{"id":312,"date":"2026-07-21T15:22:03","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T19:22:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/polandinepatti.totallyfilmi.com\/polandinepatti-wp\/?p=312"},"modified":"2026-07-21T15:22:04","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T19:22:04","slug":"polandine-patti-episode-21","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/polandinepatti.totallyfilmi.com\/polandinepatti-wp\/2026\/07\/21\/polandine-patti-episode-21\/","title":{"rendered":"Polandine Patti Episode 21"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We introduce a new theme with a discussion about Historical films with Urumi <\/strong>(dir. Santosh Sivan, 2011) and Swathi Thirunal<\/strong> (dir. Lenin Rajendran, 1987).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Download Episode Twenty-One<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Episode Twenty-One Highlights:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spoiler Alert! We try to remember to alert listeners to spoilers, but just in case, know that we talk about the films in-depth, so be sure to watch them first if you\u2019re concerned about spoilers!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:00:40]  Harsha is keen to start the historical films series.  This was at the time that Ponniyin Selvan<\/strong> was released, and she\u2019s in a space of being very keen to explore Indian history.  She gives a shoutout to the podcast Echoes of India<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:01:02]  Katherine mentions she went to see Ponniyin Selvan<\/strong> in a very crowded theatre.  She notes the issues in Southwestern Ontario where a lot of incidents happen and there\u2019s an unofficial ban on Tamil films.  The screening she went to was at the TIFF Bell Lightbox, under tight security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:04:45]  Harsha notes that the film was released pretty much like any other American movie where she lives, and it was nice to be able to go see a movie without any prior planning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:05:35]  Katherine has read the book \u2013 which she knows is very beloved \u2013 and watching the trailer she felt that Mani Ratnam was getting things right.  She felt the respect for the material in the film, even though there were changes made in the course of the adaptation.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:07:26]  Both of us were hearing that people would have wanted it as a TV series, but Katherine notes that Mani Ratnam always said it would be two films, so it\u2019s not surprising it ended on a kind of cliffhanger note.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:08:50]  Harsha notes that those of us who are not Tamil speakers\/readers wouldn\u2019t have the same emotional connect.  Bottom line, though, it\u2019s a fun movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:10:00]  Katherine appreciated the care that went into the production, especially the costume and jewellery design<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:10:54]  Harsha notes that Katherine might be falling into the pit of comparing Ponniyin Selvan<\/strong> to RRR<\/strong> \u2013 she doesn\u2019t want to do that, but for her, the costume design fell short, with things not being remotely faithful to fashion of the period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:11:35]  Harsha hasn\u2019t seen the film, but has seen the songs, and notes that the costumes look more like something you\u2019d find in community theatre.  Which is fine up to a point \u2013 but for an audience who also might consume BBC costume dramas, for example, there is a level of detail and tailoring that goes into the outfits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:12:15]  Katherine thought the RRR<\/strong> costumes looked Edwardian, and the film is not set in the Edwardian period.  But the upside is that the film pushed Katherine to do a little more research on costume designing.  One of the videos she watched was about the costume design for Miss Fisher Mysteries<\/a> (which is set in the same period).  She wouldn\u2019t have expected that level of attention to detail, but you could at least look at the kinds of shapes and silhouettes.  But everything about the RRR<\/strong> costumes was some sort of flavour of Edwardian England.  For her, it kept pulling her out of the film.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:13:42]  For Katherine, it kind of spoiled the experience, and she notes this is a peculiarity for her alone.  Harsha rightly notes that it didn\u2019t ruin the experience for the majority of the audience for this film.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:13:50]  Katherine doesn\u2019t have high expectations for costuming, but would like to see some kind of minimum standard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:13:59]  Katherine also notes that Western actors in Indian films are not usually great actors, and we\u2019ll see that in some of the films we explore.  It\u2019s a reality that you\u2019re not going to attract an A list western actor to an Indian film.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:14:25]  Harsha says that since the death of Tom Alter there hasn\u2019t been a good white actor to play random colonialists in Indian cinema.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:14:30]  Katherine notes, though, that Tom Alter grew up in India and spoke impeccable Hindi and had a love for the place so he could bring something to those roles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:15:10]  Harsha notes there are some connections between the Ponniyin Selvan<\/strong> costume designer Eka Lakhani and Urumi<\/strong>, our first historical film of this episode (top hint, she was also the costume designer for that film.