Three weeks ago, a preview of the movie Kaathal: The Core, which is in the Malayalam language and stars Indian actor Mammootty, was released on YouTube.
It didn’t reveal much about the main problem in the movie but it started conversations in Kerala, where the movie is from. A famous actor playing a gay role got a lot of attention from fans, critics, and commentators.
No Indian actor with 50 years of experience and three National Film Awards, and a huge fan base, had ever played a role like this before.
Jeo Baby, who made The Great Indian Kitchen movie about patriarchy, directed the movie Kaathal which got people talking.
The movie is about a man who is secretly gay and married to a woman. Mathew, played by Mammootty, is getting ready to run in an election in his town. But his wife Omana, played by Jyothika, wants to divorce him because she thinks he is gay. The movie shows how the case affects their family and community in many different ways.
“I wanted to make a film about how LGBTQ people live with us and how they fit into our families,” Baby told the BBC.
The movie needed a talented actor like Mammootty to act in it. He also produced the movie. “He quickly understood the movie and was ready to take on the role. ”
The reviews say that the shows in Kerala were really good, and all the tickets were sold out.
The social media posts for Kaathal’s posters and trailer, including the ones shared on Mammootty’s accounts, encouraged people to leave comments. Some people who are against LGBT people asked others to not watch the movie and criticized the actor for his part in the film. Muslim leaders didn’t like how LGBTQ people were shown in the movie and were worried it would influence young people.
The makers and Mammootty might get criticized for this, according to Athul PV, who helps organize the Kerala Queer Pride.
“A lot of people admire him as an actor, so when he plays this character, you can tell he really thought about picking this role and making the film,” Athul says.
A lot of people in the LGBTQ community in the state liked how the movie showed the life of a married gay man in a caring way.
“The movie might have some flaws, but it’s a brave effort,” said Prijith PK, who started Queerythm, a group that supports the community.
Even though Kerala is a developed state with high literacy, it still has many areas that are traditional and male-dominated.
Roshni Prabhakaran, who studies how men and women are shown in movies, says there are not enough movies that show the LGBTQ community in a thoughtful way.
Malayalam movies have sometimes shown characters who seem to be queer since the 1970s, but one of the first big movies with a queer character was in the 2005 film Chanthupottu.
The movie shows a man who starts off as more feminine and then becomes more masculine. It got a lot of people mad because the movie spread wrong ideas, even though the person who made it said the character wasn’t gay. Activists said that the title of the movie was often used as an insult for transgender people. “Chanthupottu” means a red dot worn on the forehead.
Athul thinks Chanthupottu had a bad effect. “It made people think that this is how queer people are. ”
Lately, famous actors from Kerala have been acting as gay characters in movies.
Prof Prabhakaran says that Nivin Pauly’s movie Moothon got a lot of attention at film festivals but didn’t do so well with the general public. However, Prithviraj Sukumaran’s 2013 movie Mumbai Police received negative feedback for its portrayal of shame and homophobia, despite having a popular actor in the lead role.
Many people say that Kaathal is very different in that way. Professor Prabhakaran said we have not seen a closeted man coming out of a heterosexual marriage in Malayalam cinema before.
Gay men who have seen Kaathal, say that it’s obvious the movie was made with the help of the LGBTQ+ community.
The movie doesn’t discriminate against LGBTQ people like many other movies do, according to Prijith, who is a diversity and inclusion manager in Kerala.
“Kaathal is like saying sorry for how queer people have been treated unfairly and shown wrongly in Malayalam movies. ”
Mammootty’s strong presence affects both the movie and how people like it. Even though the actor is known for making his characters seem serious and deep, some of the movies he’s been in also have old-fashioned ideas and mistreatment of women.
In 2016, the actor got in trouble with the state’s women’s commission because his movie Kasaba had disrespectful dialogues about women. The commission said that if an actor like Mammootty delivers poor dialogues, it could make people think it’s okay and that’s not good.
“Prijith says Kaathal is being himself and undoing the tough, strong, arrogant character he usually plays in his movies. ”
Recently, Mammootty has been trying to make his mark by making movies under his own company and trying new things that may not be very popular with the audience.
In a recent interview, he said that every new Malayalam film is like a test to see what the audience likes. They try out new actors, new story topics, and new types of films.
“I believe this is why the Indian film industry admires Malayalam cinema the most. ” Of course, I also want my movies to be part of this experience.
Kaathal is about “a lot of men in our society,” according to Prijith.
“The movie shows that these are people who live in our houses. “