Jan.E.Man(Malayalam)
Starring Basil Joseph, Balu Varghese, Lal, Arjun Ashokan , Ganapathi
Written & Directed by Chidamabram
Rating: *** ½
This is the craziest most adorable film of the year. Or for that matter , any year. Basil Joseph who directed the supe-hero spectacle Minnal Murali to skyhigh glory, comes down to earth with a thundering thud. He exchanges hats to face the camera this time. Basil plays Joymon a loser in Canada freezing to death in the chill of friendless solitude .Even his mother doesn’t have time or patience to talk to him when he calls her.
So what does this loser do? He takes the first flight home to Kochi as he doesn’t want to spend his birthday with his college friends(who by the way have either forgotten him or would like to forget him).What happens thereafter as Joymon lands in Kochi has to be seen to be believed. And after seeing the wild zigzagging twists and turns in the plot I was unable to believe that this little miracle of a movie was actually happening.
Joymon and his two reluctant friends Sambath(Arjun Ashokan) and Dr Faizal(Ganapathi S Poduval) head to Sambath’s home where the entire family(reluctantly) joins in the birthday party for a man they hardly know or like.Joymon’s myopic selfinterest takes a solid thashing when the house opposite his party-venue has a sudden death in the family.
As the beareaved go into a deep morning Joyomon insists on his balloons and candles and music, while the dead man pregnant daughter wails in the darkness , and to hell with the sensitivities of the grieving neighbours.
The eccentric screenplay weaves in and out of the two homes facing one another in a seamless fusion of frivolous fun and serious grief. The chaotic landscape is somehow never over-painted. Characters come and go but never crowd the scenario. Each character is memorable, my most favourite being the selfappointed security guard of a man into illicit activities.
While Basil Joseph’s Joyon is a classic study of intellectual and emotional imperviousness, my favourite characters are Monichan(Balu Verghese), the estranged son of the deceased patriarch in the house opposite, who has the film’s most heartbreaking meltdown scene. Monichon’s sister has taken to sisterhood(a nun) while his closest friend is a lout who is constantly creating a rift between Monichon and his family.
The tiniest of cameos is painted in bold striking strokes. There are no big and small characters in Jan.E.Man. They are all what they are: people caught in the heads-and-tails whirlpool of partying and mourning,not aware where the one ends and the other begins.
Admittedly there are slivers in the plot where I felt the writer-director was piling it on too thick .The quest for a climax gets too selfconscious. Birthing a baby in the chaos is a cliché this innovative comedy could have avoided.But the larger picture makes the smaller follies eminently excusable. Jan.E-Man is huge fun without resorting to gimmicks or stunts. It is a film of amiable anarchy. The world of family chaos has never been more scattered
Embrace the chaos and you are in for a whale of a time.
