Prathichaya - Malayalam

Prathichaya 

is a Malayalam political thriller starring Nivin Pauly, Sabitha Anand, Ann Augustine and Sharafudheen. Most of the other faces are probably not familiar to us by name. If I mention Balachandra Menon, would you know him? Probably not. It is the same with Ann Augustine. I started watching this movie only because of Nivin Pauly. At one point, I got confused about what the movie was trying to say. I even stopped watching it and tried to sleep. Then I started watching it again just to make myself sleepy. But instead, my sleep disappeared. Let us see how the experience was.

According to the story, Nivin Pauly is the second son of the Chief Minister of Kerala. I could only understand that he is not just a hacker in the IT field, but someone brilliant who develops firewalls. He is already married. So neither his wife nor any other woman is the heroine of this movie. There is a pair and there is romance, but the main focus of the story is only the male lead.

I already told you that his father is the Chief Minister. The movie makes us feel that his party is like the Congress. The people protesting against him for corruption are shown as the Communists, the LDF. As far as I know, Kerala cinema is probably the only film industry that uses real political parties with their actual flag colours. Neither the parties nor the people seem to have any problem with it. I have never even seen a Facebook post opposing it. Let me add one more interesting thing. Even now, the real ruling party there is still the Congress in the movie. What a state.

Apart from all this, the scenes where the Chief Minister calmly handles the protests with ease and then happily spends quality time with his family during his free time actually make us like his character. Nivin Pauly's father plays the Chief Minister named K N Varghese. His elder son is Tobin Varghese. Nivin Pauly plays John Varghese.

Then comes a live interview with the Chief Minister. It is not exactly like Mudhalvan, but there is one scene that reminded me of it. During the live interview, a woman suddenly makes a sexual abuse allegation against him. The important thing is that Chief Minister K N Varghese is not shown as a villain. So instead of fighting back, he completely breaks down.

Earlier in the movie, there are already scenes showing that even people from his own party are secretly trying to make him resign. Now, after this allegation, his own party publicly announces that he will step down. In the next few scenes, when he reaches the party office, angry people throw stones at him and injure his head. Even his four year old granddaughter is told by her mother Do not go near your grandfather. He is a very bad man. The whole state turns against him. 

At that time, John Varghese is about to board a flight to Petersburg. After watching the live telecast, he skips the flight and returns home. What follows feels like the rise of Sakthivel after Sivaji Ganesan's death in Thevar Magan. Even the Cliff House shown in the movie reminds us of that house.

After his death, even the public do not come to pay their respects. Only his party puts up a few condolence posters. From this point, the story becomes really powerful. Can John Varghese clear his father's name? Who is really behind this false accusation? That forms the rest of this mass political thriller.

Prathichaya means shadow. The movie mainly talks about how the internet can slowly destroy a nation. Even after making such a bold movie, that state is still doing well. At the same time, we can see similar things happening in real life right in front of our eyes. In the movie, they use Kenya as the example. They were bold enough to point at real political parties in their own state, but they could not point at a real country where this had actually happened. So they simply say that every like in Kenya was turned into a vote.

Even I cannot openly say what that real example is.

Alright friends, we will meet again in the next post. See ya!