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:15:20]  The film involves Vasco da Gama\u2019s initial attempts to gain a foothold in what is now the Malabar region of Kerala, which at that time was divided into two kingdoms, one ruled by the Kolathiri and the other ruled by the Samoothri.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:15:45]  This has to do with the interactions between Vasco da Gama and the Kolathiri and the Samoothri rulers of Kannur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:15:50]  It starts with a young man in present day India who is trying to sell off an ancestral property.to a multi-national mining corporation.  He\u2019s home to take care of the paperwork and get through some red tape.  He gets kidnapped by some insensitively depicted indigenous people -Adivasis \u2013 and is told the story of his ancestor who, during the time of Vasco da Gama, was one of the people fighting against the Portuguese incursions into Kerala.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:16:35]  His ancestor decides he needs to kill Vasco da Gama, and he mounts a rebellion against him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:16:45]  Katherine finds it interesting to think back on this film, which was kind of considered as the first Malayalam global film, particularly since in recent years you\u2019ve had this heavy emphasis on Pan-Indian films, which are, generally, these big, blockbuster historical films.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:17:05]  Here we have a big star cast from across a number of industries, including Arya, Tabu, Vidya Balan, Genelia de Souza, Prabhu Deva.  This was the first time Katherine was seeing something like that, and she thinks they were breaking some ground with this film.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:17:30]  This was also the first Malayalam film that Katherine saw in a theatre \u2013 she watched it without subtitles, but then watched it again with subtitles when the DVD came out.  She hadn\u2019t watched it again until we decided to talk about it for the podcast, and she doesn\u2019t think it aged well.  Harsha agrees, and it surprised her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:17:50]  It was hard to find a Malayalam version of the film on streaming, mostly only the Hindi dub was available, so Harsha was watching it in Hindi (after having initially watched it in Malayalam).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:18:02]  Katherine\u2019s DVD was from Moser Baer, with terrible subtitles and their banner at the bottom of the screen.  They eventually disappeared, probably taking their back catalogue with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:18:20]  Katherine remembers enjoying the film at the time.  She notes, though, that she usually watches films for the podcast a couple of times, but in this case, she just couldn\u2019t go back and watch it again.  For her, some of it involved the camera work, with so many very tight shots, especially of people\u2019s eyes.  We joke about eye acting, but there were these intense close-ups of eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:18:50]  Harsha kept noticing that Prithviraj\u2019s eyes are not symmetrical.  She thinks, laughingly, that those are not the eyes of a handsome man.  But he\u2019s overall very handsome, so she was confused about the close-ups of his eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:19:07]  Katherine suggests that the budget for kohl on this film must have been through the roof.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:19;11]  Katherine notes that there is a gorgeous colour sense at play in the film, perhaps not unexpected of Santosh Sivan \u2013 good cinematography, good colour grading palette.  It reminded her of Anandabhadram<\/strong> (which we watched for the supernatural series), which was also directed by Santosh Sivan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:19:30]  Harsha was also making comparisons \u2013 everything has that slightly damp haziness to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:19:35]  Katherine comments that that is very Santosh Sivan \u2013 water, wet, reflective surfaces, mists, haze \u2013 those are all his hallmarks.  Even the colour palette, too \u2013 the slate greys, saffron and orange, golds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:19:51]  Harsha also assumes that this might be because of the dyes that would have been available.  Harsha recalls the research that Eka Lakhani had done on which dyes were available during the 10th<\/sup> century, and on which trade routes, to understand what was available at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:20:14]  Katherine agrees that this makes sense.  Katherine also comments on the costumes for the Portuguese, thinking they might not have been 100% accurate, but they were still close enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:20:35]  Once again, Harsha finds all the wigs to be a problem.  We complain so much about wigs in historical dramas, and Harsha feels that Prithviraj has the worst problem with wigs.  Who is his wig man?  His hair looks so ratty.  Prithviraj is a handsome man, that\u2019s not the issue here.  Harsha compares it to the elaborate hair that was going on in Ponniyin Selvan<\/strong> — the hair was so well done, especially for Vikram.  This is especially remarkable because normally men\u2019s hair doesn\u2019t get the attention that women\u2019s hair does, especially in Malayalam cinema.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:21:30]  Harsha mentions the \u201cSiddique Wig Quality Chart\u201d, Katherine\u2019s theory (about how you can tell the quality of the movie by the quality of Sidiqque\u2019s wig).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:21:44]  Katherine notes that some of this comes down to money, and wonders if things like the tight shots she found dizzying, especially in the action scenes, were because they couldn\u2019t afford to do really good action.  