Class act

How four friends made a film that failed at the box office, but sparked a social change across the country

- BY ANJULY MATHAI

In the recent film Sthanarthi Sreekuttan, there is a scene involving two groups of children.

When one of them hits another for throwing a duster at him, the victim summons his 'god fathers'—three whippersnappers who call themselves the 'bhasmam team'. The bhasmam (ash) team enters in slow motion, with hip-hop thumping in the background. The leader, a diminutive boy with expressive eyes, flicks his bangs back as he growls condescendingly: “You’re lucky we have a cricket match now or else.... Now, go back to your classroom.” The belief among the children is that when the bhasmam team smears ash on their forehead, there is going to be a fight that day.

The entry scene of the young 'gangsters' is a spectacle modelled after a mass-action thriller like KGF or Baahubali, which could have signalled the entry of a larger-than-life hero like Yash or Prabhas. The fact that it is three chits who enact the scene lends it a humour that is heightened by the seriousness with which the children play the role. This cinematic treatment is at the core of how the story is told, a deliberate subversion of reality rarely seen in a movie by children, but for adults. It was a risky gamble, but one that debut filmmaker Vinesh Viswanath pulls off beautifully.

But the real triumph of Sthanarthi Sreekuttan is not that it fulfils its mission of being a 'mass movie' featuring children—that is only the means to the end—but that it touches your primal urge to root for the underdog, in this case Sreekuttan who, along with his three friends, is a perennial backbencher. The son of an autorickshaw driver, Sreekuttan is the constant target of a heartless teacher, Chakrapani or CP, until in an act of rebellion he announces that he is going to stand in the election for class president against Ambady, a frontbencher and CP's pet.