Chekhov in the Kerala backwaters: Ottaal

See below for a few images from Ottaal (2015), one of the most haunting films I have watched in a while. (It is playing on Mubi India now. Give it a try.) Directed by Jayaraj, this is an adaptation of the Chekhov short story “Vanka”, about a sad little boy writing a letter. You can read the English translation of that story online, but really, in my view the source text is incidental. Because this film’s beating heart is the very particular terrain in which it unfolds: the Kuttanad backwaters where the child spends much of his time minding ducks with his grandfather. 

The many beautiful images – of the place, the people in it, a boat rowing across a breath-taking network of canals, a friendly “nameless dog” running alongside the shore – are markers of a childhood that is about to come to an end. They help you see how much this boy is part of his setting, and what he is going to be separated from; they are pictures he desperately needs to preserve in his mind, and fittingly the film does everything it can to make these images unforgettable. 

(The setting also reminded me of S Hareesh’s sprawling novel Moustache, which I reviewed earlier this year. Ottaal is a much sparer work, though, and might be my favourite of the many splendid Malayalam films I have watched in the past year – certainly up there with Ee. Ma. Yau and Kumbalangi Nights. Here is an earlier piece about current Malayalam cinema.)