1 week Ago
In real-life friendships, it takes a while to warm up to someone, and even longer to make up our minds as to whether someone we have know for a while is worth rooting root for. Getting us to do the same in a film, however, is much more complicated. A writer/filmmaker has to accomplish this within an hour of commencing the film — that is, if it's a script that requires the audience's complete investment in the characters, as in a sports drama.
Khalid Rahman's Alappuzha Gymkhana takes on boxing, but later on makes it quite evident that it's not interested in following conventions. You would think that just because it has a familiar (and audience favourite) face as the supposedly "central" character, you're supposed to root for this person. But Khalid has other plans.
He takes the familiar, be it in the case of actors or the usual sports drama templates, and gives them a fresh spin. In some places he doesn't give us what we want (in a good way, that is) and in others, he gives us exactly what we wished for. Take a look at the characters he has chosen to be part of this heartwarming adventure.
We have not seen this sort of bunch before. Every single character has a distinctive trait that makes them memorable. And Khalid doesn't forget to make their presence known throughout the film.
It's not a case of making one character stand out initially and then ignoring them in the latter portions so as to give another character more prominence. No. The film also makes it quite clear who to root for.
What amazed me most is how the film gets you to cheer for that one guy who, up until that point, was among the least attention-seeking characters of the bunch. And it's not just one character I'm talking about. Khalid starts doing this right from the film's opening moments.
You might assume the only guy who, say, cleared his exams out of this bunch of friends would keep a distance once the others find out they've failed. But, no, he joins them, accompanies them to wherever they're going and becomes one of the cheerleaders when it's time for his friends to enter the ring. I found this aspect to be one of the film's most heartwarming elements.
In this regard, Alappuzha Gymkhana evokes the vibe — yes, this is very much a 'vibe movie' — of a Pixar film, or one of those Into the Spider-verse films. I'm also thinking that Khalid has made the kind of film that you would normally associate with a filmmaker like Richard Linklater. The kind of film that's built around interesting faces, characters, and conversations.
The two Linklater films that immediately sprang to mind while watching the amusing camaraderie of these characters are Dazed and Confused and its spiritual sequel Everybody Wants Some! The very thought of a Malayali filmmaker finally doing this (can we add Girish AD to the list too?) brought a smile to my face. Now you might ask, "What about a film like Aavesham or Romancham ?" Well, I cannot say I got the same feeling from those films that I did from Alappuzha Gymkhana because I have already mentioned the reason earlier — the distinctive personality traits. I can recall every character in this film more clearly than the ones in those.
How often do we see a film that makes you want to hang out with its characters? That said, Khalid doesn't forget to pay equal attention to the way the boxing sequences are shot. How do you make a boxing drama for even those who don't follow the sport? How do you get the female members of the audience that are averse to seeing people punch each other invested? Again, by making them care about the characters. And when you bring in a gifted cinematographer like Jimshi Khalid, brother of the director and the other gifted Malayalam cinematographer Shyju Khalid ( Kumbalangi Nights, Nayattu ), rest assured you are in the right hands.
Jimshi finds a way to 'sync' the energy of the boxing sequences and the camera. At times, the camera 'feels' the participants' moves; at others, it slows down just enough to make us feel the momentarily distorting impact of a powerful punch. In some instances, the camera 'flies' around the ring to get a wider vantage point, and in others we get a bodycam/third-person pov approach.
Of course, this is not the first time a filmmaker making a boxing drama was this innovative. In terms of introducing new and innovative ways to shoot a boxing match, we can name several examples from The Set-Up (1949) to Raging Bull (1980) to Sarpatta Parambarai (2021) . With Alappuzha Gymkhana , we sense the intention is not really about showing a story where the characters emerge victors, but rather putting them through trying and humiliating circumstances in order to make them figure out their real strengths and weakness, and, most importantly, purpose.
Not everyone is fit to be Rocky Balboa. Maybe you're better off being his manager, and that's okay. The film seems to convey the sentiment that as long as you're surrounded by the right people unbothered by differences in class, caste, faith, race or any other narrow-minded ideas, you're on the right track.
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