Kammatipaadam might be the unsung brutal history of every big city that ever existed

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Kochi in Kammatipaadam

Whenever a popular city becomes a character in itself in a movie or show, makers often tend to romanticise it. They mostly view these places through the glass windows of their 23rd-floor apartments and pen odes to them without exploring their various facets, let alone their pasts. The same is true for Kochi as well. Although several filmmakers have tried to explore and depict its beauty and multiculturalism over the years, no one has dared to offer an honest portrayal of its past like legendary cinematographer-turned-director Rajeev Ravi did in Kammatipaadam (2016).

“This Ernakulam city of yours… It doesn’t have much of a foundation. It stands on the swamps of Kammatipaadam. It wasn’t built with cement and stones. It was built with blackened, clotted blood. The blood of people like Ganga (Vinayakan),” Krishnan (Dulquer Salmaan) tells Surendran Aashaan (Anil Nedumangad) in the end, underscoring that every great empire, including Kochi/Ernakulam city, is built on the blood, sweat, and tears of the real “owners” of the lands whom the powerful (mis)used, exploited, weaponised, and milked, before discarding them once their needs were met.

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Not another gangster drama

Kammatipaadam stands as definitive proof that one can make a great film without compromising its politics, provided one’s heart is in the right place. Even with its flaws, the action drama stands as one of the finest Malayalam movies of the 21st century.

In a way, one could say that Kammatipaadam is a gangster drama; however, it would be grossly unfair to label the movie as such. This is mainly because it is more about how gangs and gangsters are manufactured by the elite and powerful than a mere glorification of crimes.

From the very beginning, Rajeev Ravi and screenwriter P Balachandran show us how the elite, with vested interests, exploit the lowered-caste people through manipulation by offering them the necessities for their daily lives. Surendran initially runs a small shop in the village, behind which he also sells illicit liquor. A seemingly soft-spoken do-gooder, he makes Balakrishnan aka Balan Chettan (Manikandan R Achari) his man by offering him arrack. While it might seem that Surendran is giving Balan liquor as a friendly gesture, it soon becomes apparent that he is slowly getting Balan hooked on substance abuse so that the latter, a courageous and strong young man, would do anything for him.

For every small “help” Surendran does for him, he gets Balan to do a significantly bigger “favour” in return. The sad part here is that Balan never realises he is being exploited.

Even though Balan plays a key role in the expansion of Surendran’s business empire, he never receives any respect — something Surendran reserves only for the elite. Once, when Balan walks directly into one of Surendran’s meetings with a bigshot, the latter “sweetly” accompanies him outside, indirectly hinting that there are places where Balan is unwelcome.

Even then, Surendran does not use harsh language or force, knowing well that he cannot win against Balan with those tactics; he can be tamed only with “love.” This is precisely what Surendran exploits to make Balan work against even his own people, displacing them for the expansion of Kochi.

Dulquer Salmaan, Vinayakan, and Ganapathi S Poduval in Kammatipaadam. (Credit: YouTube/CineKili)

Antidote to Nayakan, Company

In a way, Kammatipaadam serves as an antidote to gangster films like Mani Ratnam’s Nayakan (1987) and Ram Gopal Varma’s Company (2002), where one or a small group of people are the sole focus, celebrated for their in/actions without considering the larger context that contributes to building a crime world and syndicate. Movies like Nayakan and Company seldom acknowledge the existence of the marginalised and those who suffer the most during gang wars.

Through the characters of Balan and Ganga, both Dalits, Rajeev Ravi and Balachandran document how the roots of every so-called underworld are deeply entrenched in caste discrimination, displacement, and the marginalisation of those without any “social capital.” Once the Balans begin questioning the actions of the elite, the smiles on the faces of the Surendrans quickly disappear, and the former is soon eliminated. And once the empires are fully built, the Gangas, who ask for their remaining payment or even a helping hand, are also sent away to a world far, far away.

Kammatipaadam’s flaws

But where Kammatipaadam fails is in its overreliance on Krishnan, a non-Dalit man with fairer skin, to tell the story. Since this choice seems designed to utilise Dulquer Salmaan’s marketability for the movie’s benefit, it actually detracts from the portrayal’s honesty. It creates the impression that characters like Balan Chettan and Ganga, as well as actors like Manikandan R Achari and Vinayakan, aren’t enough to sell a movie, thereby aligning with society’s savarna-centric mindset.

It is precisely because he has often defied such mandates and challenged such norms that director Pa Ranjith and his films, especially the Rajinikanth-led Kaala (2018), stand out as landmark works.

However, one way this creative choice benefits Kammatipaadam is by allowing it to adopt a nonlinear storytelling style that reflects the fragments of Krishnan’s memories. Yet the movie’s problematic portrayal also extends to its handling of female characters, particularly Balan’s wife Rosamma (Amalda Liz) and Ganga’s wife and Krishnan’s former girlfriend, Anitha (Shaun Romy), who never receive identities beyond the men in their lives.

Kammatipaadam neither romanticises criminals nor glorifies violence. Instead, it explores the socio-political and economic undertones and layers of crime, the underworld, and Kochi — and by extension, every big city — illustrating how these are the results of the deliberate and conscious engineering by the powerful to create a society that suits them.

In a way, Kammatipaadam brought to the forefront Dalit characters who had often been depicted as villains or exploited for “humour” in Malayalam cinema. While the works of screenwriters like Ranjith and T Damodaran played a significant role in the savarna-fication of Malayalam cinema, Kammatipaadam arguably was the first mainstream film to offer many overlooked faces a prominent place on screen.

Kammatipaadam’s brilliant cinematography by Madhu Neelakandan, astounding editing by B Ajithkumar, and the spirited and rooted songs by John P Varkey (“Para Para”) and Vinayakan (“Puzhu Pulikal”) also breathed more life into the movie, rendering it a sharp documentation of Kochi’s unsung history.

What Rajeev Ravi said about Kammatipaadam

“I witnessed what Kammatipaadam talks about growing up. The majority of the movie is a retelling of real events, even though not everything in it is taken directly from reality. Kammatipaadam was the first story I developed in my life. Several of the things in it are very dear to my heart,” Rajeev Ravi told SCREEN in a 2023 interview.

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