CR No: 89

CR no.89 is an innocuous debut film from a young director that would make a sleepy cineaste sit up to savor its whiff of freshness. That's director Sudevan's "CR No.89"--a little, big film which premiered in 2013 at the Intentional Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK). It is "little" because it is an 80 minute film made with an incredible shoestring budget of Rs 700,000 (about US$11,000) pooled by the director's well wishers (read "non-internet" crowd funding). It is "big" because the film, with its odd title, devoid of sex or participation of mainstream actors, and with minimal violence, has scooped up a slew of regional Indian awards including Best Film of 2013 at the 2014 Kerala State Film Awards, the NETPAC award for the best Malayalam film at the 2013 IFFK, the Aravindan award for the best debut film by an Indian director from the Chalachitra Film Society, the John Abraham award (in memory of the talented late Malayalam film director, not the living Bollywood actor) for the best debut director from the Federation of Film Societies of India (FFSI) , the Padamarajan Puraskaram (award) for the best film of 2013 from the Padmarajan Memorial Trust and an acting award for Asok Kumar (for the role of the automobile mechanic) from the Kerala state film awards. Unfortunately, the only international film festival this film has been invited to, thus far, is the minor Colombo International Film Festival. Marketing remains the bane of quality Indian regional cinema while what does get showcased abroad are the less well made semi-commercial films.

What is the odd title of this movie? The title ought to be expanded to Crime (or Criminal) Report no. 89. "CR no.89" is the jargon used in a regular Indian police station. The title has a subscript as written in police files "under section 323, 324, 379 of the Indian Penal Code, read with 25(1)(b) of the Arms Act." It refers to an unsolved criminal report relating to an illicit transportation of deadly weapons in a stolen jeep and other felonies. The weapons, transported in a jeep, are hidden in crates under heaps of tomatoes. When the law does catch up with such consignments, the transporters are rarely caught and the haul of the weapons by the law enforcers is merely reported in the news and subsequently buried in dusty files as a cold case.

The brevity of the title inadvertently describes the young director Sudevan, who has evidently not considered of how an attractive title could have marketed his film beyond Kerala, but is more concerned about the reality of frequent illicit arms transportation in Kerala, the violence such weapons inflict on innocent rural folk, and the apathy of the law and order machinery to resolve such cold cases.

However, the film is not about arms transportation. It begins with a focus on engines in hardly roadworthy vehicles that ply on Indian roads. The movie gradually explores a gamut of Indian rural characters, who interact with the shady arms transporters by happenstance, because the jeep carrying the illicit consignment has broken down on an unpaved, rarely used road, cutting through a hardly inhabited rubber plantation. The illegal arms transporters chose that odd route to avoid detection. What follows is a credible edge of the seat entertainment for the viewers with an unusual ending as a bonus.

What Sudevan has accomplished, with the help of three cameramen utilizing very basic camera equipment simultaneously, is to realistically depict varied reactions of average Indians to the goons in distress. How director Sudevan has achieved this is truly praiseworthy, especially in creating the final sequence, which is bereft of the bad guys. The entire concept is Sudevan's own, including an interesting credit sequence. The end-product is a delectable mosaic of how Indians behave.

There is wry humor sprinkled throughout the film—a game of rural checkers played with nuts and bolts, odd hairstyles, attitudes towards work by a not-so-busy small-time automobile mechanic, who is quite skilled in his trade, and the intricacies of social etiquettes of distribution of marriage invitations for middle-class Keralites. There are interesting shots of chameleons cleverly edited into the narrative. Sudevan ducks the popular lure of spoon-feeding his audience with unnecessary details in the narrative—he forces the linear details to be assembled by the intelligent viewer.

Young Sudevan had a history of persistently following up with film societies to enter his short films in competitions and in film society screenings. The quality of his short films and the resulting sales of the DVDs of his short films helped fund each subsequent Sudevan film, culminating in the award-winning low-budget feature film "CR No.89." The success of Sudevan is partly due to the role of film societies in encouraging young film makers, an unusual scenario that is alive and laudable in pockets of India, such as Kerala.

"CR No. 89" is a film, with English subtitles, that deserves to be widely seen and appreciated by film-goers who hanker for good Indian cinema in India and abroad. Most of all it is amazing that a lovely, quality film could be made with Rs 700,000 by a young man committed to cinema without any compromises or a political subtext. While quality Malayalam films enjoy viewership within Kerala, it is truly sad to note that small-budget films such as "CR No.89" and major works of Malayalam cinema, such as M T Vasudevan Nair's "Nirmalayam" (The Offering) (1973) and Adoor Gopalakrishnan's "Anantaram" (Monologues) (1987), are rarely seen or discussed beyond the borders of Kerala, either nationally or internationally.

(This review was published earlier at www.dearcinema.com)

Independent films in Malayalam industry are rarely worth any value, and when they are, they are not easily available to watch because they are not released on home video or online. This crime drama here, although with a very poor production setup, can be easily watched on Reelmonk.

Two men are trying to go from A to B in a rundown Jeep in the state of Kerala. As was suggested by a third man - possibly their employer - they avoid the highway and take the rough inside route to get to their destination. However, the vehicle breaks down in the middle of the night and the duo decide to wait up for the sun to look for a possible and easy solution. They manage to fetch a mechanic, but things go out of control when the mechanic decides to have a peek at what exactly the vehicle is carrying other than these two men...

Sudevan's story is precisely about a rule in the Motor Vehicles Act, which goes largely undetected. To convey the message, he uses four chief characters and throws them in a pit where they have to cross each other's paths. They all have diverse characteristics and that leads to few interesting turns in the story. The audience can easily suspect that the two men are into something criminal, but have to wait up for the third character to help them understand what it really is, if at all. The fourth character is collateral damage, and this is what is most appealing about the story, which runs for about 100 minutes.

A viewer feels sad for the fourth character, but is happy to see that there are people like the third one, too. Sequences involving all the four do manage to induce a sense of thrill and tension in the viewer.

Five minutes will be enough for a viewer to realize that this is an experimental film, with less to no focus on the filmmaking parameters. From the cast, who are all first-timers, to their dialogues, from the screenplay to the cinematography - everything is sub-standard, which, for its advantage, gives the film a scratchy, realistic varnish, which, again, suits the story that is being told. Having said that, if the makers had polished it a bit with some improvements in the camera work and cast performance, this would have been a much enjoyable affair.

All in all, CR No: 89 is not a triumph, but an example that independent cinema is getting there. Watch it for the story and the experience; ignore the poor production.

BOTTOM LINE: Sudevan's "CR No: 89" is a drama made with a strong social message involving the law, but the fact that such things happen as we sleep at night is alarming. Watch it on YouTube or Reelmonk.

Can be watched with a typical Indian family? YES