Mothers-In-Law And Daughters-In-Law: Ullozhukku As The Undercurrents Of What Relationships Hide
In an interview to Film Companion, Urvashi describes how she was mentally and physically drained on the sets of Ullozhukku. For Urvashi, the suffocation was more than just a psychic consequence of the movie. It is negative energy, she says, the kind that compelled her to request a spiritual intervention on the sets of the movie. Although the feeling is discussed in relation to the movie, there is no doubt that Christo Tomy’s first feature film intends to communicate a similar veerpumuttal. Inside a home that is steeped in secrets, it is suffocation that speaks.
We see this immediately on Anju’s (Parvathy) face as she begins her marital life. Forced to smile at a husband (Prashanth Murali) that she is not in love with, Anju is flailing if not drowning in anguish. Yet, none of this is visible to her mother-in-law Leelamma (Urvashy) who believes in the sanctity of marriage and the family. As mother to a gravely ill son, Leelamma believes that her prayers and Anju’s love would keep her son alive. “Ente santhosham kandu daivathinu asooya thonni,” (God was jealous when he saw my happiness) she tells Anju as she cries over her son’s illness and pain. Tomy’s strength lies in holding this tension between the two women alive. With the sudden death of Thomas Kutty, Tomy shows how both Leelamma and Anju are confronted with the weight of their secrets while being stuck in a house surrounded by water. While Leelamma has covered hers in layers of maternal love, Anju struggles with doing the same. With the end of Thomaskutty’s life and the news of a pregnancy, Anju can no longer stay numb to the weight of what she knows. She must leave and make a new life with her lover. Soon after the death of her husband, for example, Anju is busy stowing away everything that reminds her of her husband. However, a day later, Leelamma restores everything to its place.
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A sizable number of Malayalam films have depicted the relationship between the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law in hues that were reflective of the middle-class Malayali value systems. Urvashi herself had played the role of two different kinds of daughter-in-laws in the nineties. In Sthreedhanam (1993), Urvashi was the hapless daughter-in-law who was mentally and physically tortured by a toxic mother-in-law. In Bharya, Urvashi became the seed of discord that disrupted the home of a peaceful family. In both these renditions, the relationship between the daughter-in-law and the mother-in-law is quite visibly shorn of love. It is through climactic events that the difficult in-laws are taught a lesson, one that makes them worthy of love. Ullozhukku, on the other hand, does not create such moments. Even when Leelamma confronts Anju about her secret lover, the moment is tucked into the recesses of the room, away from the knowledge of nattukar (the public). Similarly, when Anju confronts Leelamma, she quietly slips a resentful look at Leelamma amidst the funeral. Such moments where the two are cautiously guarding each other’s secret are also revealing of the ways in which the movie is a quiet departure from stereotypical renditions of mother-in-law and daughter-in-laws. By withdrawing into the grief of a mother and the conflict of a soon-to-be-mother, Tomy lets his characters stew in the water and make decisions that are difficult to bear.
Even though the movie pans out to show the effusive Kuttanad landscape and the other significant characters in Leelamma’s universe, it is impossible to stay with them when Urvashi is on screen. The ability to stifle a sob, lodge it between the throat and the heart and then let it escape at the right moment is not a this-wordly trait. It is an energy that only Urvashi is capable of summoning when she becomes the mother. In her short role in Varana Avashyamund for instance, Urvashi had outperformed Shobhana and given a far more moving and realistic performance as a loving mother. One experiences a similar if not a more expanded version of this role when Urvashi takes over her character of Leelamma. While quietly sifting through the waves of grief, Urvashi lets her body erupt when she sees her daughter in law faint. Suddenly the faint hope of a new life, a part of her son, is reflected on Leelamma’s face even as she grapples with her loss. Given such brilliance, it is impossible if not challenging to hold the fort with an actor of such range. Parvathy tries and succeeds most of the time despite some noticeable slips. In a scene where Anju is stuck in the bathroom holding the carcass of her double life, her reflection in the mirror reveals a face that is crumpling in unison with the scene.
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Although Ullozhukku can be read as a companion film to the 2023 Mammootty starrer-Kaathal, it moves away from the latter by solely training its lens on the insides of its central protagonists and the home they live in. Towards the end, Kaathal had quickly folded into an idyllic space where the difficult knowledge of queerness was easily accepted within the home as well as outside. Ullozhukku, on the other hand, strikes a more honest note where Leelamma and Anju are resolute in not letting the outside come between them. When the end of the movie draws near, it is this solidarity and the faith in a possible future that makes the grief wash over.
