Human beings are certain to have a breaking level, the restrict until which they will take all of the ache and sufferings that life throws at them. Geetha, the protagonist of Fazil Razak’s Thadavu (The Sentence) being screened within the worldwide competitors class on the 28th Worldwide Movie Competition of Kerala (IFFK), doesn’t appear to have one.
Within the brief interval from the lifetime of the 51-year outdated that we get to see within the movie, she lands in a single disaster after one other, the newest one being extra grave than the earlier that it appears unimaginable that she would overcome it. However, for the lady scarred by two unsuccessful marriages and a collection of unlucky occasions, together with being blamed for a kid’s loss of life for no fault of her personal, the query of giving in doesn’t come up.
Razak, who has beforehand made brief movies which received appreciation at numerous festivals, doesn’t solid Geetha (Beena R. Chandran) utterly in a constructive gentle. In a sequence early on, she is proven unkindly shoving away an aged girl inside a bus, whereas at numerous factors later within the narrative, she is seen throwing out her daughter and a few of her closest mates from her home, presumably to save lots of them from the struggling.
But, we additionally see her singing merrily with the children on the anganwadi, the place she teaches. Here’s a girl formed by her experiences, and she or he doesn’t all the time react within the polished means such characters behave in mainstream cinema.
Portray such shades of a personality, who is meant to attract the sympathy of the viewers, is sort of a threat to take. The screenwriter appears to be effectively conscious of this truth, for in a single sequence, one in every of her mates says that it might be laborious to get any monetary contributions from the locality if a fund assortment drive is began for her medical therapy, contemplating her status.
But, this advanced character finally ends up drawing our sympathy, particularly within the painfully discreet methods wherein she makes an attempt to satisfy her younger daughter, even after her husband’s violent assaults.
The characters round her are additionally written thoughtfully, particularly that of her shut mates Hamza (P.P. Subramanian) and Uma (Anitha M.N.). It’s maybe uncommon for mates to go to such extents to assist out an individual in misery, however right here, a lot of it seems plausible and all too actual. One can not think about these characters behaving in every other means.
In addition they usher in some a lot wanted dose of humour to the in any other case miserable flip of occasions on the display screen. Beena portrays the character in such a means as to convey to us the burden of all of the sufferings by means of her life, and in addition by giving us a touch as to how she will need to have risen up every time.
Fazil Razak makes a promising debut with Thadavu, which isn’t a simple watch, however a rewarding one however.