But you do what you have to do to make your money go as far as you need it to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:22:05]  Katherine had also forgotten that there were a LOT of slo-mo shots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:22:11]  Harsha\u2019s assumption was that it was to show the urumi moving, especially since this is the central motif of this movie.  It *is* very beautiful to watch the urumi being used.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:22:30]  It had been a while since Harsha had seen the film, but watching it again reminded her that she didn\u2019t like Genelia\u2019s acting in this film.  She does a lot of what Harsha describes as \u201cTelugu\/Tamil Manic Pixie Girl\u201d acting in the movie, in the beginning where she\u2019s playing a character in contemporary Kerala where she is intellectually not fully an adult versus her character in the past where she\u2019s just making a pouty face when she\u2019s supposed to be ferocious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:23:01]  Katherine notes that it\u2019s a shame, because technically that is supposed to be a good character, a woman warrior, but she just isn\u2019t able to give the weight to that role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:23:16]  Urumi<\/strong> was the film that had Katherine looking at Jagathy Sreekumar and realizing he was much more than a comedy uncle.   That was the moment when she started searching out more films that just didn\u2019t only slot him into the comedy sidekick roles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:23:35]  Harsha notes that in Urumi<\/strong>, he plays a kind of prime minister or privy council member or adviser to the Kolathiri king.  He\u2019s an effeminiate, gay-coded man, using some of his semi-feminine wiles with the king, making paan for him and things like that which would be considered a typical feminine role.  He\u2019s a supporter of Da Gama and wants more Portuguese interference into the kingdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:24:05]  Katherine has us take a step back, noting that in the conversation she and Harsha had prior to recording, she approaches the films as an outsider.  She did a degree in history in university, and one of the courses she took was an overview of the \u201cgreat explorers\u201d.  So she learned this history, but from a Western colonizer perspective.  Urumi<\/strong> was probably the first time that she saw that she had to take a step back and question the POV of that history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:25:31]  Katherine feels the film was consciously trying to reframe that history, using the idea of globalisation as the new colonisation.  The films in this series have her thinking about what she knows, what she needs to think about, and what she clearly doesn\u2019t know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:26:12]  Harsha\u2019s primary school education was mostly in Indian schools, and what she remembers most from her books was that Vasco Da Gama came to India for pepper.  But in her Malayali culture, there are songs mocking Vasco Da Gama.  He\u2019s a kind of hoity-toity clownish figure in Malayalam culture in general.  So she did know watching Urumi<\/strong> that he wasn\u2019t a \u201cgood guy\u201d from a Malayali perspective.  What she got was a kind of nuance: you always hear about all these small kingdoms fighting each other and jostling for power, and that created tensions that Europeans could exploit to their own advantage<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:27:11]  Harsha did read something that suggested that the way things happened in the film is not actually what happened, because the Samoothiri  was the one who was very against the Portuguese and the Kolathiri was actually quite favourable to them. And there couldn\u2019t have been much of a dispute between the Arakkal family (the only ruling Muslim family of Kerala) and the Chirakkal family because the Arakkal Beevis were descended from the Chirakkal house, and they always maintained good relations.  So there are a lot of nuances to this story, but the film gives you the general gist that it\u2019s because of all this jostling for power among these groups that the Portuguese got the chance to come in and take over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:28:11]  Katherine wishes that Da Gama had not been portrayed as a giggling loon (though as an afterthought,given what Harsha has said about how he\u2019s perceived in Malayalam culture, maybe that makes sense).  From what she\u2019s read he was incredibly ruthless, and she would have no qualms about that depiction at all.  She notes that the opening scene, where there is a mass killing, that is actually recorded history. Also where he has them slice off the ears of the messenger and sew a dog\u2019s ears on is, perhaps, an apocryphal story, but given how ruthless Da Gama was supposed to have been, it certainly could have happened.  She did set some of the portrayal stuff aside because it always comes down to the quality of the (Western) actors, and she\u2019s fine with the reframing of history to show how ruthless these people were coming in to, essentially, colonise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:29:33]  Harsha notes that even if the dog story is apocryphal, there is recorded history of maiming and injuring people for many colonizers, so it\u2019s clear that some of this is taken from the general history of European colonisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:30:23]  Katherine says that we need to keep challenging the notions of who is \u201ccivilized\u201d and who is \u201cuncivilized\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:30:25]  Harsh feels that Prithviraj did a solid job in a role that is very much up his alley.  It\u2019s at the beginning and the end where he\u2019s playing a \u201ccasual young man of today\u201d \u2013 we\u2019ve discussed this, he as an actor is not very good with \u201clightness\u201d.  