Utharam (ഉത്തരം)
What are the chances of a 1989 movie hooking you to the screen to the whole span of its run time? I’d say it’s pretty thin, but that was before I watched Utharam, a movie penned by M.T Vasudevan Nair and directed by Pavithran, a name I certainly can’t associate with any of the movies I have watched. If you check out the plot synopsis, there is hardly anything recommends a watch about the movie, but like all great movies, the intrigue is subliminal, that is at each turn of the plot is a new revelation waiting for the audience which rearranges the character motivations and makes you guess your internal predictions. Let me keep this review without spoiling the plot points for those who have yet to watch the movie.
How well do you know a person? Well, just as much as they let you in on and little more. Often times people show you that you didn’t know them just as much as you thought you had. No matter how well shared a life you have with someone, be it a friend or a life partner, there are always dimensions of them you have yet to see, aspects that would turn upside down what you were given to conceive of who they are. As Steve Toutonghi observes in Side Life, “With the world as with people, you know only the tiny percentage you pay close attention to.” So it was with Mathew when he was confronted with the baffling reality of his beloved wife Seleena’s suicide.
The movie opens with the suicide of a moderately renowned poet which leaves her husband and friends baffled. The distraught husband asks their mutual friend to solve the mystery and he embarks on a journey into the rabbit hole that is her personal life. It doesn’t reserve any shocking revelations but the unraveling of Selena’s persona is intriguing in delivering the kind of sensation the best of investigative thrillers promises. At no point does the movie breaks its pace or veers into detours to spice up the narrative even when rooms for them are wide open. It walks the audience through a trip down the life of a delicate woman from the time of her death right back to what triggered it.
M.T weaves a seemingly simple plot populated with characters of unusual depth and complexity to tell the tale of how memory of sensitive beings can go to lengths to insulate themselves with carefully constructed identities only to find themselves helpless against the onslaught of a traumatic reality. When Selena’s life is laid bare, a sense of pathos her vulnerability at being little in control of her life pervades the story and her friend Shyamala (Parvathy) comes off as a subconscious representation of Selena in many a ways anyone watched the movie can see. The subtle elements of patriarchy and social expectations play their conventional role of villains here as well in constraining the characters to make choices they wouldn’t otherwise make. The choices you make can be subconsciously driven by what you may not remember could be your take away message from this movie.
JJR