Love: How a Small Film Alone Reflected Much Larger Realities
There are films which announce their arrival with a mammoth marketing budget, an impressive cast, and a lot of commotion. Then, there are films like Love (2020, Malayalam) directed by Khalid Rahman, which seamlessly enter a cinema hall and an OTT platform, and remain etched in memory for much longer. While positioned as a domestic drama, Love cleverly teased the audience with something far more intricate: the psychological thriller. Still, what was even more spellbinding was how the cast and crew’s own journeys in life coincided with the movie’s intricate layers.
A Story Within Four Walls, But Regarding The Outisde World
On the one hand, Love takes place in the confines of an apartment. Anjali (Rajisha Vijayan) and Anoop (Shine Tom Chacko) are a married couple whose relationship is hanging by a thread. Heated discussions arise and the escalation of tension brews. What starts as a disagreement takes a much darker turn and descends into violence, hallucinations and a tangled mess of what is real and what is imagined.
This is how many viewers of Indian origin could picture such a background. A marriage which is allowed to rot away and is touted as merely “normal” is something that is whispered about, but very few dare to expose. During the lockdown period of COVID 19, the film’s claustrophobic energy was all the more relatable as couples across the nation were held captive to their houses. Love was not a mere thriller; it was also a reflection of Indian homes where hand to hand battles go unnoticed.
Shine Tom Chacko: From Controversy to Complexity
Shine Tom Chacko as Anoop has always had a reputation for taking risks, both in real life and in cinema. His life and career seem to have been a proverbial rollercoaster, which is how they are punctuated by controversy in the personal life and choices that are borderline insane. For many years, the perception of the public was that Shine was far too unpredictable a character to be the hero that the malayalam cinema required.
In Love, the exact same thing which made it hard for most to predict his every move, managed to progress his career. Anoop was an unpredictable character: one minute charming and the next volatile, but always leaning on the faintest glimmer of a thread.
To Shine, Love served as a critical juncture. It served as a reminder to the public and the industry alike that he was, despite all his controversies, able to carry a movie with brilliance and depth.
Rajisha Vijayan: Breaking Out of the “Good Girl” Image.
Rajisha Vijayan until that point, had probably received a more tender and sympathetic take for most of her roles. On the girl next door image for the movie Anuraga Karikkin Vellam, her image was that of a warm and gentle person. In Love, however, she utterly destroyed that belief. Anjali is neither a victim nor a saint. She is deeply layered, angry, and capable of making shocking decisions.
Rajisha has spoken on many occasions as to how, when it comes to Malayalam cinema, the industry is not particularly welcoming when it comes to complex characters for actresses. Love is one movie that gave her that opportunity. She embraced the challenge and came out triumph triumphantly, fully showcasing her ability to incorporate complex character arcs. That character for a lot of younger women in the state was the embodiment of the saddening frustrations that marriage is able to silence in a deeply patriarchal society.
The Director’s Focused fixation the New Setting
The previous work of Khalid Rahman on Anuraga Karikkin Vellam and Unda had already earned him acclaim, and the realism and entertainment balance in both these films were impeccable. With Love, he chose a more experimental approach. Asking the question of whether a single location setup (apartment) would retain the attention of the audiences for the entire duration of the film would be a creative risk. However, Khalid Rahman mastered the atmosphere: the shadowy frames, the moody lighting, and the sudden shifts in the tonal made his audience restless.
There is an intriguing detail: Love is the first rollercoaster of a film in Malayalam which was shot in the entire lockdown. The restrictions imposed for the pandemic ensured that the team was confined to a small area which was later termed as the film’s strength. The isolation of the cast and crew resulted in a remarkable story as it created an internal emphasis in the movie.
Audience Choir and The Social Media Stone
The movie poster released which featured a distressed couple frame Love as a relationship drama, and the expectations of the fans was a sobering story regarding the couple. However, the film was sensationalized and turned into a psychological thriller with strange elements. The reviews of the movie were divided, with some saying that it was bold and daring, and the others feeling a great sense of betrayal.
Those who have seen the movie all claim it is gaslighting, it is a hallucination cultivated from a traumatic marriage, or a bleak take on the strangling reality of middle-class life in India. This uncertainty became the movie’s main topic, helping it cultivate a devoted following from those who appreciate attempting to unravel erudite layers.
The Cultural Significance of Marriage in India
The way in which the movie Love tackled the sociocultural concerns regarding marriage in India is what made it more unnerving than any typical thriller. The marriage institution in India is often described as a pious bond and the crowning glory of social acceptance. Many still come from families that consider divorce or spousal dissatisfaction to be a grave taboo. Love attempted to breach that sociocultural silence by depicting marriages that are toxic, abusive, and dysfunctional.
Filmhacks on the kerala forums would quip that it is an oversimplification to say that Love is too real. What often draws Rajisha’s frustration is the notion that many women on social media often confessed to feeling, and men often quarreled over the question whether Shine’s acting was an exaggeration or whether it was spookily realistic.
Second Thoughts
And how some cinephiles truly cherished how the apartment gradually morphed into a character on its own. The walls and even the mirrors with the unglamorous corners seemed to do more than fade into the background: They held the characters captive, like a clasping vice. The cinematographer, Jimshi Khalid, sought to employ lower angles and muted tones to help the audience empathize with the Anjali and Anoop characters, as well as the intense suffocation.
Next to, or even more, ignored than the rest is the soundtrack. Rather than over the top, the film featured phantom pauses, with tiny, unnoticeable, and abrupt splotches of dynamic sound, to build the suspense. Such as the listeners who are accustomed to commanding soundtracks, even if agonizing or of terrifying scenes, are accustomed to, this frankness is almost disquieting, like peril is hiding in the silence.
Beyond the Love
Love may not have been a cultural reset, but the resurrection with Love has been a topic of interest for many during our years locked down for the pandemic. Many people found this film late which resulted in younger generations sharing theories and discussing the movie. Some discussions even went as far as theorizing whether the last scenes were a figment of a characters imagination or a sleep.
What it proved, especially for the cast and crew, is the fact that Malayalam cinema has the potential to grow, even with the restraints of a low budget, Love was able to showcase extensive and deep layer storytelling with the masterful use of confined areas for the film.
In the case of the audience, it was much more than a suspense-filled narrative. It served as a reminder that “love” within a marriage does not always gleam with the rosy color that society claims; sometimes it is a battle, a trap, or a mirror revealing the uncomfortable.
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