‘The Kerala Story’ comes riding on a raging controversy. The filmmakers, director Sudipto Sen and creative producer Vipul Amrutlal Shah, insist that their film is based on the ‘true story of 32,000 young women’ from Kerala who were held captive in ISIS camps on the border of Afghanistan-Turkey-Syria after having been converted to Islam. Those who have been vociferously protesting, and this includes the Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, have called the film out for being nothing but a clutch of blatant lies, and likened it to hate speech.
In the past week, this figure of ‘32,000’ which was mentioned in the film’s trailer, has been reduced to 3. This changes everything: the makers have practically admitted that their initial figure was highly exaggerated, and to extrapolate its sweeping claim from such a miniscule figure is nothing but gross misrepresentation.
The film itself is nothing but a poorly-made, poorly-acted rant which is not interested in interrogating the social complexities of Kerala, an India state proud of its multi-religious, multi-ethnic identity. All it is intent upon is creating the most simplistic, paper-thin characters to tell us that Kerala is in danger because its innocent, naïve Hindu and Christian girls are being swayed by evil Muslim men, and radicalised to the point of no return.
Bright-eyed Shalini Unnikrishnan (Adah Sharma) fetches up at a nursing college in Kasargod. Of her three roommates, one is Hindu, the other is Christian, and the third, Muslim, the kind of mix so easily to be found in Kerala. Right from the get-go, Asifa (Sonia Balani) starts her mission of brain-washing the other three: girls who wear the hijab are safe from the lecherous eyes of men; other gods are weak; and only Allah can save the ‘kaafirs’ who will otherwise have to face (dozakh) hellfire and damnation. Personable young men whose job is to ensnare and impregnate unsuspecting young women, and crafty maulvis are part of the mix, and within no time at all, Shalini, Nimah (Yogita Bihani) and Geetanjali (Siddhi Idnani) have fallen under Asifa’s spell.
An attempt to understand just how presumably educated young women — the literacy levels in Kerala have always proudly been the highest in the country — can become quite so enamoured of an ideology so much at odds with what they’ve grown up believing (or not: one of them is an atheist) would have lent ‘The Kerala Story’ welcome depth. But that’s not the kind of film this is, replete with such incendiary lines as ‘poore Kerala ko time bomb ke oopar rakha gaya hai; former deputy CM ne kahaa hai ki agle bees saal mein Kerala Islamic state ban jayega’ (all of Kerala has been placed on a time bomb; the former deputy CM has said that in the next twenty years, Kerala will become an Islamic state)’. No one seems to have ascertained whether the real-life person being alluded to actually ever said this, or has it been twisted out of context?
All the Muslim figures in the film are dark and intimidating, and ‘love jihad’ is their weapon of choice. Shalini aka Fathima Ba (Adah is a competent actor, but is made to cry and snivel through the film) finds out she’s pregnant and instantly behaves as if it’s the end of the world: she is studying to be a nurse, these are modern times, has no one heard of medical terminations? Her journey from Kerala to Sri Lanka to the ISIS camps where the Taliban reign, is filled with the most gruesome visuals — men and women and animals are hacked to pieces — and she ends up being flung into a group of women who are condemned to being ‘sex-slaves or suicide bombers’.
It is nobody’s case that the terrible events as experienced by the handful of real-life women from Kerala, or by women from other parts of the world brutalised by the Taliban, did not happen. But to claim that it is the definitive ‘Kerala Story’ and its 32,000 women, is patently false.
After two hours plus of being battered by a barrage of bad-Muslims-who-are-completing-the-job-Aurangzeb-left-hanging (not kidding, this is an actual line in the film), and listening to jibes at ‘Communists’, you wonder why those who want to create effective propaganda have not learned the tricks of the trade from the master, Leni Riefenstahl? At least then we would have been something to look at.
When a film shines a light on different aspects of an issue, it creates space for reflection and conversation, and you come away with food for thought. What about a film which does exactly the opposite? As a viewer you get to decide what you want from your film.
The Kerala Story movie review: Adah Sharma, Yogita Bihani, Siddhi Idnani, Sonia Balani
The Kerala Story movie director: Sudipto Sen
The Kerala Story movie rating: 1 star
