“The Kerela Story” – a film that sheds light and provokes debate on a sensitive issue.

The Kerala Story a film directed by Sudipto Sen, stars Adah Sharma, Yogita Bihani, Sonia Balani, and Siddhi Idnani. The plot follows the story of a group of women from Kerala who are converted to Islam and join the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

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The Kerala Story was released on May 5, and there were calls to ban the film in a few states, including West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. The film producer and creative director Vipul Amrutlal Shah responded to the backlash his film had received since its release. He recently stated that the film ‘is not against Muslims or Islam’ but rather against terrorists. 

The director Sudipto Sen has created moments that evoke a natural uneasiness among viewers. While handling sensitive subject matters, it can be challenging to strike a balance. Prasantanu Mohaptra has done an excellent job of capturing the scenes in Afghanistan and the border regions of Afghanistan-Pakistan. However, the background score of the film falls short. It is overpowering and distracts from the narrative.

The narrative also shows how the fear of Allah is fed to the girls with scripted attacks, fake love angles, and sexual intimacy with an aim to impregnate the women so that they can be taken to Syria at an ISIS base. Amid the dark elements and a couple of cruel rape scenes, the makers also a glimpse of the culture and beauty of Kerala.

However, the film is based on half-truths and is based on a few statistics. However, when it comes to hard evidence, it comes up empty-handed.

The film claims that some 32,000 women from Kerala had been abducted and recruited by the ISIS though the veracity of this number has been disputed. There were widespread objections in Kerala to the film, but it is running there in a limited number of cinemas.

The neighboring state of Tamil Nadu has not banned the film, but the state’s multiplex owners’ association withdrew the film from cinemas. In West Bengal, the film was banned on the orders of Mamata Banerjee, the Chief Minister.

Shah said he would take legal action against halting the film in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.The Producers Guild of India has also objected to the bans.

At certain points, the film feels more like a tutorial on radicalization than entertainment for the audience. It also goes to extremes to make its point, which could be quite unsettling for audiences from various communities in our country. After watching ‘The Kerala Story,’ you may be left with several questions about the country’s current state. This thought-provoking film is disturbing and surely manages to leave an impact.

The film has got poor reviews from many mainstream critics who have lambasted its performances and “lack of nuance” – one wrote that the film’s “thoughts about Islam and [religious] conversion seem to have been sourced from hate-filled WhatsApp groups”.

But its performance at the box office has been “extraordinary” for a film with a small budget and no big stars.

Adah Sharma’s portrayal of Shalini who eventually renamed Fatima, is powerful and emotionally stirring. Her hard work in getting the Malayali accent right, is evident on screen. While many of the actors, Yogita Bihani, Sonia Balani, and Siddhi Idnani are newcomers, they put their best foot forward to bring their stories to life. Director Sudipto Sen has opted for a subject that’s both sensitive and complex and the treatment that has been meted out to the film makes it a difficult watch with several disturbing scenes, moments and dialogues.

The pace of the narrative seems to flag at certain points in the second half. The focused attention on Adah Sharma’s character does not allow the characters played by Siddhi Idnani and Yogita Bihani to live up to their true potential. The background music, haunting and layering an already intense narrative, in effect, ends up diluting the realism of the storyline. 

The Kerala Story – contrary to perception in the media, social, mainstream, or otherwise – isn’t really about a region or a religion. For all intents and purposes, it is a raw and hard-hitting tale exploring how youthful naivety can fall prey to forces beyond their imagination.