Nagraj Manjule’s short film ‘Vaikunth’ in the Amazon Prime Video anthology ‘Unpaused Naya Safar’ opens with television news updating India’s tally of Covid-19 cases. An ambulance enters the Vaikunth Crematorium in Pune.
The second wave’s devastating blow doesn’t rattle us. The images of several corpses in the film don’t move us enough.
The answer to our cold behaviour lies in Halitha Shameem’s short ‘Loners’ which is part of the anthology ‘Putham Pudhu Kaalai Vidiyaadha’ on Prime. Dheeran (Arjun Das), a techie, talking to his friend Nalla (Lijomol Jose) in a video chat, says “I feel I am casually getting desensitised. Death news has become just a ‘news’,” he says.
Nalla, an event manager, and a photographer replies, “We lost big cinema personalities like Vivek and KV Anand. Had these people passed away during normal times, we would have been in shock and mourned longer.”
Nalla and Dheeran meet through an online platform during the lockdown and become friends. While she is trying to heal from a failed relationship, he is yet to come to terms with his friend’s sudden death due to Covid-19.
“There is a reason why we conduct a farewell right? It’s our last chance to see the deceased and vent out our grief,” says Dheeran, who rues not getting that closure to his friendship.
Nagraj’s film shows conducting funerals was impossible during the second wave. The director plays Vikas Chavan, a crematorium worker, who works relentlessly for little respect from family members and people around him.
Death and loneliness are themes that connect these two films. Films such as ‘Joji’, ‘Ikkat’, and ‘Aarkkariyam’ were set in the pandemic but they explored different genres. On the other hand, ‘Vaikunth’ and ‘Loners’ are stark portrayals of the second wave. The helplessness and uncertainty are as real as they can get.
Nagraj doesn’t manipulate the viewers by using a sad background score. He doesn’t show grieving people as you only hear their wailing.
He is focused only on the frontline worker and his daily chores. The film’s editing pattern is interesting as Chavan’s job of burning the body, removing the ashes, cleaning up, and going for the next body is shown repeatedly to make us empathise with him.
Nagraj’s pet theme of holding a mirror up to the class difference in society finds a way into the story. Ostracised by the people of his area, Chavan takes his son to the crematorium to live after failing to find another option. The scene hits you hard when the camera pans into this line boldly written on a wall ‘crematorium is the only place where the rich and the poor rest together’.
Halitha’s film is delightfully conversational. She is a brilliant storyteller as it isn’t easy to keep us hooked just through a series of dialogues. She has also gone from strength to strength in depicting complex relationships. The dialogues are melancholic and breezy, in line with the film’s colour tones and the beach backdrop.
‘Loners’ is about how we, at some point during the pandemic, felt comfortable opening up to strangers despite having a host of close friends. It’s about meeting the right person when you are down and out. Halitha squeezes in her own beliefs through the story when Nalla says ‘too much stress on lockdown productivity is nothing but consumeristic shit and toxic productivity’.
The biggest plus is that both the films leave us with hope. Nobody wants to relive the tragic phase of the pandemic but the films are a reminder to expect the unexpected in life and pray for the best.