Are you ‘Lucifered’ yet?

Here is to the urban dictionary:

Lucifered: The art of watching a film for what it is and not what you want it to be.

I enjoyed the fanboy tributes. I read the ‘critical’ reviews. I followed the hype. I scanned the hate-mongering.

And today, after a week of the film’s release, I was ‘Lucifer-ed.’

And ‘Lucifering’ is about cinema as celebration, about breaking through genre-silos to create a film that is hard to pin down into brackets. It is about evoking goose-pimple moments in quick succession. It is about going on a journey into a cinematic universe with a ruckus, cinema-loving crowd.

It is also showing the envy-artists a big middle finger — for missing the forest for the trees, for peddling their petty prejudices, and not seeing what cinema is indeed to the people.

If, by now, you don’t know that Lucifer is a ‘mass’ film…

That it celebrates Mohanlal, and is what Petta is to Rajnikanth…

That it it is a political thriller about the politics-drug mafia…

That it has an ‘item number’, which makes Prithviraj a ‘hypocrite,’ ‘misogynist’ and ‘sexist’ (none, my words)…

That it doesn’t criticise the BJP, which makes writer Murali Gopy — a ‘born-Sanghi’ and ‘scheming perpetrator of the Hindutva politics’ (again, not my words)…

Well, if you haven’t heard any of the above, stop reading. Now. And go get ‘Lucifered.’

If not, if you have heard it all and watched the movie, here is news for you:

None of what you read above is the absolute truth.

Myth bust 1: Lucifer is a mass film

Lucifer is not a ‘mass’ film because I still don’t know what a ‘mass’ film means. I haven’t heard of a ‘mass’ film in Hollywood or in European cinema.

Tell me is The Godfather class or mass? Is ET class or mass? Is The King’s Speech class or mass? Darn it! Is Roma class or mass? Is The Green Book class or mass?

Nor in Bollywood. (Is Sholay class or mass?) Or even in Tamil. (Is Thalapathi class or mass? See, I can play this game till Kingdom came).

But when it comes to Malayalam cinema, in all our pretentious vanity, we need to call films ‘mass’ and ‘class’ and in one brushstroke pan every one who loves a good entertainer as ‘class-less’. Doesn’t the ‘mass-class’ divide imply that?

Cinema has its genres — and ‘mass’ or ‘class’ is certainly not one of them.

I believe that cinema is a great leveller, like death. Inside the theatre, you are as good, smart, rich, intelligent or dumb as the person who sits next to you. Just as it doesn’t matter if you died of cancer or stroke or accident or suicide, inside the cinema-hall, you are just another viewer.

You are no different even if you are a so-called ‘reviewer’ — a job I find laughable today as film reviewing (at least when it comes to Malayalam films) seems to need nothing but wicked troll-like word-smarts. A reviewer must be under the radar with his/her prejudices — whatever it be. A reviewer must not be the one who tries hard to impress with a ‘know-it-all’ air. And Lucifer’s success is a reply to them — because with its genre-bender writing it ought to silence them.

So to cut to the chase, Lucifer, is not a ‘mass’ movie. It is a smartly crafted, multi-genre film that has just a sole purpose — like all great movies — to entertain. (As for whether you are entertained or not, that is where your personal sensibilities lie. Your entertainment is not mine just as mine is not yours. And what I like or not like does not qualify you to judge me just as I don’t judge you).

Myth bust 2: Lucifer celebrates the stardom of Mohanlal

Bollocks!

Mohanlal is hardly in every frame of Lucifer. He comes in a good 10 minutes later, and for a fair amount of time, he is behind the bars. He is not even seen around.

That is not what star-films do. Star-vehicles do not give breathing space for other actors. Stars rule the roost in every frame. Honestly, I would like to know Mohanlal’s on-screen time in Lucifer and compare with star-vehicle movies (and I hope some die-hard fan would help me find that).

And here is where, the genius of what appears to be an effortlessly written Murali Gopy film stands out. He keeps the narrative straight and doesn’t experiment but at a not-so-obvious level, he keeps his strong control over what self-respecting writers do: Stay true to their story.

Stephen Nedumpally, the role Mohanlal plays, rules the film not with his physical presence but as the ‘character.’ While the film opens with the name of Mohanlal, followed by the title ‘Lucifer’, it doesn’t say ‘Mohanlal in or in/as Lucifer.’

Because in Lucifer, Mohanlal is not the ‘Lucifer.’ Stephen is not a fallen angel. He doesn’t fall from heaven because of his pride. If any, Stephen is the silent-sufferer, the one on whom injustice is meted by everyone — by his father, his friends, his opponents.

Lucifer of yore is permanently frozen and it yet doesn’t stymie his pride… and pride is all he has. Stephen, with his warm heart and benevolence, is Gabriel. Not Lucifer.