So here he has to play a light character and make funny faces because he\u2019s been kidnapped by scary Adivasis and that is not as convincing.  But what he does in the proper 1400s chunk in this movie he\u2019s very much playing this fierce warrior who\u2019s rescuing girls, beating up Europeans, and putting people in their place.  That is a very satisfying character.  Chirakkal Kelu did exist in the past, though the script writer has taken a lot of liberties with his story — why he wants to kill Da Gama, and why he died in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:31:40] Harsha sees Prabhu Deva as probably the most solid core of the movie.  He\u2019s very good in the book-end portions set in the contemporary era and also in the parts set in the past.  You get the benefit of having a very experienced hand playing his character because he\u2019s kind of a sidekick, but brings a lot of pathos to the role as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:32:02]  Katherine notes that Prabhu Deva brings what Prithviraj can\u2019t bring because he\u2019s playing this solid, solemn warrior.  So it\u2019s nice to play off each other with what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:32:20]  Harsha thinks Prithviraj is very fearless warrior, but he\u2019s not swashbuckling.  Prabhu Deva gets to do a little more of light swashbuckling.  And he gets to flirt with the girls, especially Nithya Menen\u2019s character.  Harsha loves their portions of the film because they\u2019re both very into each other and he\u2019s just like, \u201cThis girl is into me, too?\u201d in the parts where she\u2019s flirting with him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:32:40]  Nithya Menen plays a noblewoman, a princess, the Kolathiri\u2019s daughter.  She decides she\u2019s taken a fancy to these two guys who rescue her, but especially Prabhu Deva.  He plays a Muslim character, who is not as high caste as Prithviraj\u2019s character, but she has her heart set on him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:33:10]  Katherine notes that the relationship is very cute, and Harsha mentions the \u201cChimmi Chimmi\u201d<\/a> song, which is also very cute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:33:13]  Katherine notes that the songs are wonderful, and they did hold up for her (where the film did not). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:33:25]  Harsha thinks the films is still a solid watch, but what it represented in 2011 was very much of its time.  It was definitely an event to go watch this movie, and to have all these pan-Indian stars come together to make a movie that is fundamentally of Malayalam cinema.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:33:50]  Harsha notes, too, that this represented the dawn of August Cinemas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:33:54]  The other unfortunate thing, for Katherine, was that at the beginning of the film, in the part where Arya\u2019s character kidnaps Prithviraj, they couldn\u2019t get Arya to do the dubbing, so Prithviraj dubbed them, and that gives you Prithviraj and Prithviraj in terms of voices.  But she feels they were doing the best they could with the money they had at a time when nobody was thinking this far into doing a film with this cast from across Indian industries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:34:35]  Katherine is reminded that they had big plans for the film.  They were going to do an English language version.  Nothing ever came of it in the end, but they did have big plans to go further with the film at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:34:48]  What Harsha read about that on the Wikipedia page was that it was going to be a Da Gama biopic.  Katherine thinks that could have been unfortunate, depending on how they did it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:34:57]  Katherine notes, too, that there was a plagiarism suit for one of the songs, \u201cAaro Nee Aaro\u201d, filed by Canadian musician Loreena Mckennitt.  A judge prevented the makers from releasing the film\u2019s music in English, Hindi, and Tamil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[0036:50]  Katherine wonders if that influenced what they could do with the film, taking the air out of the balloon they were trying to lift in terms of reaching a wider audience.  She reminds us they were trying to do something unique at the time in Malayalam cinema, and more than a decade later, those kinds of things are more successful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:37:20]  Harsha believes that the role Malayalam cinema is playing today in Indian cinema was the vision Prithviraj had ten or fifteen years ago and what he was talking about back then.  Unfortunately, partly because of the decline of Hindi cinema and what it is bringing to the audience, Malayalam cinema found a void to step into.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:37:50]  It\u2019s not just because Hindi cinema has, fundamentally, a lack of fresh talent, or that the families have a monopoly on star power in the industry.  It\u2019s also because of the government in India right now having a boot on Hindi cinema\u2019s neck, so they\u2019re not able to do interesting things they way that Malayalam cinema is allowed to do partly because it has a state government that doesn\u2019t interfere as much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:38:30]  In a lot of ways, Kerala and Tamil Nadu get the brunt of national Hindutva anger about the kind of things in Kerala and Tamil Nadu being a bit independent from the Modi government.  They\u2019re able to keep doing these movies that aren\u2019t influenced as much by the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:38:54]  Harsha points to an interesting article in the Washington Post about how much the Modi government has been interfering in Bollywood.   (We\u2019d link to it, but it\u2019s paywalled).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:39:15] Katherine brings things back to Prithviraj who has, for years, said that Malayalam cinema deserves a wider audience.  As Harsha notes, Mollywood has the content for it, but it\u2019s been hard for people to access it.  The last few years, though, have proven Prithviraj right.  The minute people started being able to access more movies on streaming with subtitles, the fans just started coming in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:40:00]  Now it\u2019s almost a clich\u00e9 to say that Malayalam cinema is the best in India \u2013 Harsha feels it\u2019s the cynical Malayalee in her that feels like they\u2019re just saying what everyone has been saying, being just a bandwagon jumper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:40:15]  Katherine notes we\u2019re seeing this not only in Malayalam cinema, it\u2019s also happening with Tamil and Kannada cinema as well.  Kannada has had a kind of root of very good films and filmmakers, but they never seem to have enough of it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:40:49]  Kannada cinema for the longest time was kind of the ugly step-child amongst the other South Indian industries.  Tamil and Telugu could always say, \u201cWe have big budgets and big fan bases,\u201d and Malayalam cinema could say, \u201cWe have the content,\u201d but Kannada cinema didn\u2019t quite have an identity amongst those three.  Now it\u2019s got KGF<\/strong>, it\u2019s got Kantara,<\/strong> it\u2019s definitely developing a stronger identity than it had in the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:41:15]  Actually, a lot of people who are not native Kannadigas, we\u2019re having a lot of Tulu speaking actors, people from the Bunt community who are becoming Kannada stars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:41:33]  It\u2019s interesting to think about how Karnatika itself is divided  linguistically between Kannada, Konkoni, Tulu, and some of these smaller languages that exist in that state.  Harsha has felt that is part of the reason  Kannada cinema has had a hard time dominating.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:41:50]  When Katherine thinks of the good Kannada films she\u2019s seen, a lot of them tend to be art house films that would have gone to festivals.  Harsha notes that Mani Ratam\u2019s debut film Pallavi Anu Pallavi<\/strong> is the only Kannada movie she can think of.  Katherine saw a film called The Turtle (she couldn\u2019t recall the title in Kannada, but it was the film Koormavatara<\/strong>, directed by the pioneering parallel cinema director Girish Kasaravalli).  So Katherine knew there were good films being made there, and the potential for more, but she didn\u2019t expect to see the growth in the Kannada industry that has happened in the last few years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:42:25]  Looping back around to historicals:  historical and period films allow people to reclaim their history, and that\u2019s part of what they\u2019re doing in all of this storytelling, in these films that we\u2019re starting to see throughout all of these industries.  It\u2019s a good time for the, especially, because there are now budgets for them, and there are technological advances which means the films look much better, so maybe it\u2019s not surprising that we have this confluence of all of these things happening and we\u2019re seeing a bunch of great big period\/historical films.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:43:04]  Harsha notes that specifically a lot of this is happening in the south because what\u2019s happening in Bollywood is Akshay Kumar is making a lot of historicals and they\u2019re not great.  They have a very firm point of view, and it\u2019s not necessarily one that\u2019s interested in entertaining so much as inspiring with jingoism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:43:28]  We are getting a lot of historical films, but there\u2019s definitely a divide between ones that are becoming a hit with people, versus the ones that are not and are there to serve an agenda.  RRR does a little bit of both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:43:48]  Katherine mentions Asim Burney from the Khandaan Podcast<\/a>, who coined the term \u201cjingoricals\u201d.  Both of us think it\u2019s funny, but also an apt description.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:44:05]  Katherine was struck by the fact that those films are not doing well.  The last one Harsha can think of is the Mission Mangal<\/strong> movie that Akshay Kumar did, and that was actually a genuinely good movie and had a good cast.  But there\u2019s a joke that people in India are now afraid of doing anything great or admirable, because they\u2019re afraid that Akshay Kumar is going to make a movie about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:44:35]  In some ways it\u2019s really sad, but on the other hand, we now have other industries to go and enjoy.  Katherine reminds us that she got into Malayalam movies because of Bollywood, and she has some very great affection in particular for some of the older masala movies.  So it is sad to see this happening and to see history represented in ways that can be troubling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:45:01]  Even people whose allegiances might be more towards the BJP or a right wing government are picking up on the inherent falseness in some of these movies, that they\u2019re not there to entertain them, they\u2019re there to make them feel certain ways that are meant to serve political power.  That\u2019s where this kind of interference really goes wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:45:29]  Katherine invites us to turn to the second film we\u2019re talking about in this episode, which is Swathi Thirunal<\/strong> from 1987.  