A Potpourri of Vestiges Review
Murtaza Ali Khan
Writer-Director
Ajay Govind is set to release his Malayalam language film titled Madappally
United across India in different phases, starting with Calicut and Vadakara
followed by Mumbai, Delhi, Dehradun, Bengaluru, and Chennai. The film recently
had a special premiere at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi. Madappally
United is essentially a children’s film set in Kerala with cricket as its
central theme. It features 45 debutants along with senior actors like Srikanth
Murali and Savithri Sreedharan. The film has created a lot of buzz at the film
festival circuit all across globe. Other than being selected as best fiction at
the 51st Roshd International Film Festival in Tehran, it also bagged the Golden
Statuette at Iran’s prestigious film festival. The film has also won the Jury
Award for Best Family Film at the Indian Film Festival of Cincinnati as well as
the award for the Best Film with a Social Message at the Kenya International
Sports Film Festival, among others.
Set in a small coastal town,
Madappally United follows a group of children, 7 boys and 4 girls, who set out
eagerly to play cricket on a lazy Saturday morning, completely unaware of the
machinations that await them thanks to the larger forces at play. Aasif
Karim, the Festival Director of Kenya International Sports Film Festival and
the former cricket captain of Kenya, has described the film as ‘important’ in
his citation. While, Madappally United isn’t a typical sports film about teams
competing or winning, it’s about the right to play, camaraderie and mutual
respect, having access to safe spaces to play, and sports education.
The idea for the film first
came to Govind during his interaction with the children and others at the
Madappally School (in North Kerala) and neighboring areas. In 2019, he was
shooting a documentary for UL Foundation to capture the work they had done with
the students there. The foundation’s involvement and seeing the way the kids
were gave him that initial confidence to transpose a story he had already
conceptualized. Next he brought co-producers on board which included Ashok
Franklin and producer-director Jonathan Augustin. The film’s casting was always
going to be a challenge but Govind hit the bullzeye by bringing in the talented
actor and casting director Rajesh Madhavan on board who is responsible for
finding the amazing new talents (as many as 45 debutantes) as well as other key
cast members.
What makes Madappally United
really unique is the fact that it talks about cricket even though it is set in
a football-crazy state like Kerala. While cricket doesn’t extensively feature
as a sport in the film, the film has a lot of cricket references. There are
direct reference to Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni. The poster of Virat Kohli serves
as an important character early on in the film. One of the boys mimicking
Dhoni’s match-winning speech is again just a very real moment that most kids
can relate to. But it doesn’t just stop there. Going beyond the commonplace
practice of exalting male heroes, the film also makes a reference to the
ignorance of cricket fans towards the champion female cricketers.
Govind makes an interesting
choice to mostly shot outdoors and in real locations. What makes it challenging
is that it’s largely a one-day story set across locations. Maintaining that
light continuity throughout must have been the biggest challenge for the DoP Tanweer
Ahmed and it would have ultimately determined the shot design, choice of
lenses, among other things. Another major challenge evidentially would have
been to prepare these young newcomers for their respective parts. Govind
decided pretty early to not overwhelm the kids with too much of information and
mostly he followed a need-to-know approach. So, for the kids it was a constant
guessing game. For example: Why are they in a police station? Has someone died?
What has happened?
With rapid urbanization,
children are fast losing access to open spaces where they can play. While the
rich kids can still access the different facilities needed, those who are not
as privileged are totally deprived of it. And yet there isn’t any discourse
happening around this critical issue. If nothing is done right now then one can
only imagine how bad the situation would be in a decade or so. Madappally
United not only directs our attention to this conundrum but also makes us aware
about the role that communities can play in this. But we must start
immediately.
A version of this review was first published in The Daily Guardian.
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