Are you a Gulf Malayalee Family?
I saw the film, 'Aadujeevatham' last night and I must say I left with a kind of emptiness inside which I still felt when I woke up today.
It is a MUST WATCH for all Gulf Malayalee kids to just understand how difficult it is to live in a country that perhaps has all seasons but all of them look the same. With routine work even the season day-after-day is routine.
Prithviraj has outdone himself and he surely can be proud of what he has achieved.
• Every shot managed to make you feel everything the director wanted you to feel.
• Love was over the top and sensuous when shown
• Despair was more than one can handle to even watch, forget to feel
• Ruthlessness for no rhyme or reason left you questioning why him
• Scenes that were meant to make your gut turn does so, easily.
Ofcourse even if the story is inspired from a true event, the author of the book from which the film is adapted also had taken creative liberties in his narration and so has the Director of the film.
The movie is about good people and bad people and both sets pray to the same GOD. The movie by the end leaves you wondering if these two were left to this fate, was another two saved from this fate? The movie covers only Najeeb’s angst and tribulations and not of what his family must have felt and gone through. But one can only imagine as each one of us Malayalee have lived through the Gulf Malayalee term of uncertainties.
From a movie critic point:
• If you expect a song to break in the desert converting it to a beach then this film is not for you.
• If you are expecting some action-packed flying, then this is not a film for you.
• If you are looking for an adrenal rush and machoism then this film is not for you.
• Though as a critic, I found the film too slow and I also think they over dramatized some bits and parts and some unexplained scenes where logic goes for a toss it still is a good watch to understand and appreciate the earnestness of the whole crew for making this film.
Music: AR Rahman, still has it in him. The background score makes you feel like he sat in at the edit while he worked on the score. Every silence and emotion were amplified with the right tune playing behind. You will feel the yearning of an isolated man, his cry for help to God, the same God he is also angry with for his fate. The blend of Arabic, Indian and Western music is to be felt in a theatre setup. The soundtrack has meaning only with the film.
The movie is an ode to every human who takes risks in life only to make sure that their family back home survives and lives a better life. But what it leaves you wondering is… at what cost?
Though many Malayalee do end up in factories etc. as helpers, they stay around 10 to 20 in one room with zero privacy, 1-2 washrooms, food not to their liking, climate that their mind and body cannot agree to, with phone calls to family once in a blue moon, because even that money is saved to buy a little something extra when they plan to visit home.
There is a dialogue in the film at the end, when Najeeb manages to escape and is boarding the flight back home… “Everyone eagerly awaits your homecoming at the airport, only to find out what have you brought along with you…. a TV, a tape recorder, a mixie…”
I am a Gulf Malayalee product and this movie hurt me and will continue to do so. I may be wrong, but I think it’s very difficult for these families to be 'whole' again, even once they start living together. The gap over the years, even with proximity always remain. On a daily basis, the family only tries to survive as ONE.
This was an important story to tell. There may be so many such untold stories. To all those who were stuck working without their family besides them, but for them; Thank you and more than that Sorry.
-SuVi