Khalid Rahman: The heavyweight director whose stamp pulled crowds to Alappuzha Gymkhana ahead of Mammootty’s Bazooka and Basil Joseph’s Maranamass

Even by the Malayalam film industry’s standards, despite having produced several shades of romance over the years, Rahman’s directorial debut Anuraga Karikkin Vellam (2016) was a novel experience. At a time when love stories were becoming scarce and the ones that did arrive were mostly templated, the filmmaker offered a refreshing take, as reflected in its title — The Tender Coconut Water of Love. In a skillfully scripted (by Naveen Bhaskar) and even more finely conceived film, Rahman explored the multiple facets of romance, approaching it from various angles through the love stories of two couples belonging to different age groups. Interestingly, here he also analysed the toxic patterns that often emerge in relationships over time. While he illustrated this through the story of one couple, Rahman, through the tale of the other, also showed how one can recognise such tendencies in themselves and their relationships, and offered an antidote of sorts for maintaining romance over the years. With these interwoven subplots, he not only emphasised that anyone could un/knowingly turn noxious, but also that persistent effort could fix the toxicity, particularly the habit of taking the other person for granted.

Khalid Rahman put as much effort into making the romance between ASI Raghu (Biju Menon) and his wife Suma (Asha Sarath) both charming and enviable — giving it the perfect touch of warmth — as he did in exploring the complex, troubled relationship between Raghu and his son Abhilash (Asif Ali), capturing its subtle evolution with finesse. While Abhilash was the red flag in his relationship with Elizabeth (Rajisha Vijayan), the filmmaker also provided enough visual evidence to explain why she was so heartbroken when he ended things. Although the movie wasn’t flawless, Anuraga Karikkin Vellam offered early glimpses of the director’s potential.

Watch Khalid Rahman’s Alappuzha Gymkhana trailer here:

And that was exactly why he bagged the opportunity to direct Mammootty in his sophomore venture, Unda (2019). However, unlike many of his contemporaries who went overboard upon securing superstars’ dates, completely forgetting what made their previous work impactful and falling into the trap of creating mindless star vehicles, Rahman chose, instead, to bring to the fore the rarely explored facets of Mammootty’s acting potential through the powerful telling of a compelling story.

Instead of playing to the gallery or playing it safe, the filmmaker crafted a story deeply embedded in the socio-political landscape of India. While most mainstream films shy away from addressing casteism and the pervasive role caste plays in everyday life, Unda boldly portrayed how caste operated, even within the police force. Though it shared its core with Amit V Masurkar’s Newton (2017) — set in a Chhattisgarh village affected by left-wing extremism, with an election serving as the backdrop — Unda unapologetically explored the themes that Newton largely avoided, particularly caste discrimination. Without inflating his story or the extraordinary script penned by Harshad to match the commercial formula, Khalid Rahman treated the narrative with absolute care, giving it exactly what it needed, no more and no less. At the same time, his visual language here, which was completely different from Anuraga Karikkin Vellam and so perfectly aligned with this narrative, spoke volumes of his filmmaking flair.

Although Mammootty had played a cop several times before and after, Unda presented him in a completely new light: as a powerless, vulnerable commoner destined to be a uniformed officer. Without allowing him to don the superstar robe even once, Rahman pushed Mammootty to pull out his immense acting talent, thus turning his performance as SI Manikandan into one of his finest in recent times. While the film centred around a team of cops, Rahman skilfully gave each character a distinct identity, never overlooking anyone, showcasing the filmmaker’s complete command over his material. Thus, Unda stands out as one of the defining films to have come out in Malayalam in the last decade.

While his first two movies were like a summer breeze, Rahman entered an extremely dark territory in his third directorial venture. Titled Love (2020) in an antiphrastic manner, the psychological thriller was penned and conceived during the peak of the COVID era, when people were stuck inside their homes with no one but their family members or those they shared their abode with to keep company. Such living situations had also led to the grey shades of many becoming all the more evident to their ‘dear’ and near ones. Revolving around a couple that has just found out they are pregnant, amid relationship issues boiling between them, Love not only dissected the psyche of two people slowly falling out of love but also the emotional toll involved. At the same time, he also explored the lonely battle people fight against the demons within. Cohered by a neatly crafted screenplay that layered the different emotions the central characters Anoop (Shine Tom Chacko) and Deepthi (Rajisha Vijayan) go through, which also analysed how thoughts often tussle within minds — particularly in moments that one considers would have a telling effect on their lives — Love showed that psychological thrillers could be created without serial killers too (a lesson the industry is yet to fully comprehend). The movie also further highlighted Khalid Rahman’s exceptional writing and visual storytelling skills.

Director Khalid Rahman with actor Asif Ali and others on the sets of Anuraga Karikkin Vellam. (Credit: Instagram/@khalidh.rahman)

While Malayalam cinema has witnessed enough experimental films over the years, few experiments in recent times have succeeded as well as Thallumaala (2022). A testament to Khalid Rahman’s visual craftsmanship, the movie, penned by Muhsin Parari and Ashraf Hamza, highlighted how even an above-average story can be turned into an extraordinary movie if the filmmaker has an absolute grasp over the material and a steadfast conviction on how to conceive it. Featuring one of the finest editing jobs (by late Nishadh Yusuf), cinematography (Jimshi Khalid) and action choreography (Supreme Sundar) the industry has ever witnessed, the movie also successfully challenged the conventional screenplay structure, emphasising that there’s no single “right” way to craft narratives or movies.

A masterclass on how to seamlessly fuse music and visuals, allowing one to complement and enhance the appeal of the other, Thallumaala also showed that a massive experiment with colour schemes was possible in even a romantic action comedy. Besides all these technical achievements, the movie also impressed with its content that broke free from most of the stereotypes usually followed when depicting Muslim characters and portrayed them as jubilant and colourful persons, who follow the religion’s teachings but are not tied down by them.

In Alappuzha Gymkhana, although Khalid Rahman didn’t quite surpass the benchmark of artistic finesse he had set earlier, the filmmaker still delivered wholesome entertainment while also tinkering with the sports genre. His remarkable abilities as a director shone the most in scenes set inside the boxing ring, and also the effortlessness with which he managed to ensure a sense of light-heartedness throughout. Not only has Alappuzha Gymkhana marked Rahman’s attempt at a new genre for the fifth time in a row, but he has also ensured to do absolute justice to it, without falling for market pressure as many others do. With yet another of his movies impressing a large section of moviegoers, it is safe to say that Khalid Rahman currently ranks as a powerhouse filmmaker who never lets his fans down.

Cinema cannot exist in a vacuum; it’s all about the discussions that follow. In the Cinema Anatomy column, we delve into the diverse layers and dimensions of films, aiming to uncover deeper meanings and foster continuous discourses.