Angamaly Diaries

Angamali Diaries is one of those movies which you really have fun watching and completely forget about in one or two days. I had fun watching it even though it didn't really have a big impact on me. It's arguably one of Lijo Jose Pallissery's best work.

The movie follows the lives of a bunch of youngsters in and around Angamaly. The story starts right from their school days with the formation of friendships that last well into their adulthood. They aspire to form a respected gang when they grow up just like the older gangs to whom they look up.  As years pass the youngster's antics and comradeship lead their growth into a small yet well known gang. This is paralleled by the gradual urbanization of Angamaly and the yearly Angamaly church festival celebration.

The gang starts a pork business which antagonizes a notorious two man gang who have been controlling the pork market in Angamaly. During a negotiation with the two rival group, the protagonist Vincent Pepe starts a fight with the cronies of the rival gang, which ends in the accidental murder of a man by the hands of Pepe. This kicks of a chain reaction of feuds which both the gangs cannot control. The rest of the movie deals with how Pepe manages to buy off the witnesses even though he has to sell most of his family property.

A major theme which I could find in this movie is the deliberate attempt of the film maker to draw the audience's attention away from the hard and gruesome parts of life. Even though the audience is shown the happy aspects of their friendship, the unexplored and ever present hardness of life surfaces every now and then. The characters tries to dwell in the simple happy things of life when they can while the uncertainty of a lower middle class life always looms in the background. The scenes where the pigs are slaughtered behind covered sheds is a metaphor for this. The blood and gore is never shown, yet the audience is left disturbed by the desperate squeals of the pigs.The scene of accidental murder of the gang member doesn't show the actual death. Instead a series of reaction shots of the people around him register the folly and fatal nature of their actions. the film maker continues with this theme well in to the climax of the movie.

In a lengthy single shot climax set in the midst of a church procession in the night (kudos to the execution), all the conflicts come to a spectacular end. Fights erupt between drunk gang members and their would be assassins which results in the death of a prominent figure from each faction. One death appears inside a toilet away from the eyes of the audience and the other occurs when a man falls into a blaze of fire crackers and explosives. The audience only sees his silhouette inside the raging inferno for a moment.

Lijo Jose Pallissery and Chemban Vinod succeed in making memorable characters who are very genuine. Everyone who has ever been in a church festival and similar circumstances can relate very much to them. Lijo Jose Pallissery uses the Christian background and the usual gang dynamics to tell an amusing story, staying well within his safe zone. Its probably time for him to move on if he needs to be taken more seriously in the future.

PS: Sarath Kumar who plays the role of Appani Ravi blew me away. Hope we will be able to see his acting prowess again in the future.

Rating: That delicious lemon soda you had from the road side vendor.