Film needs to be seen as a Film

I have not yet seen the recent malayalam film Aami . Without watching the film I will not comment on the film. I have seen some positive reviews and some dismissive reviews. The major disagreement seems to be about Manju Warrier could do justice to a rather complex and enchanting heroine that represented a real life person. Those who are not familar with the plot of the film, this is a film inspired by the well known writer Kamala Das who also wrote in malayalam as Madhavy Kutty and also took a name Kamala Surayya after she embraced Islamic faith. Given Kerala ' s preoccupation with writers and tendency to make them a sort of deified folk myths, the film evoked very different responses. Here is what I wrote in reaponse to a balanced review my friend Joy Kallivayalil

I think a film needs to be seen as a film in terms of its cinematic quality., script, direction, crew, editing, sound etc. The moment it is compared to a real life person who lived recently, it ceases to be a film.

And even when it comes to a person, there is a difference between the real person and 'constructed persona' or 'projected ' persona by themselves and 'reconstructed ' persona by media.

In a conservative society like Kerala where most are conformist conservatives, non-conformist writers etc are often deified in to folk myths. John Abraham is one.. madhavy kutty-kamala Das-kamala surayya too is a constructed folk myth. To some extent Vaikkam Muhammad Basheer and OV Vijayan too. A recent example is A Ayyappan.In many ways they symbolizes the secret desires of people to be non-conformist rebels though they cant do so as they tend be in a conservative society. Once they become folk-myths they get idolized, and revered particularly after their death. Such deified myths get marketed by media This has something to do with social psychology of Keralam.
.As a result of these folk myths there is hardly any objective analysis of their work or life.

For example if the film is shown outside Kerela, India to a non malayali community, the film will be more viewed as a film. i will see the film as film without bothering much about the real person or the folk myth that might have inspired the film itself. After watching I would write about the film as a film and not in relation to a person who lived in the recent past.
By the way, I remember my few meetings with Madhavy Kutty /Kamala Das during my teen age years when I was running a little magazine called Pradidhwani. She was very motherly to me. Gave tea and biscuts and poems that I published in 1982-3.