It\u2019s about the Travancore king, so we\u2019re going from northern Kerala all the way to southern Kerala, and we\u2019re going from the 1400s to the 1800s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:45:48]  Swathi Thirunal was one of the kings of Travencore, who was also a big fan of the arts.  He was very into classical music and classical dance, and he was supposedly one of the people who was influential in Mohiniyattam being the current art form that it is.  Check out the blog Cinema Nritya<\/a> Gharana which is a fan of Indian cinema writing about classical dance in cinema.  She does a really good job talking about Swathi Thirunal<\/a> specifically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:046:25]  Swathi Thirunal was also a reformer.  He established libraries in Thiruvananthapuram, he established English medicine \u2013 still today in Kerala allopathic medicine is called \u201cEnglish medicine\u201d, because it\u2019s the English doctors who first started administering it.  But Swathi Thirunal also died very young, in his thirties.  He was a pivotal figure in keeping the kingdom of Travancore a British protectorate, rather than become a full colony the way that the rest of India did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:47:00]  If you look at a map of British rule of India, you\u2019ll see all of it British colonies up to Malabar, which is where the Samoothri and the Kolathiri ruled.  Those two regions became Malabar, and then there is the kingdom of Kochi and the kingdom of Travancore that remained independent but as British protectorates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:47:25]  The movie is heavily loaded with music and dancing so literally every five minutes there\u2019s a song break.  Often it\u2019s live performances so it\u2019s not like there\u2019s dancing around a tree or anything.  The film revolves around his couple of decades of rule where he surrounds himself with his prime minister, his queen (who is not his wife, but his aunt), and his wife.  He\u2019s very in love with his wife at first, but then he takes a mistress who is a dancer, and there\u2019s conflict between himself and the queen that leads to his death (because he\u2019s heartbroken, though Harsha notes the film doesn\u2019t really go into to why\/how he died).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:48:03]  Katherine says that this is a film she watched without subtitles (as she occasionally does), and for her the fact that the film was heavily music and dance was a plus.  She felt the print of the film (on Hotstar) was kind of dreadful, but that you could still see that there was some good filmmaking going on.  The cinematography is really lovely and she can only imagine what it would have looked like in a good print.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:48:31]  The film was also Katherine\u2019s first exposure to the kingdom of Travancore and this figure who she knew nothing about.  She feels he\u2019s a figure she should know more about \u2013 everything she\u2019s read so far emphasizes his interest in and support of the arts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:48:50]  There\u2019s a point in the film where he\u2019s talking with someone from the British East India Company.  They want him to get rid of some of the musicians and artists from his court for political purposes.  He doesn\u2019t want to do it because he sees them only as artists and wants what they can bring in terms of their art to his kingdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:49:10] There\u2019s a whole plot line in the movie where the Resident (the person Katherine was referring to), the representative of the British East India Company, is asking for reports on how the treasury is spending its money.  The King, Swathi Thirunal, is spending a lot of money on his artists, so there\u2019s some conflict where the King refuses to give a report to the British East India Company.  But his aunt, the Queen, is advising him not to fight with the British, because the British East India Company has basically taken over most of India, and they could at any time take over Travancore because they have so much debt towards the East India Company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:49:58]   The King of Travancore is the servant of Sri Padmanabha, but at some point he makes a biting comment to his aunt who is trying to get him to make peace with the East India Company and he says that he\u2019s become the servant of the East India Company and not of Sri Padmanabha.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:50:18]  It\u2019s not like anyone is plotting, but there are political machinations happening.  It\u2019s just that his aunt, who was regent for a very long time before he achieved majority, has a point of view about how she can maintain her relationship with the British.  The King, however, does not want to give an inch with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:50:42]  Katherine notes that in recent years, people have been taking another look at the British East India Company and what they did in India.  William Dalrymple, for example, has written a book called The Anarchy:  The Relentless Rise of the East India Company, which is more honest in its perceptions of what the East India Company did and what it was trying to do (along with the French and the Dutch).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:51:10]  As a result, Katherine sees the film as another chance to look at the Kingdom of Travancore from the Keralam\/India perspective, rather than from the perspective of the colonizers.  We in the west have to be constantly challenging these narratives that see colonization as good (because it was only good for the colonizers).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:51:45]  Katherine was disappointed that she couldn\u2019t find her copy of The Ivory Throne by Manu S. Pillai, one of the people doing a lot of writing on the history (and also check out his work on Youtube<\/a>).  