'Power'ful Humour
Movie: Eeb Allay Ooo
Dir: Prateek Vats
Eeb Allay Ooo are not words with meaning and are in fact sounds uttered by monkeys (“Eeeeeb”), langurs (“Allaaaay”) and humans (“Oooo”) in Prateek Vats interestingly theatrical debut, that works as an attempt to bring out the dynamics of power politics happening in India. For that matter, the overly dramatic action on display is justifiable as it serves in funnily exposing the primeval politics of Nationalism and Brahmanism trampling over the lives of the poor.
The film primarily presents us with the life of a jobless young man who suddenly gets recruited in a government post of shooeing away monkeys that reside on Raisina hill, the government district of New Delhi. What ensues thereon is all monkey-business, as the guy Anjani has to put up with (in a desperate and agonisingly confusing manner) all kinds of discrimination. A usual film would have focused on one of those areas of subjecting the protagonist’s dignity under question and would either end up with him being the powerless victim or as an avenger of his own rights. Eeb Allay Ooo transcends this generic idea and amalgamates it’s tension (along with an Anjani that grows more insecure, morose and pride-less) via what ensues in the main character’s work place environment.
Unlike Sanal Kumar Sasidharan's Ozhivu Divasathe Kali and even Lijo Jose Pellissery's Jellikattu that wanted it’s commentary to be so strong that the films end with a thumping crescendo as a culmination of all the tension that the films builts on themselves, Prateek Vats' debut is more balanced. It gets off its hook and becomes completely funny at one point before becoming menacingly serious at another. Vat’s cinema doesn’t seek for that cherry on top crescendo to leave the audience baffled, which makes its intentions very clear, that it’s not just an attempt to impress the filmgoers.
The fact that the film touches upon almost all aspects of the power dynamics existing in the country and doesn’t actually loose track of itself is something great. While Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra used the motif of a “Kaala Bandhar”(black monkey) in Delhi 6 to mirror the darkness within individuals that’s making them to act wildly, the monkey business here acts as a backdrop for exposing many evils and is not metaphorically limiting itself to a certain aspect. For instance, see how Anjani's brother-in-law is forced with a gun by his officials, and how he gave up his initial dilemma of carrying such a weapon of power, when he actually holds it up against a guy from the neighbourhood, as he looses his cool. It prompts a dialogue about the corrupting influence of power on an individual even if it’s not always his own wish to engage in senseless policing.
Saumyananda Sahi, the cinematographer of the film seems to know that the film is more than its frames and is more indulgent in capturing the emotions of what’s happening—be it in the dark alleys or during the rapture of the hanuman-god festivities. Prateek Vats doesn’t seem to show off his skills, and is more concerned with providing the issue at hand with an appropriate artistic depiction.
A guy getting lynched for accidently killing a monkey might seem strange to someone who's not accustomed to what’s happening in the country. But for us...we know better.👍
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