If revolution has a face that would be whiskered and bereted. ‘Hasta Siempre, Comandante’, the famous Spanish song, is a reply to Che’s farewell letter before he marches straight to martyrdom. When one of the characters in Left Right Left (LRL) croons the iconic lines and the trailers give away subtle hints and whispering suggestions, it’s only natural to expect a spectacular political parable. Despite all this, the film’s promos are also marked by an unnerving ambiguity and Arun Kumar Aravind says the storyline of his third outing is not ‘politically infested’. “It just happens that a character in the film is a politician. Otherwise LRL is no attempt to cut through Kerala’s political diaspora,” says the filmmaker who is once again joining hands with scenarist-actor Murali Gopi after last year’s runaway hit Ee Adutha Kalathu.
Keralites nurture an unapologetic fetish for everything political and when the flag flaunts a familiar scarlet it always whips up a frenzy. Arun says there is no need to read too much into that as his film is ‘more of a social drama’ that follows the format of a thriller. “We live in a society where politics seeps into every pore of our being. It’s definitely part of the film, but LRL is no discourse on leftist politics.” He adds that though the film deals with a radical subject, it’s also high on entertainment quotient. “It’s a film for the masses, not any particular class,” he says.
Just like Ee Adutha Kalathu, the film is no hero-oriented acrobatics. LRL has no stars but actors who surrender to the screenplay unconditionally. “LRL chronicles the troubled lives of its three lead characters and their emotional evolution as individuals. They pass through a spate of traumatic events in childhood and adolescence that ultimately shape their personalities and outlooks,” he explains the plot.
While Indrajith Sukumaran dons khaki to play the rough cop Jayan, Murali Gopi appears on screen as Roy Joseph, a teacher. Hareesh Peradi slips into the role of political leader Sahadevan. Remya Nambeesan, Lena and Anusree are the lead ladies while Sreejith Ravi, Sudheer Karamana, Byju, Vijyaraghavan, Mamukoya and Sethulakshmi are also part of the cast. “Remya plays a nurse named Jennifer and Anusree plays Deepa, a homemaker and a representative of ordinary Malayali woman. Lena is Anitha, a lecturer and Roy’s wife,” he adds. The film has its music scored by Gopi Sundar and the title anthem sung by Murali Gopi is already a rage among netizens.
The film crosses through three timelines as the characters belong to different periods set apart by some years. “Sixties, seventies, eighties and their socio-political sensibilities also go into moulding the three men,” says Arun. So it’s a high-octane drama with political interludes and ask him if we get to watch violence, intrigue and fleets of red-beacon cars to run amok on the screen, “LRL has no thematic or stylistic resemblance to any previous political narratives in Malayalam. In the film we have tried to sidestep all the trite cliches and conventions,” he winds up.
