Opinion National Awards to ‘The Kerala Story’: Are the Awards worth fighting for — or fighting over — anymore?
In every film award, there are certain categories that are manufactured entirely to appease egos and placate prevailing political sentiments. But with each passing year, as more and more films of little merit and dangerous ideas are heaped with awards, the dangers of propaganda becomes apparent
The Kerala Story has all but guaranteed that its relevance won’t outlast this particular political — and cultural — moment. 
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The kindest thing that one can say about The Kerala Story (2023) is that it is no Triumph of the Will (1935). Unlike the latter, produced and directed by Leni Riefenstahl, a close collaborator of Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, Sudipto Sen’s film at least packages its indefensible message in something like a plot — a poison pill coated in sugar. Like the truth, lies too are easier to swallow that way. Triumph of the Will was, as evident from the name, a “triumphal” declaration of a great untruth, that a work built on the dehumanisation and debasement of any section of people could make for transcendental art. A two-hour-long film cut from over 61 hours of footage shot at the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg, Riefenstahl’s film was propaganda in its baldest, take-it-or-leave-it form. It attempted not to persuade, but bludgeon in its view of Germany as a great power led by a great man.
Yet, one of the unkindest things that can be said about The Kerala Story is also that it is no Triumph of the Will. The latter was technically brilliant, the terrible beauty of its images — those roaring crowds, those marching boots, a wildly gesticulating Fuhrer — ensuring that it lives on in cultural memory as a prime example of how art, too, can be used to serve humanity’s basest instincts. The Kerala Story, on the other hand, has all but guaranteed that its relevance won’t outlast this particular political — and cultural — moment. One is hard put to find anything about its technical and artistic aspects, whether it’s the overwrought direction and acting or the pedestrian cinematography and editing, that ensures its place in cinema history.
Which is why it’s so baffling that it has managed to win not one but two National Film Awards — for Best Director and Best Cinematographer. Many an angry Malayali (including this writer) might agree with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s assertion that The Kerala Story’s “love jihad” fiction is dangerous misinformation, “sowing the seeds of communal hatred” in a state that, by and large, has been insulated from the kind of religious polarisation and violence seen in other parts of the country. But that is politics and films, like people, are allowed to be political. They are, like all art forms, allowed to be propaganda. Surely, though, if even a blatantly propagandist film is given a prestigious award or two, it should be because it meets a certain artistic standard? The National Film Awards are, after all, aimed at “the production of films of aesthetic and technical excellence” and “encouraging the study and appreciation of cinema as an art form”. Can The Kerala Story, bestowed with honours that have earlier gone to films like Perumthachan (1990), Nayakan (1987), Akaler Shandhaney (1982), Mr and Mrs Iyer (2002) and Shatranj Ke Khiladi (1977), truly be said to meet these standards?
In every film award, there are certain categories that are manufactured entirely to appease egos and placate prevailing political sentiments. The National Film Awards have their own such categories, like Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment. These distinctions between what is an artistic honour and what is a please-don’t-be-angry trophy are important to maintain if a film award is to maintain any credibility. This is not the first time, of course, that the clear lines between the artistic and the hacky have been blurred. But with each passing year, as more and more films of little merit and dangerous ideas are heaped with awards, one is reminded of Pablo Picasso’s warning about the dangers of propaganda: “If art is ever given the keys to the city, it will be because it’s been so watered down, rendered so impotent, that it’s not worth fighting for.” Are the National Film Awards worth fighting for — or fighting over — anymore?
pooja.pillai@expressindia.com
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