Aattam – My Flash Review!

There are some films which after watching, you are eager to write a review. Aattam, a Malayalam film which means “The Play/Drama” is one such film. The film doesn’t boast of any big names in terms of cast or the Director.  Yet, in terms of screenplay, acting and technique it is one of the finest films I have seen of late.

Aattam revolves around a drama troupe that has 10+ male members and a lone female member who are all from different walks of life. In their personal lives, most of them are strugglers and do odd jobs for their living while pursuing stage acting as a passion. It is a tight-knit group and all is well till one night during a post-show success booze party hell breaks loose. There is an allegation of sexual harassment of the lone female member by one of the group members. What happens to the group and its members and how they handle this issue is the rest of the story.  In a way, the film is a commentary on what women have to go through post such harassment.

Director Anand Ekarshi who has also written the story and screenplay takes his own time initially to bring us to the core of the issue. You may wonder as to when the story will pick up pace or if any twist will take place. But, once the event happens which is at the core of the film, it picks up pace and keeps you very engaged. It proceeds like a courtroom drama at times, like an investigation procedural at times and at times like a social drama.

As the film is centred around a drama troupe, the director smartly chooses to give the look and feel of a drama to the whole film. If you have seen playwright and filmmaker Visu’s films in Tamil, you will understand what I mean. At any point in time in a scene, there are many characters, the characters keep talking and the camera keeps shifting from one character to another just like the focus light shifts on the stage of a play.  Ekarshi deftly etches out the characterisation of every member of the troupe and structures the screenplay so well that the film is a masterclass in screenplay writing.

For a film that is mostly set indoors that too with no scope for using different lighting or lensing techniques etc… what the cinematographer Anurudh Aneesh has accomplished in Aattam is something commendable. I have not seen cinematography providing such an immersive experience in a film in recent times. It is as if there are no fixed dialogues and the actors were just given the situation and were asked to speak in a free-flowing manner with the camera just capturing the scenes candidly.

This brings us to the cast which at the outset is brilliant. While all the actors are good, the stand out among them of course is the female lead Zarin Shihab and Vinay Forrt, the male lead. Zarin who reminds us of yesteryear’s Malayalam star Parvathi Jayaram embodies superbly, the pain of a girl who has to go through mental harassment that too by people who have been close to her. More than the sexual harassment act, she feels this is more insulting. Vinay portrays the complex character of a man who has his own insecurities and weaknesses while trying to be a sensitive man. He stands out in terms of performance in a few crucial scenes that are turning points in the film.

The end of the film is novel. It shuns the usual method of a proper closure and takes the path of keeping it open to give a larger message – which is “Is Hamaam mein sab nange hain”

It is not that the film has no flaws. The initial portions before the film gets into its main act could have been shorter. This is another Malayalam film that normalises drinking and post-drinking lousy behaviour of men.  The Director gives attention to a lot of details that you feel have some meaning later on but actually, they don’t seem to have any significance leaving you to wonder what the fuss was all about!

I come back to the writing of the film and the structuring of the screenplay. “Group Dynamics” is one of the most important topics in Organisational Behaviour subject in MBA. Group Dynamics is nothing but a study of forces within a group. In societies as in companies, a group has people with innately different backgrounds, motives, ambitions, insecurities, strengths and vulnerabilities. The response of an individual in a group to a situation is a function of these variables.  Therefore, it is important for any leader to have an understanding of the same and have the skill to handle these conflicting variables which is what the subject is all about.

Aattam showcases beautifully these dynamics among a set of men who react to a particular situation in a way initially, how after a lot of confabulations a consensus is reached, how the reaction changes and finally how the consensus breaks down when another variable comes into the picture. Aattam gives a perfect “Proof Of Concept” for the phenomenon of Group Dynamics and I feel that the film should be shown to all aspiring Managers.

Aattam is not a mass entertainer kind of film. For those seeking entertainment in films, it comes across as an Okay film. But for all students of cinema, I would call it a “Must watch”. It is now streaming on Amazon Prime.