Kuttappan, played with coiled up menace by P.N. Sunny.
Dileesh Pothan’s ‘Joji’ is a highly accomplished, subtly polished even if rather spare and austere film. It is one of the best films that I have seen in recent years that apart from everything else lives up to the idea of cinema or as the word’s Greek root, kinemat, means—movement.
Cinematographer Shyju Khalid’s filming is as important a part of the movie as its superbly etched out characters.
‘Joji’ is an Indian derivative of Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’. I have read the Bard of Avon in fits and starts. I have not read any play by him fully because I am not much of a reader of plays. I have read enough to know why he has the astonishingly enduring appeal that he has now had for some four centuries.
The well-known Indian psychologist and social theorist Ashis Nandy famously said, “Cricket is an Indian game accidentally discovered by the British.” I would paraphrase is to say, “Shakespeare was an Indian accidentally born in England.” That is if you read the kind of familial intrigues that characterize so much of his writing.
‘Joji’s Macbethian traits lend themselves so well to a Kerala Christian family, the Panachel family, lorded over by the cruel patriarch Kuttappan, played with coiled up menace by P.N. Sunny. In an early display of his cruelty Kuttappan has a scene where he tells his youngest son, the namesake Joji played rivetingly by Fahadh Faasil, "....or else I will break your spine and feed you for the rest of your life." That is as inventive a threat as it can get.
I would not like to go into the whole story because a) It is too much work for me and b) It is too much work for me. But it is enough to say that the Panachels are as splintered by their greed as they are united by it.
There is much to watch in this unflagging work by Pothan so powerfully aided by Khalid’s camerawork and sharp scripting by Syam Pushkaran. All performances are in perfect sync and extraordinary without actorly egos tripping over one another.
P.N. Sunny and Fahadh Faasil
After a very long time, while watching an Indian film I felt I was actually watching cinema and not loud radio plays. That is where I would like to specially acknowledge Khalid’s camerawork which is remarkable without trying hard to be remarkable. It is not showy but telling without much effort. I am sure a great deal went into creating the uncluttered look in a state which is so spectacularly lovely.
There are some evocative high angle shots about which I wondered whether they were taken in a helicopter or using a drone. Quite cheekily as I wondered that a high angle frame came up with an actual toy drone in it.
On an unrelated matter, I struggle to think if there has been a Hindi movie out of Mumbai of this sharply measured brilliance as ‘Joji’. I don’t think so.
