I saw Kerala Café and I loved it

I happened to see the movie Kerala Café today. A portmanteau of 10 short films linked together by the common chain of Kerala Café, a café in an unspecified but typical railway station somewhere in Kerala. The movie left me with the wonderful feeling of having read a good anthology of 10 well selected short stories. To start off there was ‘Nostalgia’ which starred Dileep and Navya Nair among others. In my opinion it could be called one of the weaker links in the entire movie. The humorous take on nonresident Keralites struck a chord with me as it showed characteristics I have often noticed among NRKs particularly of the older generation. However I felt the treatment could have done more justice to the good theme. Next came ‘Island Express’. It was probably my favourite among the 10 movies. The actors Maniyan Pillai Raju and Prithviraj in particular did full justice to their characters in this narrative in which 4 mini narratives converged to form the crux of the story. This one could well be called the microcosm of the movie as a whole. The journey of discovery that Jayasurya’s character undergoes is also a high point however the background rendition of ‘Saare Jahan se Achcha’ wasa bit over the top I felt. The next two movies were ‘Mrityunjayam’ a supernatural story with a twist in the tail which Jimmy and Hari who saw the movie with me liked the most and ‘Lalitham Hiranmayam’ which was a take on marital infidelity and its repercussions in the wake of a tragedy. While Mrityunjayam was very well cast with Thilakan playing an important role, Suresh Gopi looked a tad too old to be paired with the 2 heroines in Lalitham Hiranmayam. The fifth story was the extremely entertaining ‘Happy Journey’ with Jagathi living up to the high standards expected of him. The transition his character undergoes over the course of a bus ride is well depicted. The female lead in this segment also does a commendable job.

The next section of 5 movies began with ‘Aviramam’. The state of the economy and the straits to which money or the lack of it can drive people forms a common theme in the 4 stories beginning with this one. This story has Siddique and Swetha Menon in the lead and shows a man driven to desperate means for the sake of his family whose comfort he had always striven to ensure. The next story is ‘Off Season’ with Siraj in the lead. Though it has a mainly comic vein running throughout it, the moment when the character realizes that pain has the same meaning no matter what language you speak or what colour your skin is, is one of the more poignant moments in the movie. Following this movie is the story titled ‘Bridge’ that talks about the pain of loss of something or someone that one loves, which is self imposed due to helplessness in one case and forced perhaps due to a lack of understanding in the other. Salim Kumar’s performance is very convincing and the pain he experiences becomes difficult not to empathise with for the viewers. The next story ‘Makal’ shows a family grabbing desperately at a possible opportunity to rescue themselves from their state of abject poverty, an act that leads to a heart rending climax. The final movie is ‘ Puramkazhchakal’ starring Mamooty and Sreenivasan. Despite being pretty short it becomes the perfect climax to the movie and causes one to despise our habit of quickly jumping to conclusions and judging others without really understanding them or what they are experiencing.

In conclusion this movie made me laugh, made me think, made me feel sorry for some of the characters and basically ran the whole gamut of human emotions. A bold endeavour that is stunningly executed and a must watch for all Malayalam movie lovers.