Ullozhukku - bloated bodies surface

 

With this one movie, the peeve, females are not getting their dues, have perhaps moved. Everything is grey in Ullozhukku. Everyone has skeletons in their closet. We see one generation challenging another. Changing dynamics and the conflicting mindscapes of the key characters (Leelamma, the older mother and Anju the new mother) keep contesting for our petty allegiance.

 Leelamma (aka Urvashi) is literally a river of meandering emotions(undercurrents). She wades through tides of despair, bestowing hope on her daughter in-law (than her daughter) and ‘grandson’; yet, with each betrayal of revealing truth, soldiers on until redemption of hope. The initial battle of ‘values’ with every discovery of skeleton settles into a mutual empathy among the two protagonists. It was really interesting, to see Church being represented by a female (a ‘Sister’ but also sister to Leelamma!) playing the broker of truce. Perhaps, Christo wanted to underline that the undercurrents in female sphere are best navigated by females.

We are all born into innocence, love to believe in ‘true love’ and are fed ‘lived happily ever after’ stories in our adolescence. Anju also tries hard to believe and hang on to a ‘life together’, but enough tribulations jolt her in time. The pivoting climax comes when Anju (aka Parvathi) realizes what awaits her in a ‘legitimate and accepted’ life with Rajeev (aka Arjun). I presume, most females have a premonition of what life usually offers but few have courage to decide. I once wrote on Clara’s baffling choice to reject Jayakrishnan’s offer. Here, Rajeev betrays enough (typical male attitude of ‘sacrifice’ of accepting her despite her ‘shared’ past – from the days of Lord Rama’s accusation of Sita) for Anju to conclude.

From Leelamma’s sacrifice of wishes (to be a doctor) to Anju’s wish of marrying her love, the society have always decided for her in the name of family and tradition. But today, a woman decided to live ‘life’ on her own terms. Raise her ‘child’ along with some ‘mother’. It may not be acceptable to most of us. One, the child is not ‘legitimate’ - belongs to another man. Two, her choice to raise the child with an ‘in-law’ mother whom she has grown to understand more than her own real ‘mother’.

This subtle celebration of womanhood- the determination to break the mental entrapment - challenge societal norms - so called values and imagery of familyhood. The freedom to walk out.

The bottom line. A female decides to raise her next generation in the company of an older generation of her own choice. The rest are all merely labels (named relations such as husband, mother, father) that society puts on us. When women realize that true potential, everything pales into oblivion…as the two women row away...