Perumazhakkalam - Malayalam Movie directed by Kamal

Perumazhakkalam is a 2004 Malayalam film directed by Kamal. The film stars Meera Jasmine, Kavya Madhavan, Dileep and Vineeth. Razia (Meera Jasmine), a Muslim woman along with her father-in-law played by Mamu Koya walk to an agraharam. They are there to meet Ganga (Kavya Madhavan). Ganga’s husband Raghurama Iyer (Vineeth) was murdered by Razia’s husband Akbar (Dileep) in Saudi Arabia and Akbar is in jail waiting capital punishment. According to shariat, he can be forgiven if Ganga gives a letter and Razia has come to plead for this.

Raghurama Iyer’s brother Sethu sees them and knowing that Razia’s husband is the murderer of his brother, screams at them and unable to control his anger takes a bucket of soap water (as he was washing clothes) and throws at them. As Razia cries her heart out, rain starts falling. It is a powerful and heart breaking scene from Kamal’s movie.

The movie starts with the introduction of Razia who is waiting for the arrival of her husband from Saudi Arabia. Then news comes that he is in prison and will be put to death. Frantically they run to the local MLA who says that there is little he can do and asks them to meet the Chief Minister. As they lose hope, Akbar’s friend John (Biju Menon) comes and tells that there is a way out of the predicament. For this they need to get the letter of forgiveness from Ganga since the Shariat Court pays great value to it.

On the one side Ganga is grieving that she has become a young widow and on the other side Razia wants one signature to get her husband alive. The ending of this movie can be guessed by anyone who has the intelligence to know that you should not eat the peel of a banana. What is more interesting is how that happens. The tensions of the characters and how the ending comes about make for very interesting viewing.

The story of this movie is very touching and the it has been made with lot of realism. Even though the story is very simple, the narration is very focussed. There are no unnecessary scenes and unnecessary characters. Initially in the movie, both Ganga and Razia have to know the bad news and how that was done was very creative. In the case of Razia, her father-in-law comes to know the news first and keeps it away from her. Soon people of the village come to know and the character played by Salim Kumar blurts it out in front of her.

In the case of Ganga, her in-laws don’t tell her even though they comes to know. She walks out of the house in front of everyone on that Friday, expecting a call from her husband. There is a shot of her walking in the rain. Then the next time we see her, she is taking a dip in the river following the brahminical rituals for a widow. Here we see a good director at work.