Katherine notes the film rights to the book were purchased (by Shobu Yarlagadda, who produced the Baahubali franchise). She\u2019s curious to see what gets made from it, and she\u2019d love to know more about Sethu Lakshmi Bayi and Sethu Pavathi Payi (who were adopted into the Travancore Royal Family).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:52:15]  Swathi Thirunal is still a very beloved figure, especially in Trivandrum, where many things are named after him (and also after various members of the Travancore Royal Family).  They\u2019re considered revolutionary in their approaches  to public services to citizens, and a lot of Kerala government\u2019s post-1950 commitment to education and health care, a lot of it is supposed to have stemmed from the commitments the royal family ;made in the first place.  That and typically it\u2019s the royal family that gets a lot of credit, as well as missionaries doing a lot of work, both of those play a role eventually in what the Kerala government is providing, and that\u2019s one of the reasons why Kerala has such a high quality of life<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:53:12]  In this movie they make the matrilineal system of inheritance that exists in Travancore, in Kochi, in Malabar, much clearer.  Harsha thinks that many Malayalam filmmakers are hesitant to show how matrilineal systems look, because you inherit from your mother and not from your father.  So, in Urumi<\/strong>, it makes no sense how the king\u2019s son is the one who wants to inherit everything.  There would be no way \u2013 it would be his nephew who would become king instead of the son.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:53:50]  So, this movie shows matrilineal systems of inheritance more clearly than a lot of other historical Malayalam movies, where there\u2019s almost an attempt in some ways to cover up how matrilineal systems work, either because it\u2019s confusing, or as part of Kerala\u2019s throwing off of caste systems, they also threw away matrilineality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:54:13]  Matrilineality is still much stronger in Travancore than it is in the rest of Kerala.  You see a lot of that in this movie \u2013 his mother is the Queen, and she\u2019s actually the ruler as well.  She\u2019s the reigning queen when he\u2019s born because there\u2019s no man to inherit at that time.  When she gives birth to him he immediately becomes a king.  But he can\u2019t rule when he\u2019s a baby, so she rules on his behalf.  When she dies, his aunt becomes the queen, and she rules on his behalf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:54:45]  In that way, it\u2019s brothers and sisters who become kings and queens, rather than husbands and wives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:54:48]  Katherine managed to understand this, but she also notes she\u2019s done a lot more reading over the years.  But it\u2019s always helpful to outsiders to have Harsha explain these things on the podcast.  In exploring things on the podcast, we also want to encourage people to do their own exploration and look deeper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:55:27]  Something Harsha hadn\u2019t realized until watching the movie was that two very famous songs that many Malayalees will know \u2013 Omanathinkal Kidavo <\/em> (which is a lullaby and was written for Swathi Thirunal) and the song that a lover sings, Praananaathan<\/em> (also written for Swathi Thirunal by his wife) \u2013 she didn\u2019t realize that both of these two famous compositions were written for this figure.  The movie does show you that \u2013 that the two compositions were about him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:56:05]  There are various scenes in the movie where you see Carnatic musicians dueling Hindustani musicians.  The movie is very heavy with classical compositions, if people are interested in that sort of thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:57:02]  Harsha notes that the ages are very weird in the movie.  He\u2019s depicted at sixteen looking fully like a forty-year-old man.  And Srividya who plays his aunt is much younger than the actor playing Swathi Thirunal, Anant Nag.  So she wasn\u2019t sure why Anant Nag was the actor chosen to play this figure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:57:24]  Katherine notes that he\u2019s a Kannada actor \u2013 and Harsha adds that yes, he\u2019s not a Malayalee and he didn\u2019t dub for himself in this movie.  Neither of us knows why he was chosen, and Harsha notes there were probably quite a number of Malayalee actors who could have played the role.  He\u2019s very tall and skinny, which is the way Swathi Thirunal has been depicted in paintings, so maybe that\u2019s what they were going for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:58:00]  The film is directed by Lenin Rajendran who, even for Malayalam cinema, was kind of an art film director, and you can see it in this film.  It wasn\u2019t meant for a big, popular audience.  It was definitely meant for the art film circuit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:58:42]  Katherine watched it without subtitles and even so, found it compelling and found the music really lovely.  But it\u2019s a reminder that things that don\u2019t get subtitled are aimed at an audience that doesn\u2019t include her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:58:52]  Harsha notes that with this film, we\u2019re very much in the weeds of Malayalam cinema.  If you\u2019ve seen a bunch of Mohanlal films from the 90s where there\u2019s a lot of classical and semi-classical music and dance –  this is where a lot of that history is drawing from, because Mohanlal himself is a little like Swathi Thirunal, he loves classical architecture, he loves classical music, he loves classical dance.  