Aattam (The Play) [2023]

 Aattam is based on the topic of sexual harassment at workplace. But, what made Anand Ekarshi’s assured debut feature an especially riveting and nuanced work, was in its manifestation of how this gets doubted, trivialized, and responded to in varying shades of offensiveness, insensitivity and expediency, through behavioural triggers that’re at times even subliminal in nature on account of normalized patriarchal tendencies.  That, in turn, can make even a seemingly safe and progressive workplace inherently problematic and fragile. And that’s not all. The director made the courageous decision to depict the proceedings through a multiplicity of male gazes, thus making it all the more visceral, and which he smartly filmed with elements of a locked room mystery and quasi-judicial thriller. The setting is an avant-garde theatre troupe, whose members pursue diverse professions – both white-collared and working class – and therefore belong to different economic classes, but bound by their love for the stage, even though it can’t sustain their livelihoods. However, it predominantly comprises of men, with Anjali (Zarin Shihab), who’s in a complicated relationship with a fellow actor (Vinay Forrt) in the midst of a messy divorce, being the only exception. Upon the successful staging of their latest play, they have a celebratory party where she gets molested by one of her colleagues. The men in the group assemble for an investigation into the accusation and alignment on how they should deal with the alleged perpetrator. The exchanges, however, take unpredictable turns with each new accusation, counter-accusation, rationale, revelation, and unanticipated extrinsic developments. The film ended on a brilliantly metatextual note where we finally witness the interpretation and representation of the proceedings thus far from the sole woman’s perspective.

Director: Anand Ekarshi

Genre: Drama/Chamber Drama/Mystery

Language: Malayalam

Country: India