Any Communist who believes that the party looks after the poor is still living in a fool’s paradise. While this truth was self evident to us for a long time, it has taken a courageous film maker called Lal Jose to put that on screen. His new movie, along the lines of the excellent Achanurangatha Veedu tells some unpleasant truths in a not so unpleasant way. Besides going for a story which looks at Communist hypocrisy, Lal Jose has cast Srinivasan in the lead role, similar to how he cast Salim Kumar in the role of his life time in Achanurantha Veedu.

Sify writes

In the era of superstar driven, shallow, larger-than-life filmmaking with no story line, Lal Jose and his script writer Iqbal Kuttipuram has come out with a solid film. Arabikatha is a stinging indictment of how the communist parties in Kerala, has moved away from the ordinary people its voter base, to be a party controlled by a corrupt leadership devoid of any ideology or social commitment.

There are so many well etched scenes in the film which exposes the hollowness of the communist ideology in a fast changing world. The scene where Mukundan meets his ‘bete-noire’ the NRI Kunjunni in his Dubai office is brilliant. Kunjunni exposes the leadership of a party of the working class, who are not used to doing hard labour, nor do they know how to operate a laptop!

Soon Mukundan realizes that today it is a materialistic world, and the old dogmas of communism are dead. But the dogmas are kept alive by the “corrupt” leadership back home, for their own survival!
A scintillating performance from Sreenivasan is the highlight of the film. He is brilliant and lifelike, at the same time brings nervous energy and anguish to the character he performs which makes the film work. You can feel the earnestness of ‘Cuba’ Mukundan’s intentions, the wetness of his tears through Sreenivasan. Zhang Shu Min the Chinese for a newcomer has played the role with a lot of sensitivity. Jayasurya in a negative role is a revelation. Inderjeet, Samvrutha, Jagathy, Saleem Kumar, Augustine and a host of newcomers have given spellbinding performances.

The Hindu writes

Each of us has heard stories of people whose dreams turned into a mirage. However, we prefer to focus on the stories of the handful of people who have made it big there. But for every millionaire, there are thousands of anonymous workers who are forced to live away from their families and endure many hardships to support their families. What they sacrifice is their youth. This is their story and ours too.”

While scouting for locations in Dubai, I happened to visit a labour camp. I am sure that if I had taken up a job in the Gulf, I would have been living in one of those places,” feels film director Lal Jose.

But cinema came to his rescue and Lal Jose’s latest film, ‘Arabikatha,’ is a sort of tribute to those thousands of nameless Keralites who eke out a living in the Gulf. But the film is not a grim documentation of the labour camps or the under belly of glittering Dubai. ‘Arabikatha’ celebrates the lives of those workers who reach Dubai to chase their dreams.

Velu Says:

Amidst deafening slogans and intensifying vigor, the shots of gunfire reverberate, crushing a few valiant lives in the process. Shot in starch black and white, the scene gains color, as scarlet blood drenches a white flag that a comrade gallantly upholds – Lal Jose sets a crimson tone for his latest offing, as his signature impressively emerges on the screen.

Cuba Mukundan (Sreenivasan), a Communist ideologist, who seeks to establish a classless, stateless social organization based on the Marxian principles that he holds dear to, is a staunch socialist, who wears his heart on his sickle. Son to the revolutionary Society Gopalan (Nedumudi Venu), he is busy waging war against Computers, Casteism and Coca Cola at Chemmannur. Until he finds himself as a debtor of twenty lakhs, and is left with no other choice, but to end up being one of the million job-seekers in Dubai, a destination that he simply abhors owing to its bourgeoisie makeup. Mukundan’s Communist manifesto has few takers in Dubai, as he painfully realizes that the world isn’t all about Fidel Castro and Cuba nor about Lenin and Beijing. The affairs back home aren’t rosy either, as the new generation lefties gain power and clout, and the genuine revolution gets trodden deeper into the grimy dirt.

IndiaGlitz.com comments:

It is natural for people, especially Malayalees to leave their homeland in search of a better life and a bright future for their children. In Arabikatha, the director tackles the subject of an intense party men living on the fringes of an alien society which does not recognize his existence. The film has Sreenivasan playing Cuba Mukundan, who is an ardent fan of Fidel Castro and loves his party than anything. He and his father ‘Society’ Raghavan who run a tea shop, are the torch bearers of the party at Chammanur in Kannur district. Being the local secretary of communist party, he criticizes and resists everything that is forbidden by the party texts. And so he is against cola, bourgouisie, bribery, computers and even don’t believe in gods as communists originally don’t. As Marx somewhere suggested that he rethought many times about his decision to enter into marriage, Mukundan also don’t like to enter into matrimony. . But all in the party were not like Mukundan. People like Karunan, a party leader wants to take over the party in the village from Mukundan, for his own selfish reasons.

The film opens with the lathy charge on ‘Cuba’ Mukundan and his party men, who are making an agitation against the leather factory in the village, set up by Kunjunni (Jagathy Sreekumar) a rich NRI. The party resists the factory due to environmental reasons and the industrial pollution that it creates. But Karunan has a secret deal with Kunjunni, to somehow avoid the agitation. But soon the court rules to close down the leather factory. Kunjunni now agitated, plans with Karunan to frame Mukundan’s father Society Ragahvan on a scandal related with society’s expenditure. They succeed in that, when Raghavan is at hospital with a fatal stroke. ‘Cuba’ Mukundan believes the cooked up scandal story and suspends his father from the party for the involvement, but soon the old man passes away. Now Mukundan decides to repay the ‘misappropriate’ amount involved and take leave from the party. The district committee suggests Mukundan to go to gulf so that he can make the big amount of 20 lakh to repay, within a short time.

Rediff.com says:

Can just talking of idealism and fighting for a just world for others buy you a bowl of rice? In these times of rampant and unabashed consumerism where ideology does not count for much, this question is the ultimate that can stop any argument on political or ideological integrity.

And, if you have the protagonist of a film carrying the ideals of some long lost era, what will be the outcome? Scriptwriter Dr Iqbal Kuttipuram creates such a man in the Malayalam film Arabikatha, and succeeds greatly in putting across the point that progress is vital.

He bashes the leftist ideology with subtlety by concentrating on an individual rather than making a hyperbole out of it as seen in most commercial films.

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