KOCHI: ‘He’ is a thoughtful short film. Shot inside the four walls of a house with just one crew member and his family, the film offers a rare insight into the minds of children who were locked up and cast away during the pandemic.
“I got Covid just before the second wave started in the state. I had to spend months isolated at home. By the time I recovered, there was another lockdown. That’s when I wrote ‘He’. Soon, I started shooting it with my brother and sisters as actors,” says IJ. The lockdown stopped him from getting any external help. And so, IJ ended up handling the direction, script and cinematography by himself.
“Thankfully, my youngest brother grasped the concept fast and acted well without any inhibitions,” IJ adds. His maiden production with amateur actors tells the story amazingly well, creating waves at film festivals across the country. So far, ‘He’ has been screened at eight film festivals, both national and international, and won four major awards.
“The film’s message has touched many hearts, possibly because of the way I have approached the subject,”he adds. He is not wrong. The film speaks to the whimsical child in you, leaving a lingering melancholy within your heart as it concludes. The story starts innocently — at a normal middle-class Malayali family with clothes hung outside to dry and a cycle resting in rust in its yard. The mother wakes up the youngest kid for breakfast as she hastily gets ready for work. While Monu gulps down his simple breakfast of milk, toast and biscuits she talks on the phone about her concerns regarding the pandemic. She also says how relieved she is that her son is not an extroverted child, and enjoys being at home with his toys.
But every shot after that is about how lonely the young boy is. His silence speaks volumes while in the company of toys he finds. Eventually, he finds an imaginary friend to help him through it — ‘He’, a superhero.
“Monu conjures up a superhero to free himself from the solitude. In the short film, he never converses with anyone else. He is always in his own space alone with his ‘friends’,” IJ explains.
The short film also touches upon an important yet underrated subject — the mental health of children who are devoid of friends and school sessions. “In many cases, a character who loves fantasy, much like my protagonist, can find it hard to differentiate fantasy and reality,” says IJ. The ambiguous ending has also done justice to the film that leaves many questions and a sea of empathy.