‘Oraalppokkam’ opens with a startling monologue, the words of a man caught in some Sartrean crisis. Sanal Kumar Sasidharan’s debut feature film raises some upsetting questions about meaning and contentment as it takes you down that dark and treacherous road along its hero. The film revolves around Mahendran, an intellectual alpha-male who goes in search of his missing live-in partner Maya. But a journey triggered by his existential home-truth turns out to be something else. “Man is just an insignificant iota in front of Nature. But he is involved in a never-ending conquest which leaves him deflated and lonely. In his journey seeking answers Mahendran finds himself lost in a maze of reality and illusion, past and present. At the same time he might be longing for a return, to come back content and rectified,” says the director. The film will have its premiere in the Malayalam Cinema Today section of 19th IFFK.
Rather than dissecting man-woman relationship the film creates a philosophical premise where female enigma towers over male ego. Confused and distraught, life becomes more of a Promethean choice for its hero. “Man lacks perfection. His is a temporary existence compared to woman who is a carrier, she is the one responsible for creating a continuum of life,” says Sanal. Just like her name Maya remains a mysterious presence throughout the film. She is presented through Mahendran’s dreams and memories as he keeps looking for her in the remnants of flood-ravaged Kedarnath. “He is seeking her in man-wrecked Nature,” says Sanal.
A multilingual road movie, it travels through bustling metros and nondescript small towns to reach the calamity-hit highlands. A major portion of the film has been shot in the harsh Himalayan terrain and very often it’s not the characters but the landscape that evokes a sense of anguish and futility. “It was a conscious decision to go for wide frames in which characters are reduced to mere specks. But it’s nothing new, Indian philosophy doesn’t see humans as a dominant race, but a part of an all-encompassing ecology,” says Sanal.
‘Oraalpookkam’ is also a treatise on memory, a layered narrative that lacks any linear format. It’s not a film that fits into the familiar and comfortable cinematic craft. “Some memories belong to an ambiguous realm where you can’t say whether it’s reality or hallucination. At the same time there are certain visuals and sensations that invoke a sense of dejavu. I have tried to bridge reality and fantasy at points they tend to overlap,” he says.
‘Oraalppokkam’, the title of the film, is a term that captures the essence of paradox. “It points to a situation where the sum turns zero. It’s word used to denote both the depth of water and the height of an object, two measures that nullify each other. It’s something that announces the complexity of life and the pointless efforts to define it in terms of convention,” he says.
While almost all the cast and crew members are newbies, Prakash Bare plays the character of Mahendran and author-activist Meena Kandasami steps into the shoes of Maya making her screen debut. “The screenplay has a strong surreal edge and we wanted a creative person who could relate to it,” says Sanal about casting Meena. A crowd-funded venture, Oraalppokkam’ is produced by Kazhcha Chalachithra Vedi.