Masala Republic: A Parable Of Our Times
By Ajithkumar B
29 April, 2014
Countercurrents.org
"Masala Republic" is a political satire film released last week in Kerala. The film had a moderate reception. The story of the film, is that of a few young Keralite boys, who befriend two migrant workers from East India. Most of the migrant workers use Pan Masala, a mixture of tobacco and other spices, as a stimulant. The government of Kerala banned the use of Pan Masala in 2012. This is the take off point for the film, which goes on to depict the antics of a police officer who is adamant on implementing the ban at any cost and the various tactics of the boys to defeat him in his pursuit. The film also depicts the growth of a political party which tries to use Pan Masala to woo the large immigrant workers' population into their folds.
The film presents a fragmented narrative. This intentional fragmentation is an attempt to address the fragmentation of contemporary Kerala's social psyche. By this I mean our consciousness that is slashed every moment by the media and its evanascent concerns. The narrative follows a haphazard and random path, which to me is the faithful representation of the focusless life of the people, driven in brownian trajectories by complex social currents that defy understanding and that are beyond one's control. The life of the characters of this film both Malayali and Bengali boys are like that. Their drives propel them, but the direction of their travel is determined by factors that they don't grasp and things that they can't control. Like the banning of Pan Masala, the rationale of which is absolutely of no concern to those yearn for it and those who made a living out of selling it.
The antithesis of these focusless innocent boys is the too sharp focus and absurd determination of Shambhu, the self righteous police officer who is a true caricature of not only a certain well known police officer but also the self righteous hypocritic systems of moral authorities in various fields of our society. Shambhu represents both the police and the moral police. When an exaggerated sense of one's own righteousness marries unrestrained power, the common people with their weaknesses and wants become the enemy. The common men / women become criminals and the criminals including the politicians who fatten their pockets while distributing free food become accepted as necessary evil in a system that is the best of all possible worlds (Banana / Masala / Coconut / Rubber republics. The film exposes the injustice and inhumanity of such a system through dark humour that approaches the absurd.
But even Shambhu has a weakness, and that is media. The unholy alliance between the police, establishment and the fourth estate is caricatured in an unprecedented manner in this film. It is a fact that most of our investigative crime journalists don't do any investigation on their own part, but repeat verbatim the police version of any happening. They are almost like embedded journalists. If you are one who depends upon the commentaries of sold out journalists to make sense of the world, you wouldn't grasp this critique or enjoy the humour in Shambhu's weakness for the media and the beautiful woman journalist of Bhelpuri Channel. The staging of raids and police actions for the media is not a new thing in Kerala. People who swallow unquestioningly the pronouncements of contradicting "truths" by our media everyday may find this film bitter to their taste.
The film challenges face on the accepted common sense of our times in many ways with regard to content and form, and hence it is difficult for it to become a huge hit. Huge hits are always films that reinforce the accepted world view, and appeal to maximum number of people through their mediocrity and lack of innovative thought. But Masala Republic will have its own audience, people who will appreciate the way the film looks at things from a perspective that is detached, comic and genial on the one hand and involved, sympathetic and sensitive on the other, where suffering doesn't lead to sentimentality, but to comic rebellion where the clown goes on joking even when beaten up by the king's soldiers or the mob.
Ajithkumar B is an award winning film editor. He can be reached at [email protected]
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