Nizhalkuthu

Nizhalkuthu
Nizhalkuthu
	DVD cover
Directed by	Adoor Gopalakrishnan
Written by	Adoor Gopalakrishnan
Produced by	Adoor Gopalakrishnan; Joël Farges
Starring	Oduvil Unnikrishnan; Sukumari
Cinematography	Mankada Ravi Varma; Sunny Joseph
Edited by	B. Ajithkumar
Music by	Ilayaraaja
Distributed by	Adoor Gopalakrishnan Productions; Artcam International; Les Films du Paradoxe
Release date	7 September 2002; (Venice)
Running time	90 minutes
Country	India
Language	Malayalam

Nizhalkuthu (English: Shadow Kill, French: Le Serviteur de Kali) is a 2002 Indian film in Malayalam directed, written and co-produced by Adoor Gopalakrishnan. The film explores the recesses of the human consciousness. It stars Oduvil Unnikrishnan in the lead with actors Narain, Murali, Sukumari, Reeja, Nedumudi Venu, Vijayaraghavan, Jagathi Sreekumar and Tara Kalyan in supporting roles. It premiered at the Venice Film Festival in the Orizzonti section and received critical acclaim. The film was awarded the FIPRESCI Prize at the festival.

Overview

The title of the film Nizhalkuthu (Shadow Kill) refers to a popular play Nizhalkuthu Attakatha, adapted from the Mahabharata, about the inherent unjustness of certain punishments. In the play, the Kauravas force a witch hunter to kill the Pandavas by stabbing their shadows. However, the witch hunter's wife finds this out and is enraged. To punish her husband by making him feel what Kunti, the mother of Pandavas must feel, she kills their child in the same way.

The film reflects that death penalty is probably in the same vein. We may---like the witch hunter's wife---be handing out punishments that are equally ridiculous under the false perception that we are doing justice, if not being directly criminal like the witch hunter.

Adoor's usual cinematographer Mankada Ravi Varma filmed half of the project. But he was later replaced by Sunny Joseph, since the former fell ill and was later found to be suffering from Alzheimer's disease.^[1]^[2]

Plot

The plot is set in the 1940s in a village of Travancore, British India. Kaliyappan, the last hangman of Travancore is dragging his remaining life by consuming alcohol and worshipping the Mother Goddess. The reason for this self-destruction is the remorse born out of the feeling that the last man he hanged was innocent.

While pulling on his life by boozing, worshiping the Goddess and treating ailing people with the ash obtained by burning the hanging rope, one day the King's messenger once again arrives with the King's order of appointing him for executing a convict termed as 'a killer, proved beyond doubt'. He leaves for the jail with his Gandhian, freedom fighter son to assist him in his job.

As a tradition, the hangman has to spend the eve of the execution awake. When alcohol fails to keep Kaliyappan awake, the jailer starts telling a 'spicy tale' to keep him awake, the tale of a 13-year-old girl raped and killed by her own brother-in-law and an innocent musician boy convicted for this charge.

When Kaliyappan discovers that the condemned person he is about to hang is the musician boy, he breaks down. The job of executing the convict is passed on to his assistant, his son. The Gandhian, freedom fighter son completes the job. His motivations are not spelt out, but the choice of title hints that the son perhaps punishes the father by reminding him that any of his prior executions may have been a farce just like this.

Just like the witch hunter's wife in Mahabharata, the son's sense of punishment completely ignores the innocent victim who would be executed. We are reminded that what we think of something as just may not always be so.