Angamaly Diaries: Survival in the Chaos

Director Lijo Jose Pellissery’s “Angamaly Diaries” opens with plenty of mouth-watering images of the region’s exquisite food, as if telling the audience that the pathway to anyone’s heart is through stomach, or hinting us about the unconditional love and fondness that the people of Angamaly have for their food. Amidst the various shots of the streets busy eateries, we feel a thunderous crescendo of brass bands, as if indicating a world of chaos, we are about to enter. The brass bands, which I much later realized was the sound of violence used to enhance or probably dramatize the action sequences in the film. A gay man wearing a butterfly’s printed colorful shirt enters the frame, and act as a catalyst to initiate the tale of Angamaly. 

   

Vincent Pepe, the supposedly principle protagonist introduces himself in two sentences and is instantly likeable, what follows next is just an ordinary routine day on the streets of Angamaly, a fist fight between “Teams” (a term regularly used to define bunch of hooligans of a particular area in the town) and people watching it for few minutes, and getting back to their work. On my initial viewing of the film, I thought the story narrates the journey of Vincent amidst all the chaos and utter madness that surrounds him. It felt more like a coming of age drama for this character, but somehow what stayed with me long after watching the film was the vibe of the city that oozed complete lack of moral preconceived notions in a society, and it came through the virtues of madness, violence, survival, pork meats, gambling dens and alcohol. The film chronicles the journey of Vincent, right from his childhood where he tells us that his name ‘Pepe’ means Joseph, father of Jesus Christ, quite an amusing fact considering the irony in one of the scenes in the film. He is infatuated by a fascinating figure named ‘Babuji’ who leads a local football team, and has a consistent track record of wining either by scoring more goals, or by beating the living hell out of opposition team or the referee who by any means tries to bestow upon yellow or red card to Babuji’s team. Pepe’s respect for Babuji can summoned up from the fact that butchers will not slice up meat for even the chairperson of the municipal corporation but for Babuji and his team, they will. This ordinary act seems a mark of respect and in a way influences Pepe, and sets a benchmark of power and influence.   

It doesn’t take Pepe too much of time to understand the dynamics of the town, he gets into to building his own team, like a recruitment organization starts enrolling guys who are bold, maverick in their nature, applicants who enjoy their food and know the nuance of eating with precision which brings utmost pleasure gets an upper hand in the process, and lastly people with some special abilities like able to act as a compromise manger. Hence, forms the Palliyangadi Team. The adolescent period of the team remains influenced towards Movies, festivals, Beer and Romance, after a certain point the team ends their virginity to be legitimately known as a Team, a point where they engaged in an altercation, and practice their skills to fight and prove their strength as a team.

To look as another perspective, Angamaly Diaries is sort of a memoir about the tales of a city, highlighting the journey of a particular team out of many. To understand the spirit of the town, there is a scene in the film where a man is explaining the procedure to make a hand grenade to the member of Palliyangadi while hugging a tree, his rationalization to such an awkward position is that while tying the thread across the rocks, if it explodes, only his hands would face injury, that logic explains the mentality, members of the various teams have. There are bizarre instances in the film, which appears so ridiculously funny, yet they form such an important part of the narrative to give us a brief insight into the existing scenario of the town. Breaking dead body’s arms just so that it can fit in the coffin easily, fighting over the issue who gets to eat the last plate of rabbit meat, stealing the wallet of a man going through seizures, Wishing Happy New Year in the month of October, just to appear classy and resounding in their meetings, Stealing a python from a school exhibition and making curry with eat, and happily announcing that it’s considered good to nourish the skin.  

Love, in Angamaly forms an important part of a person’s life, however to know it more deeply, people often are found using analogies of food combinations to retrospect it. The love life of Pepe in the film has certain charm to it, a sort of coolness, be it a girl going to the hospital everyday to give her love interest daily dose of kisses. Love, for Vincent Pepe is important, but he does not make it a primary motive of his life, he knows when to let go and move ahead in his life, and when he least expects it, love come back knocking at his door. There is an exceptionally well executed scene in the film, where Pepe understands the situation and circumstances in his life, and tells a girl to think practical and move on with her life, he leaves the girl who just sits alone looking through the busy streets of Angamaly.

The film’s soundtrack is an integral part of the narrative that the director is trying to indulge us in, the background score, and songs are rustic in nature and are portraying the nature of the town. Songs takes the narrative ahead, and are clear in their intentions of displaying the importance of food in the town whereas he background score including the brass bands edges more towards the violent nature of the town. There is another important aspect that is used couple of times in the film by many characters, it’s called “For Effect”, it can be more broadly described as phenomenon used to sound more authoritative in tone, even if the words said are utterly false, it’s more like a psychological trick to be thrown into the talk to get an upper hand over the person. Just like in Gangster films, the more commanding you sound, the more solid persona you built for yourself. The film’s climax is a single shot and involves a large crowd into a cramped space, despite these obstacles, Director Lijo and Cinematographer Gireesh Gangadharan pulls of an amazing feat and provides us a memorable end to the roller-coaster ride. 

Angamaly Diaries is about the survival in the chaos surrounded in the town, the violence in the film is the byproduct of the circumstances that the characters get absorbed into, which are probably affiliated to the excessive masculine pride associated in the situation. The protagonists as well as the antagonist after a certain time realize that survival is far more important than dominance. The latter facet is used from time to time to make sure people around you do not forget you, while the former feature is the necessity, even in the volatile nature. People in the town love their food, by the end of the day, they want to end the truce and settle the issue with 10ML alcohol and some pork meat.