Kathal provides food for thought

The film’s apparent light-heartedness allows you to find traces of yourself in the lead character, which I enjoyed. Pic/Youtube

This summer when we were in Goa, I introduced my partner to the marvel that is the jackfruit tree. He was as astonished as I have always been by the ratio of tree trunk to fruit size. He even choreographed a photograph where we held our unusually tall child against a low-hanging specimen so he could illustrate to his family back home just how large a jackfruit is. We took other photographs to show how it can also grow at spectacular heights. He's never been a fruit lover. The opposite, in fact. I cannot even eat an apple in the immediate vicinity of where he's sitting. It repulses him. So, I couldn't convince him of the joys of the ripened flesh or help him understand why my brothers often take an entire fruit, the weight of a piece of fully packed cabin luggage, for sure, all the way from Goa to Dubai during summer. He did, however, grasp the enormity of the prickly green large sac-like fruit. This came in handy when I tried to sell him on the idea of watching Kathal, which released just last week on Netflix. Someone I follow on Instagram had mentioned that the film was a pitch-perfect satire, and it came highly recommended by them. I took one look at the trailer and felt convinced. Give me a protagonist who is female, from a lower caste and is in a position of relative power and I am a willing audience member. So, one day after it was released, my partner and I watched this delightful treat.

We have not been able to stop talking about it. Every day, in random moments, a thought occurs that takes one of us back to a scene and we are compelled to think about the genius of the script. Pitted as a ‘jackfruit mystery', the plot essentially revolves around two jackfruits from a ‘Malaysian breed' that go missing from a politician's garden. The police must ‘investigate' this ‘crime'. What unfolds is an excellent cinematic instance of the interconnectedness of systemic issues. The film explores dimensions of caste, sexism, dowry, sex trafficking, corruption and so much else, through the lens of humour, without downplaying the weight of any of these issues, in fact, the seeming ‘lightness' of the script magnifies these evils, revealing their continued grasp on Indian society.

There's so much that I'm dying to say about the film, but I'm restraining myself in case you have yet to watch it. I don't want to spoil even a second of it for you, because the suspense is oddly dramatic in how you await, with bated breath, the big reveal about the identity of the thieves, and yet, you are distracted by the series of events that lead the investigators from one place to another, on the hot trail of stolen fruit. All the characters are relatable, and, to a certain extent, they perform as stereotypes, and the costumes exaggerate their tweaks, serving as a constant reminder of the theatricality of it all, which is undercut by skilled acting. There's this delicate line between farce and reality that is constantly threaded, accounting for the film's entertaining qualities. The comedy doesn't come at the expense of narrative authenticity. Every single plot twist feels wholly believable and convincing; totally plausible. This is its biggest strength.

We wondered about all the ‘in-jokes' that were also place-specific; little nuances that were embedded in the script that would render it even more relatable to small-town audiences less anglicised than us. I found my partner frequently returning to scenes in the film, re-watching them to laugh all over again, or to revisit a detail. What floored us both was how the filmmakers and scriptwriters never forgot about their allegiance to the plotline as well as to the genre of satire, which comes across so well in the casting choices. The light-heartedness inures you slightly from the inherent darkness of the themes, but it also allows you to find traces of yourself in the lead character, which I enjoyed.

The worst thing about watching a film like Kathal is that it sets a precedent. You want more films that echo its tenor, but that's difficult to find because most other films tend to disappoint mid-way through. This film had a feminist, intersectional core that really spoke to me. I already feel the void of there being too few others like it that are new and resonate with the bizarreness of the times we are forced to inhabit. Because when our political realities start to feel stranger than fiction, we need fiction to step up its game.

Deliberating on the life and times of Everywoman, Rosalyn D'Mello is a reputable art critic and the author of A Handbook For My Lover. She tweets @RosaParx
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