He is drawing from this 19th<\/sup> century tradition of courtly dancing music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[00:59:36] This represents a lot of what South Indians are proud of, especially in terms of Carnatic music and various classical dances \u2013 even a younger generation is being trained in these dances from Swathi Thirunal and that era of rediscovering Indian arts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[01:00:00]  It\u2019s not the same now.  There\u2019s not as much classical influence in the day-to-day person\u2019s life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[01:00:19]  Even in contemporary music, you may still find people saying, \u201cOh, I used this raga as the base for this,\u201d so you still get that, and Katherine\u2019s perception is she sees less of that in North India these days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[01:00:58]  Harsha notes that in all the singing contests on Malayalam TV channels, you\u2019ll see that before somebody starts singing, they\u2019ll say, \u201cThe song is in this raga and this tala,\u201d which is pretty much the basic building blocks of Carnatic music.  She thinks that\u2019s less common in the Bombay based music shows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[01:01:21]  Katherine feels she\u2019s getting more depth and learning out of this film that we chose to watch for the podcast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[01:01:32]  Harsha suggests we think about this as background research for the Malayalam cinema watcher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[01:01:41]  Harsha doesn\u2019t have a lot to say about the performances in the movie.  Everybody kind of did what they were supposed to do.  Innocent is in the movie, but he gets barely any attention in his scenes.  Babu Namboothiri plays the prime minister, and it was an important role in the Travencore kingdom.  You can see that he wanted to indulge the king, but he was also concerned about how much the king self-indulges in music and art and doesn\u2019t pay attention to other aspects of his role, including playing politics with the British.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[01:02:29]  That was definitely a character that Harsha found interesting, and he\u2019s clearly not a Malayali, his name is Subbaravu.  Like a lot of diwans in various Indian kingdoms, he came from outside the kingdom.  They were just learned men that the king thought would be beneficial to his rule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[01:02::55]  Katherine has been doing some thinking about what\u2019s to come over the next few episodes, including what makes a period film, what makes a historical film, and what\u2019s going to be important in terms of Malayalam cinema.  She thinks that\u2019s what they\u2019ve been trying to pick out in terms of the films that were chosen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[01:03:18]  Nest time we\u2019re going to be looking at Oru Vadakkan Veeragatha<\/strong>, and Marakkar: Lion of the Arabian Sea<\/strong>.  Marakkar<\/strong> is too new to have a a legacy, but Oru Vadakkan Veeragatha<\/strong> definitely has a very long legacy.  Katherine notes that that was the one film people constantly told her she had to see, and for a very long time it wasn\u2019t available with subtitles.  There\u2019s a relatively decent print now available on YouTube.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[01:03:48]  Harsha admits that she had never seen the movie, despite it being a classic.  She suggests there\u2019s a little bit of a plodding historical aspect to the movie, even though she\u2019s been told many times that it\u2019s very, very good.  She\u2019s excited to see what it\u2019s about as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Subscribe to our feed here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can also connect with us on Bluesky:  @polandine-patti.bsky.social<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mail your queries and comments to polandinepatti@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We introduce a new theme with a discussion about Historical films with Urumi (dir. Santosh Sivan, 2011) and Swathi Thirunal (dir. Lenin Rajendran, 1987). Download Episode Twenty-One. Episode Twenty-One Highlights: Spoiler Alert! We try to remember to alert listeners to spoilers, but just in case, know that we talk about…<\/p>\n

Continue ReadingPolandine Patti Episode 21<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[177,15,141,176,175],"class_list":["post-312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-lenin-rajendran","tag-malayalam-cinema","tag-santosh-sivan","tag-swathi-thirunal","tag-urumi","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/polandinepatti.totallyfilmi.com\/polandinepatti-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/polandinepatti.totallyfilmi.com\/polandinepatti-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/polandinepatti.totallyfilmi.com\/polandinepatti-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polandinepatti.totallyfilmi.com\/polandinepatti-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polandinepatti.totallyfilmi.com\/polandinepatti-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/polandinepatti.totallyfilmi.com\/polandinepatti-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":318,"href":"https:\/\/polandinepatti.totallyfilmi.com\/polandinepatti-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions\/318"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polandinepatti.totallyfilmi.com\/polandinepatti-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/polandinepatti.totallyfilmi.com\/polandinepatti-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polandinepatti.totallyfilmi.com\/polandinepatti-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polandinepatti.totallyfilmi.com\/polandinepatti-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}