Language : Malayalam.
Director : Manu Warrier.
Writers : Anish Pallyal.
Cast : Prithviraj Sukumaran, Shine Tom Chacko, Murali Gopy, Roshan Mathew, Srindaa, Mammukoya
Genre : Thriller.
Streaming on Amazon Prime.
” Man always needs something to hate. To maintain that hatred between us, there will always be ‘them’ and ‘us’. A spark of hate is all you need. To ignite a raging fire. As the fire rages, we keep hating to make sure it never dies. In the end, we fool ourselves into believing we’ve won, and burn to death in the very same fire! “
Kuruthi is a gripping tale set on a 24-hour frame in a minimal space with handpicked characters that dickers with the communal dynamics of the nation. The movie starts with Ibrahim, a widower living with his younger brother and father in a sequestered place who’s going through trauma after a landslide has taken his spouse and daughter’s life a year prior. Since that fateful day, everyday looks the same. One night, he gets a knock at the door, that upends all their static lives.
The standard disclaimer for any film states that “All the characters and events depicted are fictitious. Any resemblance to a person living or dead is purely coincidental”. But Kuruthi clasps the politics and characters that symbolically buttress their positions that won’t make it fiction and it sinks deeply into your mind and explicates the reality of the society we live in. Apart from the cinema, the linguistics of Kuruthi is something that got my interest, the politics that needed to be told at these times. The film trickly exposes your innermost and ask you to take a stand. Asks who you are? What you got inside? The conversations that follow questions your beliefs, humanity and yourself.
Mamukkoya’s Moosa Khader is lit, with some catchy moments. Prithiviraj does his usual mannerisms and doesn’t bring any extra dimensions to his character and it felt a little cringe too. Srinda could’ve been done better. Aside from this, others did a pretty good job.
The film shows you how extremists from both communal grounds are being sown by hatred and violence. When they speak and clash in the name of what they are, the movie also picks up space for a thick line of humanity that is trapped in between. At that point, Kuruthi becomes holy without any bloodshed.
Kuruthi is bold with a better cinematic layout and performance, a movie that is requisite for some reason.
“Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.”
― Siddhārtha Gautama, The Dhammapada: The Sayings of the Buddha
Verdict: 5/7 Stars.
Excellent.
Trivia
Though the makers made the movie for Theatrical release, Kuruthi was subsequently released on Amazon Prime.
