that spreading extremism or religious terrorism is completely different than preaching.

Whatever cruelty by the militant fighters is dramatized in the film, without a doubt, half of the madness is accurate. There is no denying about that. But another factor that cannot be denied is that “The Kerala Story” was heavily promoted by the ruling party of India, Bharatiya Janata Party. Prime Minister Narendra Modi quoted the film during the Karnataka Assembly Election of 2023. Recently, BJP welcomed the film’s screening by the Idukki diocese of the Syro-Malabar Church for catechism students. And this is not the first time that BJP have raised their voice in favor of such films with similar contents. Remember ‘The Kashmir Files’?

CINEMATIC DISASTER

Another failure is the joke of an execution. Director Sudipto Sen and producer Vipul Amrutlal Shah were neither smart about story-telling nor gave a sensible continuity. Engrossed with ordinary dialogues, irritating background score, and ridiculous sense of brainwashing, the film looked completely amateur and first-day first-show debacle.

‘The Kerala Story’ is a propaganda film due to the fact that it was more about the Islamic extremism and the supreme invasion of Islamic terrorism blended with the hows and whys of the religion’s punishments and tortures than growing the unfortunate stories of those girls. The only thing that was good about the film was the performance of Adah Sharma who played the leading character Shalini. The changing of mood, facial expressions, shocks, beliefs, surprises, suffering, tension, the whole body language was there.

CLOSING REMARKS

‘The Kerala Story’ is for those who have fire in their hearts for Muslims and Islam. The film is for those who want to read a conspiracy theory against the religion and beliefs. The film is for the violent protesters who are interested in damaging properties of the Muslims and make them suffer for a few notes of money. The film is for those whose favorite life moment is watching a man on the street burning the Holy Book or looking at the cartoons of some French newspaper.

RATING 1/10

SUBSCRIBE TO MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL AND WATCH MY FILM REVIEW HERE

FOLLOW ‘THE DARK KNAIK’ ON OTHER SOCIAL PLATFORMS

LETTERBOXD https://letterboxd.com/TheDarkKnaik/

FACEBOOK https://www.facebook.com/thedarkknaik
INSTAGRAM https://www.instagram.com/thedarkknaik/

TIKTOK

@thedarkknaik

Film Reviews

Film Review: Minnal Murali (2021)

In a Keralite village of Kurukkanmoola, two men with unfortunate pasts Jaison (Tovino Thomas) and Shibu (Guru Somasundaram) are struck by lightning that gives them supernatural powers and abilities. And both of them use their powers for predictable reasons.

Minnal Murali is a Malayalam-language superhero film that has recently been added to Netflix. I read a lot about this film and a few glimpses of this film made me think to give it a try. After all, it is a ‘superhero’ film. And it is not like if I had to expect some promises from this genre tried in India.

The first thing we need to understand as an audience is that the action-packed Indian cinema has still not been able to distinguish a mainstream action film and a superhero film at all. Because the concept of heroism and saving a girl or protecting the motherland in the Indian cinema has been a norm for decades. So it becomes harder for the audience to convince that their superhero plot or execution methods are different from what they have been watching. What will be the methods to separate these films from the usual action films? Of course, costumes and supernatural powers/abilities. The latter has also been existing for some time now.

Minnal Murali is no special superhero project but hype. The only interesting factor about the film is that the Malayalis came up with the idea to present their product in a new packing which is to make an action hero in a costume, supernatural belief with flavors of romance and family ties, the latter which has been the strongest element in the Malayali cinema.

One aspect about the writing I really liked was that the creation of two supernatural individuals was made accidental and they were put to use/test how they execute their powers. Especially, Shibu the antagonist who is fundamentally not an antagonist but a sadist who went through sorrow and pain, and wanted to use his powers for good but suffered setbacks that resulted in damaging his balance and creating problems for the villagers.

The film is extremely lengthy not because of the songs but the needless elements of Jaison’s characterization. The director wasted too much time on the portions that had the least connection with the plot.

Yes, Minnal Murali is enjoyable with its traditional mainstream Malayali productional aesthetics. The middle part of Jaison’s discovery of his tragic childhood was covered well. Cinematography is first-rate. Action scenes are favorably louder but of course, cannot be expected to match with the usual superhero films the global audience watches these days.

Looking at the kind of entertainment the makers have provided in this film, Minnal Murali is surely getting a sequel. And if that happens, the writing team will have to outdo this film with better creativity.

Ratings: 5/10

SUBSCRIBE TO MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL AND WATCH MY VIDEO FILM REVIEW HERE

 

FOLLOW ‘THE DARK KNAIK’ ON OTHER SOCIAL PLATFORMS

TIKTOK  https://www.tiktok.com/@thedarkknaik
FACEBOOK https://www.facebook.com/thedarkknaik
INSTAGRAM https://www.instagram.com/thedarkknaik/

TWITTER