27/01/2025
The Malayalam movie The Riffle Club, directed and shot by Aashiq Abu and scripted by Shyam Pushkaran and the team, is a well-done movie in Malayalam in recent times. The movie is allegorically narrating how imperialism intrudes into the normal life of indigenous people who possess integrity, character, and self-esteem even when deprived of ample resources. One of the protagonist characters, played by Dileesh Pothan, delivers a dialogue as the reason for their deprived state: they kill only for eating. The cinema completes the other part of the dialogue: they kill for their vital survival too. The movie starts with a brilliant scene, a birthday party, that imparts the shocking reality of an imperial-egoistic mindset. It shows how imperialistic ego works in every walk of life, even in a father and son relationship. It also narrates the deep-rooted ownership and controlling attitude of the imperialist mindset. The veteran Bollywood director Anurag Kashyap, who acted as the father, the antagonist, did a good performance. The movie progresses in beautiful storytelling with the profound film language, and it ends like a well-written short story. The movie is presentable to the international audience, even though it was made within the technical and financial constraints of an Indian vernacular language movie industry. The perfection in making might be an insightful realization to the aspiring filmmakers to witness that talent can compete with the technical and financial extravaganza of the Western and Bollywood film industries. Ashiq Abu's cinematography crossed the enigma of a novice. Thorough homework with each frame he might have done can sense in each shot. The Lubezkian camera movements and lighting are interesting. Some of the shots are visually poetic. Music and songs are up to the mark. The film reminds me of the iconic Vietnam War. As in the war, how the short, weak Vietnamese fight against the tall, masculine, high-tech-armed, arrogant American soldiers with minimum ammunition, the club members also fight with the same guerrilla war strategies and self-esteem for the protection of their homeland territory and their rights. The script would have been more bea