Unforgettably Mundane
Movie: Vith (Seed)
Concept and Realization: Don Palathara
Killing the father figure(at least mentally) is a recurrent motif in almost all Coming-of-Age tales. Vith discovers the emotional disconnect of a very Christian father and an indifferent son living amidst the High Ranges of Kattappana. But it’s not the tale but the depiction that makes the film unique.
Don palathara, who's earlier venture Shavam that captured the capriciousness of human nature with an hour long slice-of-life depiction of a Christian funeral, was also a representation of the mundane. Vith is his second feature and it attempts to discusses the edgy relationship which a father has towards his son by which he wants to pin the boy down to a life of his liking-- a life of going to the church on every Sunday and getting a steady job. The film dwells on this aspect of how the father/son duo are leagues away from each other in every aspect. The dream-like combat scene between the father and the son and the boy's indifference towards his father's advice of going home in order to take care of the cattle while he’s still in the hospital are all the pointing towards this growing disconnect between the two generations which could never be mended.
The major achievement of the film is that it prevents itself from getting too involved with the characters, this prevents the movie from being excessively emotional, whereby not losing it’s focus on what it wants to show.
The prayer scene where the boy gives lethargic responses to his father's litany, is at times hilariously in sync with the flickering showcase lamp-- intentional or otherwise-- it's a really good scene to look at. In another scene the Sun shimmers in and out, this could never have been captured with such elegance unless the film was in B/W. Attention to details like these are an indication of how the makers of it are serious about what they're doing. With a camera that remains a passive observer, but careful enough to place itself on a certain vantage point to take in all the necessary action, the film remains unobtrusive all through its length.
The background score is mostly limited to the location sounds and the only use of outside sound seems to be when the father is crossing a vast meadow-like expanse that is accompanied by an eerily airy sound that aptly suits the scene.
For me, Vith along with Sanju Surendran's Aedan were the only Malayalam indie films in recent times that paid careful attention to the craft in order to come up with something that is genuinely interesting. Don's films doesn’t crave for the pretentious splendour gained by most of our films in the international scenario, based on the strange excitement that they tends to wake in the audience who has not known the rules or the lay of the alien land on display. Such an excitement is based mostly on the concept of 'othering', rather than the innate quality of a movie. There's an instance in the movie when one character asks the other about how good the movie Maheshinte Pratikaram was, to which the other person’s reply is that, “What’s there in it for us, the foreigners might like the scenic beauty of the hills and the trees. For us it’s nothing new.” Did he just like that explain the concept of ‘othering’? No, I can’t know for sure.
Anyway, Don Palathara is one filmmaker to look forward to for his unobtrusively independent filmmaking.
Notes:
1. As per the credits, the film is inspired from the works of Alexander Sokurov, Béla Tarr, Michelangelo Antonioni and Nuri Bilge Ceylan.
2. Abhilash Melethil who co-wrote the script of the film is presumably the author of the Malayalam novel Pottalile Idavazhikal.
Where to watch? : Leave a message to the director himself on Facebook, he'll sent a private link of the film.
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