Nizhalkkuthu

The first Malayalam-language movie that I've ever seen focuses on a hangman's questioning the moral implications of his job after learning that he executed an innocent man. Adoor Gopalakrishnan's "Nizhalkkuthu" ("Shadow Kill" in English) is set during the final days of the British occupation, although there is no mention of the British presence. There is a mention of the caste system, and the arrival of the Maharajah's officer towards the end of the movie affirms the disconnect between the lives of most Indians and those of the subcontinent's elite.

I like seeing movies that show us cultures that we don't often see, in this case people's lives in Kerala. To be certain, India leads the world in movie production, but the west tends to see very few of them. We hear a lot about Bollywood, but South Asian cinema is much more diverse than that. I would like to be able to see more Indian movies, and in particular movies like this one.