Ozhimuri (A Document of Separation)

An Excellent work. One of the best Malayalam movies to come out after the world said Y2K and forgot that more than a decade has passed by since.

Jeyamohan and Madhupal, take a bow. When is your next film releasing?

Ozhimuri is also about separation. Of matriarchal and patriarchal systems. Of transitions and transformations. Of systems, processes, procedures, and people. Of mundane and bitter-sweet lives lived among all these.

It also raises valid observations and questions on the age-old theory of Nature vs. Nurture. How your personality maybe defined by nurture but your behavior patterns maybe defined by nature…

Childhood, upbringing, selective memories all work together to create a child’s world and his memories of parents and parenting. Judgments are based on our biases and inclinations towards either one of our parents…

Why do certain people act cruelly with their loved ones? 

This movie does not give us definite answers but surely provides a lot of food for thought. The movie does not judge any of its characters and therein lies its greatest strength. It shows pretty artistically and realistically how most of us are formed by circumstances and other external factors. How we hardly choose who or what we become and how we behave. But in spite of all that, love can always find a way to our hearts though we may hardly know how to express it.

It poetically shows how empathy is of extreme importance when it comes to any relationship; how you may never be able to forgive and/or forget your parents, spouse, children and their deeds but you can surely empathize with them. And empathy comes only with understanding and openness. Comes with acceptance that your memory, vision, judgment, stereotyping, labeling et al are limited in scope. There is always some knowledge or some information that you may have missed… while you label a person ever so consciously/subconsciously.

It shows us how lifelong-held values and egos do not matter when death stares at us closely. How forgiveness and self-defense mechanisms find their way in our search for self-identity and that elusive treasure: peace of mind.

Watch it for its outstanding performances (Lal and Shweta Menon deserve special mentions) and its brilliant screenplay; also, watch yourself while you are at it.

Yeah, and do not judge the person, sitting at the aisle seat, dozing away to glory. Or, the person who proclaims that Ozhimuri was such a bore… Remember, they may have their reasons. Sometimes, reasons that they themselves are not aware of.

Ozhimuri makes you come out wiser and, more importantly, nicer by the end of the film. At least, it does try. 

It did. For me.