A game of thrones

A game of thrones

Ozhivu divasathe kali or An off day game by Sanalkumar  Sashidharan

Against the sounds of an election day presented through the campaign shots of an election and its narration through the tv set from the known and unknown cast of presenters, the players set off in a very remote area of the capital city with booze and meat and an occasional glimpse of a woman not sexy nor alluring ,a play starts within the bigger canvas presented through natural shots in a pristine forest drowned in heavy downpour .

Like Sathrang ke khiladi of Sathyajith Ray or the chess players of Prem Chand on which it is based , the players are cut off from mainstream political activity or take a leave from it when they are supposed to cast vote .Even if their votes were for nota, it should have been cast but here they are keen to have booze and jokes and if possible a shot at sex itself. Mostly they belong to the middle class and salaried too who are pleased with the small pleasures of life and belong to the various strata of life ordained by the society. They are  not practitioners of caste or creed but involuntarily their actions are predetermined by the social milieu in which they live.

Like the old play for which the laws are written in a very designer board in calligraphically beautiful letters, once you enter the play your actions are predetermined .The fifth one who is outside the game is supposed to be the arbiter of the crime and others are policeman and the thief  hiding among the king and the minister. Perhaps by a stroke of fate or intentionally the players don the predetermined part with vigour

They are ordinary man even afraid to kill a chicken and gets offended at the words of abuse on ones wife Liquour and fun unite them ,for which they are ready to go to any hell on an election day and magnanimous in pouring liquour to the help who is a mute witness and unconscious to the end and oomight end up as the accused in a trial by the public ,later . The gulf returnee, the organiser of the event is after the woman cook who spurns him with the sickle .

That rankles him and when the play begins a seemingly good order is restored where the man with the money ,the gulf returnee enjoys in his beautiful avathaar .Of course rationally or irrationally or at the influence of booze ,the old drama is played again where the black man is the victim. i am black, he sings and feels he is alienated among the glorified cast.

The play is not natural in the sense that it is somewhat predetermined and characters behave in the set pattern centuries have made. But it doesn’t end up as as a clichéd version of the casteist fights The mention of murder  or the fear  of it doesn’t prevent from them their preconceived notions. We are again on a plane in an earlier order where killing or dispossessing ekalavya is not a crime.

Much of the action is happening in a very idyllic world untouched by the world outside .The rain and the deep waters add an eerie feeling to the old bungalow which is the location .The film capture the natural voices and the locale in an unassuming manner. The woman is just a part of the surroundings and her reactions are natural to the hilt

Though its a play internally the strife is more as the players are grappling with the inherent contradictions in their characters moulded by years of hierarchical behaviour .They might be subued when doing menial jobs in the gulf or working in an office but the play provides them the necessary provision for flowering of the black magic.

There is no feeling of guilt nor even the necessity to hide the evidence . It is the mass and Barnabas as against the Christ like figure whose life is sacrificed in the public altar. The witness is there to end up as another crucified which is the most poignant feel of the end scene.

The film on a shoestring budget has achieved the impossible in its symbolic suggestions and building up of new tones unexplored by the original writer Unni R.But the uncharacteristic ending of the original is missing here as the directors’ idealist views gets prominence. Story is Unni`s ,the feel is of Sashidharan with deep political commitments, making it predictable But it doesn’t prevent it from a good movie

Internally the drama is intense and words and actions of the actors who are amateurs on the screen give it a more than violent coluring as nobody is afraid to play out his part . They are the players ordained by a great book ,really its a directors film ,an ushering of  new wave in Malayalam.