Writer and Director: Christo Tomy
Cast: Parvathy Thiruvothu, Urvashi, Arjun Radhakrishnan
Available in: Theatres
Duration: 123 minutes
The first few events in Ullozhukku (Under Current), directed by Christo Tomy, happen in quick succession. Life falls through Anju’s (Parvathy) fingers before she can chart a plan. From a wide-eyed sales girl at a textile shop furtively smiling at her lover, she transforms into a bride posing for awkward post-wedding pictures on a backwater boat, her eyes heavy from what was likely a teary night. The film then moves to the old, spacious house of her husband, Thomas Kutty (Prasanth Murali), and his doting mother, Leelamma (Urvashi), in Kuttanad, where time, like a boat engine whirring to a halt at the dock, comes to a pressing stillness.
Christo has a talent for amplifying the ticking of the clock. The film is most eloquent when the characters wait in silence or stumble through halting conversations, managing to express just a fraction of what they would like to say. Meanings slither out of the gaps.
It isn’t just the passage of time that seems to possess a consciousness in this subdued drama. The house, perched by a backwater lake that threatens to flood, exerts a breathing, domineering presence, tenderly shot by cinematographer Shehnad Jalal. Most of the drama unfolds within its walls, quietly, in the secrecy of bedrooms or the dimly lit kitchen. The interiors are primly arranged even in the face of the unfolding tension. The island appears eerily remote, cut off from humanity by a labyrinth of green water bodies constantly refilled by monsoon rains. Melancholy and a sense of foreboding freely flow from this setting, deepening the grief and crisis the characters are going through.
