‘Adrishya Jalakangal’ movie review: Tovino Thomas delivers a firecracker performance in this anti-war film.

Tovino Thomas in a still from ‘Adrishya Jalakangal’
| Photo Credit: @ttovino/X

Dr Biju’s Adrishya Jalakangal (Invisible Windows) is more disturbing than it is dystopian. The film is mounted on the backdrop of an Orwellian world, where the tools of the government control life, opposition will not be brooked, and the people living there have no agency over their lives. Tovino Thomas delivers one of the best performances of his career so far as the nameless protagonist who lives alone in a railway coach at an abandoned railway station. Nimisha Sajayan, as usual, is brilliant as the nameless woman who lives in a railway coach nearby. Her in-your-face character is a perfect foil for Tovino’s reticence. 

War is a looming reality in this film, where the constant whirring of helicopter blades forms a disturbing, ominous background score. Nobody knows what the war is about and who the enemy is, but the State is preparing for war. The film opens with the homeless being picked by the police and taken to a mental hospital, since ‘war’ is imminent. That is where we meet Tovino’s character, who is leaving the ‘mental hospital’. His crime is ‘loitering’. The action unfolds as he returns ‘home’ and not only does he find a new neighbour, but also sees a huge factory which he learns is a munitions factory for the impending war.  

These are people who live on the margins of society, finding company, comfort and solace in each other. Tovino’s character is marginalised because he is different from the ‘normal’; Nimisha’s because she exercises agency over her life and sexuality, and then the old man and his two grandchildren (a boy and girl) represent the vulnerable in any society. And like the marginalised, they have no say in what happens to them. It’s not all dark and ominous, there is some humour, a song and a budding romance too.        

Tovino’s character can see and speak to the dead at the mortuary where he works as the watchman’s assistant. The dead people tell him about their lives and deaths. The first dead man, essayed by actor Indrans, who talks to him and calls himself Basheer (perhaps a reference to the Malayalam writer Vaikom Muhammad Basheer) is a writer, teacher and social activist killed by fundamentalists; the next is a musician who dies of a heart attack during a police clamp down on a music concert, and four factory workers who died of a gas leak at the munitions factory, which is manufacturing chemical weapons. Each of these people is a window to a reality that they lived through.  

Tovino Thomas in a still from ‘Adrishya Jalakangal’
| Photo Credit:
@ttovino/X

Basheer tells him that if more people picked up books instead of weapons, there would be no war. But he understands it is not as simple when he sees a guard at the factory reading, ironically, Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’. The director/writer seems to suggest that there are no simple answers. 

The narrative, without a doubt, is the hero, but Tovino owns the film. If there was a doubt about his versatility, this film is the game changer. He has physically transformed for the role we see nothing of Minnal Murali or Thallumala’s Wazim. The dental prosthetics are an aid to his performance. In one line — Tovino lives the role. Nimisha isn’t new to arthouse cinema and she effortlessly becomes the character. The conclusion is unexpected or maybe not since there is a dash of magical realism in the film. It leaves the viewer wondering whether it was all just a dream. 

The cinematography by Yedhu Radhakrishnan reinforces the bleakness we feel, and the camera captures the loneliness of their lives; the music by Grammy-winner Ricky Kej is on point with the mood of the film. This film is political and is not an easy watch. It moves at a leisurely pace, seemingly meandering at times, but held together cohesively. Watching it is like reading a difficult book.    

The film premiered at the Tallinn Black Night International Film Festival (TBNIFF), Estonia. It is the first Malayalam film to have its world premiere in the official competition section of the fair. Adrishya Jalakangal is currently running in theatres.