Marco viewers take objection to violent scenes such as killing of a baby, pregnant woman being tortured

Unni Mukundan in Marco

While it is the censor board's scissors that a filmmaker dreads the most, the makers of the Malayalam film Marco have faced criticism from viewers instead, despite getting a clearance from the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC). Marco, which has had a good run at the box office, was released without seven minutes of content that the Board objected to, but viewers have condemned scenes of violence, including one that shows the killing of a baby and another featuring a pregnant woman being tortured.

The CBFC's regional office in Trivandrum has reportedly been inundated with complaints from viewers who have questioned how such content was cleared for release and urged for stricter guidelines on graphic violence in Indian films. A viewer, Saswata Guha, tells mid-day, "This is not cinema; it is barbarity. Yes, it is A-rated, but does that give a filmmaker a free pass to showcase such scenes? It features scenes of infanticide, children being hanged, pregnant women being tortured, wombs being smashed open, and unborn babies being ripped out. This is not art. This is a vile spectacle. That the CBFC allowed such sickening imagery to be screened is unforgivable. What happened to their responsibility as gatekeepers of ethical filmmaking?"

In the wake of these developments, the Board finds itself in an unfamiliar situation. Accustomed to facing the wrath of filmmakers for being too critical of their content and apparently tampering with a film's crux, it now faces accusations of leniency. Among the portions that the Board eliminated from Marco's final cut was a scene showcasing a child's head being smashed with a cylinder. Other scenes that viewers have objected to had also been significantly truncated, with an insider sharing that the final cut featured only 60 per cent of what was presented to the Board. The Board also requested the makers to submit documents of consent from parents of the children who were part of the film. A CBFC insider tells mid-day, "We did our due diligence. But we can't hamper the makers' creation either. A balance has to be struck, and we did that judiciously." mid-day reached out to the film's leading man, Unni Mukundan, and the CBFC but did not hear from them till press time.