Ozhivudivasathe Kali

Ozhivudivasathe Kali is mainly narrated as just another drunken day in the life of a group of friends who decides to party hard. But the undertones of elements and the number of metaphors you identify by the end of the movie is sort of haunting. I haven’t read the writing by Unni R, but I must say that Sanal Kumar Sasidharan has taken up a much relevant issue and presented it in a way that it disturbs the minds of the audience.

About the plot, there isn’t much to elaborate. 5 friends decide to go to a remote guest house set up on an election day to enjoy. The movie basically shows us the mindsets of all these men, their superiority and inferiority complex, their hypocritical stand on general issues and many more political and racial downsides.

As I said, it is those metaphors that follow you even after the movie is over. Dasan facing the same judgement he gave to the Chicken is sort of an interpretation of Karma and what generally has been happening in our social setup. By restructuring the familiar Police and Thief game, the movie wonderfully minimizes a bigger picture and shows us how it likes to insult the minority collectively. It is in that last 15 minutes or so we get to experience the pain and that segment really questions the system.

It isn’t like a single actor performed in a better way. The five of them were pretty damn good in bringing out the best in them to give those honest performances on screen. The required attitude was there in their portrayals. Abhija also delivers a good performance on screen as Geetha.

The movie in its entirety belongs to the director and I really admire the effort Sanal Kumar Sasidharan has put up to make it look that real. Any of you who have been a part of such drunken days with buddies can easily relate to the way things develop in the movie. Ozhivudivasathe Kali has a really good amount of natural humor to its credit. Almost the entire second half of the movie is captured in a single shot and kudos to the team for achieving that. The content as I already praised, steadily establishes its politics through many instances. Male supremacy, racist thoughts that come out, the sudden compromise on all that for temporary pleasure and the coalition they show in abusing the lower one (according to them) are those striking elements of the film which holds the mirror to a society which shows double standards. Really good cinematography and the edits were also nice. Live sound was used effectively and if that rain was artificial, that’s a great achievement.

Ozhivudivasathe Kali is that politically strong cinema which succeeds in making us think about a lot of unhealthy things happening in our system. It isn’t completely a film that blends the treatment difference between the so called commercial and art house cinema. But it is definitely a movie that needs to be seen because of its strong statement and the innovative making style.

Rating: 4/5