Pressing down buttons on a music player, to play, stop or record – actions that came most naturally to young people 30 years ago – must have been perplexing for a generation that grew up with earbuds or pods and songs coming out of the phone. Yet, actors in their teens, danced to music of the 80s, and pulled off quite a convincing act for Moonwalk, a recent Malayalam film set in those years. The film, the directorial debut of Vinod AK, paid tribute to a generation of youngsters who were swayed by Michael Jackson, who popularised the dance move known as moonwalking or backslide in Kerala.
Vinod belonged to that generation, although he had not been a dancer. “I knew friends, friends of friends, who were into it. For me, there was always the pull of cinema, and that brought me to the world of advertising. I have been making ad films all these years but I’ve had a few ideas for a feature film, and Moonwalk was one of them,” Vinod says.
The film effortlessly goes back to the late 80s. A bunch of young men – boys really of 16 and 17 – are drawn towards breakdancing after they watch a group perform it at a local festival. They find someone in their small town who could teach them the basics, start growing their hair long, and take off into breakdancing like fish to water. Infatuations bloom as they do when kids are teenagers. At home, people react to the changes.
“It was a little difficult to recreate the settings of those years. Everything has changed, the roads and the vehicles. We shot the film at the coastal areas of Thiruvananthapuram and in the remote parts of Kazhakoottam, where I am from,” Vinod says.
He chose a mostly new cast, wanting fresh faces and dance skills for credibility. “During the training we asked them to try not to use their smartphones as much as possible to get the hang of it,” Vinod says.
For choreography -- an indispensable part of the film – the boys were mentored by Sreejit P, of Daazzlers Dance Studio, who is familiar with the dance movement of the 80s and 90s. Vinod and his cowriters – Mathew Varghis and Sunil Gopalakrishnan – were no dancers but they too had been in awe of the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, watching his albums in loop. “He was a visual spectacle,” Vinod says.
Most of the film was shot in 2020, and parts of it in later years. But the film was unduly stalled with the outbreak of COVID-19. Distribution went haywire. That’s when Lijo Jose Pellissery, acclaimed filmmaker, showed interest. “He saw a trailer we had released before the film was complete and connected with us. He liked our work and stood by us. He was the guiding force who got the film released,” Vinod says.