There is a spelling mistake in the title of the Malayalam movie Falimy, but that is deliberate, explains debutant Nithish Sahadev about his film. “It is a clue to the error in the ways and thinking of a dysfunctional family. We can’t really call them a family,” he adds.
The film, he says, is a light-hearted take on a middle-class family and their aspirations. Living in a narrow lane in Thiruvananthapuram, Chandran’s family consists of his wife, two sons and his father (Neenaraj Palluruthy). Chandran (Jagadish) runs an old-fashioned press that has fallen into difficult times as he does not update it because he doubts the viability of digital printing. His wife Rema (Manju Pillai) works at a private digital press. The eldest son (Basil Joseph) is a dubbing artist working on dubbing a Hindi web serial Hey Sulochana. The youngest (Sandeep Pradeep) dreams of going abroad to strike it rich. Naïve and simple, their life becomes complicated because of their ego and complexes.
Nithish, a resident of Thiruvananthapuram, says with a laugh that the mindset of the parents is as narrow as the alley they stay in.
Middle class ambience
“They stay in a thickly populated narrow lane in the capital city. Many who come to work in Thiruvananthapuram settle in such places and build a house there on account of its proximity to their workplaces, schools etc. It’s a slice-of-life story about a family whose only aim is to exist on a day-to-day basis,” says the director.
At one point in their life, the film also becomes a travel movie when a certain incident persuades them to travel to Varanasi. However, Nithish emphasises that the film does not end up as a travelogue, which shows viewers places of interest on a trip to Varanasi. The focus is always on the characters.
“Varanasi is a place where one encounters life and death at close quarters.”
Nitish, who has worked with directors like 2018 director Jude Anthany Joseph, was looking for a subject to direct his film when he heard the story of Falimy. In between, he had directed a short film Magneto, which did reasonably well on YouTube.
The film was shot in Thiruvananthapuram, a few places in Rajasthan, Chamarajanagar in Karnataka, and Varanasi among others. “Like many journeys, this one too becomes a journey for the family to explore their lives. The situations and characters are evocative of a family that chooses to live only in the present.”
Falimy released along with several new releases on the same day. However, Nithish says he is not perturbed by the competition. “If the audience likes a film, it will do well. It does not matter if two or more movies release on the same day.”
