Ullozhukku is set in a small town in the Kuttanad region of Kerala. Every year during Monsoon, this place is flooded, forcing the residents of this quaint little town to depend on boats even to step outside their own homes. While this sounds bizarre to folks like us, the people in the town get on with their lives as usual. For a good part of their monsoon season, the roads disappear and the boats come out. But their daily lives go on without any interruption.The most striking aspect of this film has to be this eerily poetic setting.
We've seen this time and again in lots of Malayalam movies where the location becomes an integral part of the movie. In Kumbalangi Nights ( Kumbalangi), Maheshinte Prathikaram (Idukki), Angamaaly diaries ( Angamaaly) and many other movies, we see how the story becomes tied to the place. In some cases, the tales wouldn't have even worked if not for the setting. Such is the importance given to location in these movies.
Don't get me wrong. Of course, the performances from Parvathy and Urvashi are compelling. But in and around that flooded ancestral home, the sound of the water gurgling slowly or giving way as the characters wade through in long boats, the pouring rain, or the pitter patter of raindrops that follow the downpour. Water manifests in the form of a living character in this movie. Like an omnipresence, it witnesses everything that happens in the lives of Anju and Leelamma. The sounds of water are almost like the the additional background score that runs throughout this movie.
Water should always be treaded with caution. Even what appears like a silent, stationary body of water to the untrained eye might contain some of the strongest undercurrents one can ever experience. The movie is rightly named "Undercurrents" because underneath the happy smiling wedding pictures of Anju and Thomaskutty, there are evident cracks. As the movie progresses, we actually get to know how strong and intense the undercurrents are. But more on that later.
Women have historically had no agency. Agency here refers to a woman’s capacity to make their own life choices. Especially when it comes to marriage. From when they should get married to whom they should marry? The family decides; the women merely oblige.
If she has had the audacity to decide on her own, she is slut shamed and manipulated to adhere to the family's decision. It's a grave mistake if women choose wrongly for themselves, but when the family chooses, any ill-fate always stems from the women's inability to adjust.
And this lack of agency is not just to daughters and daughter-in-laws on the lower rung of the hierarchy. Even though it appears as though Leelamma and Jiji (Anju's mother) appear to have some sort of decision-making power, it's just an illusion of power and agency that they have been granted by paternal society. Power that exists only as long as the status quo remains unquestioned.
Urvashi as Leelamma is a treat to watch in this movie. As she holds on to every last bit of hope that her son will recover, and later when she believes her son will be reborn as her grandchild.
At one point in this movie, when Anju retorts, "Just the act of getting married does not make one a husband," Leelamma is taken aback. Because it is evident, Leelamma did not have any choice when she married her husband. She just dutifully played her part bearing children for him and raising them alone even after he passed away. It's unfathomable for her to understand why Anju wants to leave the home or How Anju could think of another life. Even though Leelamma is aware that Anju's marital life has been nothing but tending to her ailing son, she can
But Parvathy as the generational curse breaker is the reason this movie has such a powerful feminist message. Kudos to the director Christo Tomy for bringing across this beautifully in the movie without villifying women. Women are rarely unapologetic. Because society has always primed them to be grateful, timid, and fluid. Most women who get to this point also must have put up with a lot of bullshit like Anju. Parents who won't accept her life choices, husband who has no interest in getting to know her, a mother-in-law who refuses to see her as an individual with desires and dreams of her own. Anju isn't perfect either. Her choices don't always turn out to be right. But she desires the opportunity to decide for herself. And that is exactly what women having agency is all about.
At the staggering end of the movie, we see Leelamma and Anju walk towards a similar future. They may still not agree on everything. After all, they are two women from different generations. But they understand each other more than anyone else in their lives ever did.
Women have always been pitted against each other. Especially the mother-in-law, daughter-in-law relationship is often portrayed negatively. And this negative portrayal benefits patriarchal society more than anyone else. But despite generations of women being pitted against each other, the sisterhood still survives. Like it always will. Catch this movie in Amazon Prime Video : https://shorturl.at/QQhp3
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