New Delhi: Malayalam film director Krishand RK set out to make a superhero film before realising he did not have the required funds. It worked to his benefit. His 2022 film, Aavasavyuham – The Arbit Documentation of an Amphibian Hunt uses elements from mockumentary and fantasy to make a pitch-perfect point. The result is an intelligent and entertaining satire on ecology, identity, society, and even patriarchy.
Even Krishand is taken aback by its success and critical acclaim.
“For me, this is still a superhero movie. And now with the expectations set so high, I am scared to make the sequel, like I originally planned,” he said.
Like the genre of the film, the protagonist Joy (Rahul Rajagopal) is inscrutable and indefinable.
The story spans across timelines, beginning with 2015 when researchers are looking for an exotic frog in the Western Ghats. Two years later, a shrimp worker in the coastal town of Azhikode tries to get his daughter married. In 2018, amid protests against a liquid natural gas plant, a fisherman gets rich quickly. All three events are connected through one man–Joy.
And he’s connected to nature in a way that confounds science. Even more worrying is that he does not have an Aadhaar card or any other documentation. It’s a subtle snub of the identity documents needed to prove citizenship and becomes a matter of national speculation.
For all its surrealism, the movie draws on real events. The continuous strain of social unrest is inspired by the protests led by local residents at Puthuvype in Kochi, against an Indian Oil Corporation’s (IOC) LPG import terminal project.
Krishand is a canny storyteller who plotted each twist and turn in the tale to keep viewers hooked.
“I designed the film like how you experience social media where your attention shifts from one thing to another every minute with changes in the layout, background and music.”
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Who is Joy?
Joy’s relationship with nature is seen as spiritual, supernatural, miraculous, or a money-making scheme, depending on the lens through which he is viewed.
“It wasn’t a deliberate choice to have environmental politics as a statement. As a post-modern filmmaker, I embrace various elements,” said Krishand. But he also wanted to emphasise how human behaviour and choices impact the environment.
One of his key inspirations was Rant, the book written by Chuck Palahniuk, better known as the author of Fight Club.
“The book has yellow pages, FIRs, and other documents, and as a filmmaker who is fascinated by Post-Cinema, I wanted to reach out to the generation that has the shortest attention span,” said Krishand.
The narration is like a scientific dissertation with chapters. But with each progressive chapter, the meaning gets more obscure. Everyone from Joy’s employer to his lover gives details about him. And as more details emerge, the inscrutable nature of his existence is highlighted.
The latter half of the film, Krishand said, was inspired by Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis as well as Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings.
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A change in lens
Krishand’s first feature film, Vrithakrithyilulla Charthuram (A minor inconvenience), did not find many takers. Two different sets of audiences had different reactions to his film. It received a standing ovation at a film festival but was made fun of at an engineering college.
“The movie was played before KGF: Chapter I (2018), and audiences made fun of my film. I was hurt, even though I was enjoying it a bit too. By the end of the event, I ran off instead of interacting with the director of the institute,” said Krishand.
Aavasavyuham’s creation was informed by these events. He realised that he needed to engage all kinds of audiences. So he added humour and focused more on the music.
“In Aavasavyuham, I wanted to grab attention with this film using popular communication techniques,” said the director who has also designed and taught communication courses. From using light, colour schemes and timing the scenes to beats, to creating conflicts in every scene and out-of-focus camerawork, Krishand used every communication tool at his disposal for the movie to grab the viewer’s attention.
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Reaching a broader audience
Sony Liv’s interest in Aavasavyuham helped it reach a broader audience outside of Kerala. “There is no making films without funds. And I am just lucky that it got bought by a major OTT platform,” said Krishand. He acknowledged that it helped him get visibility that was not just restricted to Kerala.
Money also started flowing in after Aavasavyuham. He also made Purusha Pretham (2023), a satirical take on a police procedural. The film follows the journey of identifying a dead body in Kochi, and in the process shows the inner lives of police in Kochi.
He now has A-listers agreeing to work with him for his next venture. He has even launched his own production company—Krishand Films.
Krishand is aware that Aavasavyuham, now considered a cult classic by many, has not reached the masses despite its OTT release.
“The film has not reached my mother. Stree 2 has reached her. I have included humour to reach people like her,” said Krishand. He hopes his next venture finally reaches her.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)