Moral policing vs mindless violence: Why Malayalam film 'Ishq' is a disappointment

Malayalam film Ishq, from the time it began to be discussed in the media, was spoken of as a film that was not a typical love story. The title was even followed by the words ‘not a love story’. In the interviews before the release, the director Anuraj Manohar and its lead actor Shane Nigam spoke of a social issue with which the film deals.

When the movie came out, it was hailed for the way it handled this social issue. While it is appreciable that the film has chosen to address a serious issue, there is a problem in the way the victim on screen retaliates. Revealing the social issue and the revenge would all be major spoilers, but that’s the only way one can discuss why the film has ended up sending out a really wrong message.

What follows therefore, is a series of spoilers – warning to those who wish to watch Ishq.

One – the social issue

Viewers identified it as the rampant moral policing that not just Kerala but the entire country has been going through for years. Is that what it was? Let’s check. A good part of the first half is shot in a car that a young couple drives around through the night. The couple -- Sachi (Shane Nigam) and his girlfriend Vasudha (Ann Sheetal) -- like most couples search for a private corner to have a moment alone, and find a parking spot. It is here that the anticipated trouble begins. Shine Tom Chacko’s character – Alvin – comes shining a torch into the car just when the couple had moved to the back seat. At first it is the typical approach of the moral police – an absolute stranger demanding to know the details of your privacy, in a threatening manner. He is soon joined by an older man, whom he addresses as ‘sir’ (Jaffer Idukki).

Shine Tom Chacko as Alvin

Shane’s character Sachi has already been introduced to us as overly possessive, not tolerant of another guy even looking twice at his girlfriend. So you expect him to overreact at Alvin’s interference, especially as he gets menacing towards Vasudha. But Sachi seems to become submissive, surrendering to the demands of the attacking duo, the moment Alvin announces that he is with the police and that the older man is his senior. It is made obvious to the viewer that this is not true. Several times, Alvin is pulled away by the other man, to discuss the money they could get out of this rich-looking couple by threatening them a little too much. You are to understand then that this is not exactly a case of moral policing, not the kind you read about in the papers where the only intent is to shame the couples or intimidate them; the real purpose is extortion, an attempt to make a fast buck.

There is a point in the script when this impersonation becomes obvious to Sachi. Yet, he remains meek, letting the menacing Alvin to “interrogate” Vasudha as he is pulled away by the other man.

There is consistency in one part of Sachi’s character – the possessive part. He becomes agitated when Alvin gets into the back seat with Vasudha, while he and Jaffer sit in front. He tries to put a hand in the middle of the back seat even as he drives. The message is clear. He likes no one near his girlfriend. The two attackers make fun of his gestures, repeatedly asking Vasudha if her boyfriend didn’t trust her.

But with all these minor setbacks, you can still understand the state of mind of the victims – what they go through, as minutes look like hours and it never seems to end. You can justify the stretching out of this episode, reasoning that that’s what it would feel like if you were on the receiving end.

Two – the revenge

Where the film goes really wrong, however, is in the second half when Sachi takes revenge on Alvin. At the end of the grueling episode after which Sachi drops Vasudha at her hostel, all he wants to know is what Alvin did to her in those few seconds of “interrogating” her inside the car. Not if she is ok, not if she wanted to talk. “I am a man, so I want to know,” is his explanation. “The man” then goes home without an answer, ignores all her calls and goes to see Alvin.

At first, he seems to follow Alvin around until the latter spots him and chases him away. His next stop is Alvin’s home, where the family is getting ready to go see the ‘perunnal’ – a local festival. He says he came to see Alvin and that his phone has run out of charge. Leona Lishoy, playing the wife, is the perfect host, asking him to come in and serving tea. He gets friendly with their little child, a girl of about five or six years old. Sachi’s mannerisms slowly turn menacing as he moves around the house and acts weird. But he remains meek till Alvin shows up and begins beating him up for barging into his house. Wife and husband ask Sachi to leave and that’s when the latter becomes openly aggressive, showering abuses on the wife before attacking the husband with a sewing machine head. Alvin is broken.

Leona Lishoy in Ishq

The daughter who sees all this cries aloud until Sachi gets closer to her and puts a knife at her throat. Now her cries are muffled. Sachi shouts at her the same lines that Alvin had told Vasudha inside the car: “Why don’t you speak up, is there a banana in your mouth?” The way this scene is pictured and the background music effected is meant to make it look like a heroic comeback - and it seems to work for many since several in the audience erupt into applause here. A scene where a grownup man shouts at a little girl, threatens her and makes her cry, possibly pushing her into trauma, is made to satisfy the blood thirst of the audience. Understandably, the anger is against the act of moral policing, the man behind it, but glorifying the attack on the family, even if it is to threaten the attacker is just really, really wrong. Is a wife or a child a mere extension of a man, his property? How are they responsible for his actions? The film, even if that isn’t its intention, conveys a message that it is perfectly all right to attack the family of the men who attack you, who moral police you.

But Sachi isn't done yet. He is possessive, remember, and “a man”. He wants to know what Alvin did to his girlfriend inside the car when he stepped away for a moment. When Alvin seems reluctant, Sachi pours kerosene over the little girl and threatens to set her on fire. By then, the wife understands that the husband had misbehaved with Vasudha. It is not until Sachi puts a hand around her as she sits grimacing, that Alvin opens up.

When Sachi walks away proudly, it is again the film celebrating its hero, glorifying his terrible acts. The only way this script could have been justified is by writing Shane’s character as evil and crazy. Moral policing is an act between two sets of strangers. The attackers and the attacked often do not know each other. We have only so far seen cases of the attacked being terrified by the attackers. Now what if the attacked are scarier, more evil than the attacker? That could have been Sachi. An evil wrong man, who goes to any extent – including traumatising little girls – to take revenge. But Ishq gives us a "heroic" young fellow, who takes care of the man who got in between him and his girlfriend, taking his metaphorical hand away.

The only comfort here is the ending, with Vasudha refusing Sachi's proposal. Was it meant to deflate his show of heroism? Make us think his actions were reprehensible? If that was the intention, the way the sequences have been structured certainly don't convey it. 

Cris is a journalist who likes to say she is a writer and troubles her editors with longish features on just about anything. Views expressed are the author's own.