Joji - Malayalam Movie

Anupama Chopra from Film Companion has given a review - need I say better than the movie? It would be personal, but glad to see Malayalam movies too being spoken and written about, not after winning awards, but at the time of release itself. 

Actor -Fahad Fasil (Now known as FaFa), Director Dileesh Pothan, Writer Syam Pushkaran ….A team of three, with three successful movies. They travel together, explore together have fun trust each other. Sometime it is tough and a burden. No fights but there would be arguments between Director and Writer on costume, sequence, etc. Shyam's style is story boarding kind. Keep developing mostly in the form of pictures. For Shyam location is integral to the story, only when that is finalized the story is elaborated. Vocabulary change as per the distance between the character, the energy is different based on the location. Though Syam writes the scene, Dileesh narrats the scene to the actors, as he is the director. He often shoot in chronological order, as it gives freedom to think where the narrative of the movie is leading – it is easy for the actor and team. As he gets into the flow, there is intensity, and fun. Tough to play a character inside a character which is done brilliantly. Fahad says he was Directors actor and said what was asked, there were different versions while shooting, but final selection was done by them.  Like Kumblangi night, had a house filled with men. But men here were more brutal. Exercise and interactions are fresh. Had fun performing be honest. If you can’t convince – confuse.

There is nothing happy in the movie – why this kind? Success of Thondi mudal gave confidence, realized that entertainment can be in different way. OTP platform, so the audience is wide and need not assure lot of entertainment. These two supported to make Joji dry. All these movie could have been commercial, but wanted to keep it as it is.  Now the content is pan India but there is no pressure. 

The two Js in JOJI are two hooks. After first J, there's a capsule. After second J there's I with a shot on its neck. Brilliant title design! National treasure award for trance, JoJI. From personal failures there are many places to go further from discontent and revenge to murder.

Who is there? One of the subjects of your kingdom. Kingdom is changed in to one of the rubber plantation in Kerala. 

Kuttappan P K, played by superb PN Sunny is formidable patriarch who controls his domain with an iron fist. Our first visual of him is doing pull-ups, suspending his sturdy body in mid-air. A little later he extricates a valve stuck in mud in a pond a job three men tried to do before him and failed. A poster boy for toxic masculinity. He equates manhood with physical strength, and is horrifically abusive to his sons. The eldest Jomon- a terrific performance by Baburaj is a divorced alcoholic. "My manual is my conscience" . The middle Jaison camouflages his range and claustrophobia and dutifully handles the accounting of their vast estate. Joji, an engineering drop out, concocts fanciful plots to get rich but spend most of the day lolling around. Early in the film, Kuttappan presses down hard on his chest and calls him a second-rate loser. He instructs Joji, to eat, shit and never complain. The script faithfully follows the dramatic principle of ‘Chekov’s Gun’, that if a gun is introduced in the first act, it must go off in the third. The film begins with a courier boy, carrying a package to the estate. As the opening titles roll, we see how far he has to travel to deliver his orders. We also see Jomon’s son Poppy  waiting eagerly to receive it. Within a few minutes, Dileesh expertly establishes the spaces of their house and an understated dread. We instinctively understand that this home, literally and metaphorically, lies outside the purview of civilization. Anything is possible here. Like in Kumblangi nights, this is a home teeming with men. Jaison’s wife Bincy is the lone woman in the mix. She is largely confined to the kitchen, but she plays a pivotal role in furthering the bitter tale that unfolds. Bincy played superbly by Unnimaya Prasad, quietly furthers her agenda. However, she seems to be driven, not so much by greed, as just a desire for freedom from the tyranny of Kuttappan. You get the feel that Bincy, who is smarter than the men around her , simply wants an opportunity to breathe. Joji’s motive are more complex. With every film, Dileesh and Syam seem to be reimagining Fahad in a more twisted and darker ways. In their first film, Maheshinte Prathikaram, he played an ordinary man seeking revenge after he is publicly humiliated. In their second, Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum, for which Shyam wrote the dialogues, Fahad played a thief and liar who still retains an essential decency and humanity. But in Joji, he becomes something else. An unstable misfit, frustrated by failure, and haunted by his own inadequacy. A man capable of unnerving duplicity, who discovers as Noah Cross so memorably said in China Town, ‘that at the right time and the right place, people are capable of anything. ‘. At one point in the film, Bincy tells Joji, to put on a mask and come. The film was made during the pandemic and characters wear masks in public spaces as a matter of course. But that seemingly ordinary line takes on a deeper meaning, because it encapsulates Joji’s life. His real feelings are usually buried underneath a mask of servility and familial concern. Fahadh delivers a performance within a performance . It’s stunning.  Dileesh also does away with frills. There are no songs – the humour is dark,there is this tragic comic thread with the local priest and the visuals are stark. DOP Shyju Khalid, who created those shimmering frames in Kumbalangi nights, goes for unvarnished textures. Their house where much of the film is set, doesn’t exude the warmth or intimacy of a home. Justin Varghese’s background score, Kiran Das’s editing and Ganesh Marar’s sound design skillfully intensifies our anxiety. Dileesh’s great talent is his ability to humanize his characters and find drama and comedy in slice-of-life narratives. In Joji, he steps out of this comfort zone, and creates a film, that’s haunting and deeply unsettling. Toward the end, the plot gets too blunt but this tale of greed and guilt, crime and punishment will stay with you. 

It is clearly stated in the start of the movie that it is "inspired" from Macbeth, but I had a feeling, it had traces of the Jolly real life incident. Anyways could be a mixture of both with imaginations added to it. There is visible instability in the character – but Macbeath was a stable person – as it is not a direct adaption, they had freedom and fun to do what they wanted. Joji doesn’t adhere to Macbeth’s plot as faithfully Vishal Bhardwaj’s Maqbool, which is the gold standard of Shakespeare in Indian Cinema. People should not consider this as an adaptation. The character of Joji doesn’t exude the doomed nobility of Maqbool. Tabu had garnered all praise there. Here, in fact, Joji is a coward. Joji‘s father calls him a looser, he is wearing a mask inside the house as well. 

The next Project they have together is 'Thangam' work on it will start in 6 months – Fahad has other priorities to attend in the interim.. Dileesh and Shyam gets some time to relax, untill then. Interesting thought that linger, is how negative can they portray Fahad.  

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