And here is where Mohanlal steps in not as a star but as a performer. When have you a seen a man emote almost frame for frame in a movie with his eyes? And for a reviewer to talk about his hairy thighs and underpants and another about ‘an irritating shot of Lalettan’s hand’ makes me wonder whether their eyes are consciously trained to spot the hirsute.

One reviewer was extremely upset about not knowing who Stephen is. Honestly, isn’t that the strength of this film? Should every character come with a back-story so every doubt of yours is addressed?

Should every character, like Jagannathan of Aaaram Thamupran, explain to you that he was in the gulleys of North India? The mystique and enigma that Murali creates with Stephen (until diluting it with the climactic twist, although it explains what makes Stephen what he is) is why Lucifer an ode not to the star in Mohanlal but the actor in him.

And I really don’t get what is there to be upset about heroes punching 20 or killing 100 in one stroke in cinema. So what? Or must our films only be ‘realistic’ — another mis-reference to cinema that reveals the basic misunderstanding that art is to be evaluated by its genre.

Mythbust 3: That Lucifer is just another political thriller about the drug mafia

Is it really? Lucifer talks politics, it talks the drug cartel. It sometimes does it all in too simplistic a manner.

But Lucifer stands on other legs. It has sub-texts that many like not to read in between.

In an introductory shot of Stephen, you see him gaze into the coffin of the late leader, who we are presumed to believe is his ‘father’ (khalli walli spoiler alert).

Stephen then looks up. The camera appears to peer through. It is a seminal moment that makes Lucifer more than the age-old formula we have seen — of the abandoned/favoured son returning for vengeance/staking claim.

Unlike the Lucifer of yore, Stephen is happy to resign to his self. He is unambitious. He has his priorities. And that involves telling stories to orphaned children. Stephen’s life and mission, you can see, is not about dreaming high but to filling the gaps from his own troubled past.

And once you turn back on Stephen and look from the perspective of his alter ego, many of what appeared ‘formulaic’ simply falls into place.

But then to see that, you need to view films for what they are not for what you want them to be.

Mythbust 4: It has an ‘item’ number so Prithviraj is a misogynist

I can only sympathise with people who find ‘item numbers’ repulsive but see ‘freedom of sartorial choice’ as an expression of victory over the patriarchal order.

In an industry, where heroines thrive on skimpy attire — in reel and real-life — the kind which was once the purview of the ‘vamp’ women of cinema, letting the camera zoom in on a navel or a thigh (well, hasn’t Prithviraj shown enough of Mohanlal’s too), or to slip casually through the bodyscape of a girl by the pool, is not the last crime against humanity.

That does not make Prithviraj, the person, a misogynist or hypocrite; it just makes him a director who just got a trifle lazy at the editing table (or forgot that he must also be accountable to all the puritans of this world).

But hey, do you expect burqas by the pool, and kaikottikali in a dance-bar on a Diwali night?

Could they have been avoided? Yes, perhaps, as they add little value to the cinema, and the Deepak Dev dance number was hardly in the Bollywood league of ‘Ishq Kameena’ or ‘My Name is Sheela’, which our reviewers have nothing to whine about.

Mythbust 5: Murali Gopy is perpetuating Hindutva and Lucifer is an easy script

I do not know whether to laugh or cry at the first assumption.

Those who haven’t listened to him talk about his political stand — that not taking a side is also a political stand — is advised to watch this video by the talented ‘the subtitle guy’ Vivek Ranjit (who does an outstanding job on Lucifer too) in this interview.

Murali Gopy’s films, if you have observed closely, do not take sides. They cast observations on politics today — and I believe he is fulfilling his role as a journalist that he never got to complete with his films.

It is a role that the media must have been doing (which they do not, and is more evident now in the polarised talks on TV and politically-affiliated portals).

And I am surprised no one ever thought of calling him a Congress stooge after watching Lucifer because, hey, don’t you see the irony, as Prithviraj once said in a movie; the film ends almost ad an endorsement of the young scion of the party. Did you not see the film — and Murali Gopy — walking a mile ahead of its time in the parallel of the reception Rahul Gandhi got in Wayanad?

As for the ‘easy’ script reference, I must say that Lucifer straddles many genres. It goes beyond politics. It goes beyond ‘thrills.’ It has a rich emotional undertone, an enigmatic quality that is not easy to decode and share, which makes Lucifer strong enough to stand the test of time — and not just the box office accolade it is earning now.

With razor-sharp dialogues, in-depth characterization and delivering a multitude of sub-texts for those who are willing to see beyond the obvious, it, I believe, is not an easy task at all.

Lucifer has a script that you cannot pin down into genres, a script that holds a mirror to the society, a script that dreams in a bigger canvas, a script that gives every character in the film enough meat and credibility (backed by compelling performances from Tovino, Manju, the amazing Indrajith et al), a script that does not meander, a script that keeps words in control and explores the visual world — if that is not there in Lucifer, call me the devil’s advocate.

So, let me repeat, Lucifer is to be Lucifered — watch it for what it is not what you want it to be.

ENDS