Arun D Jose: Malayalis are hesitant to address caste

The opening credits of director Arun D Jose's sophomore film 18+ reads, 'Dedicated to all those who treat fellow humans as equals.' For a film that addresses discrimination, there can't be a more appropriate tagline. "It's my version of the Herbert Hoover quote, 'All men are equal before fish.' It was there in my debut film Jo and Jo as well. It's a reflection of my politics, but I ensure not to preach it out loud through my films," emphasises Arun.

While the film exposes a grave social evil, it does not forego the entertainment factor. "Ideally, I would want all my works to have a clear political stand—irrespective of it being a comedy or love story. But they shouldn't be just about my politics. The priority should be to entertain people who invest their time and hard-earned money to watch my film. If showcasing my politics is the objective, then I should be doing documentaries," feels Arun. 

Arun chose a rather serious subject in 18+. The idea of a couple eloping and marrying against their parents' wishes might have been explored several times in the past, but Arun says he was eager to give it a new spin. "Though eloping is a clichéd subject in films, it's mostly a sub-narrative that hardly lasts for 30 minutes or so. I was interested to see how it would work in entirety. When I learnt about this real incident of a couple eloping, I found a lot of striking elements in it. That's how I, along with my co-writer Raveesh (Nath), decided to rework it in our style." 

The style that Arun mentions is perhaps the ability to find fun in the ordinary. But a closer look at both his films will shed light on the fact that they're more than just mindless comedies. If Jo and Jo was a commentary on gender, disguised as a fun sibling-rivalry story, 18+ spoke about caste-based discrimination. "With 18+, my major intention was to show why eloping is common in a highly literate and a self-proclaimed progressive state like ours. One of the main reasons for it is deep-rooted casteism, which Malayalis are hesitant to address. We might accept and appreciate other language films that speak of the evils of caste, but we like to believe that such discriminations don't exist here. However, the sad reality is we're living in a state where every caste has a separate matrimonial website. Even political parties field candidates based on caste-based surveys," asserts Arun.

A proponent of cliche breaking, Arun tried to topple quite a few stereotypes in 18+. For one, in what's essentially a love story, there aren't enough moments of the lovers together. Arun explains, "We didn't want to follow the usual pattern of showing their romance and how one fine moment, they decide to run away and get married. It was a deliberate decision to not tread that path, but I guess it didn't work with some. A few people told me that they didn't get the depth of Akhil and Athira's relationship. So, I think it's an attempt gone slightly wrong."

When 18+ was first announced, many got curious on seeing the names of Naslen, Mathew Thomas, Nikhila Vimal, the same set of actors from Jo and Jo. Speculations started doing the rounds if the same team is reuniting for a sequel. The rumours were put to rest when the makers released the first look, but the poster in turn triggered a new set of theories. As it featured Naslen and Mathew posing like a married couple in front of a sub registrar office, a section of cinephiles immediately assumed it to be a story of a homosexual couple. But it was only closer to release that many realised it was a misleading poster. Arun, though, stresses that it was never intended as one. On Valentine's Day when everyone was sharing couple photos, we thought we would do something fun and different. But unfortunately, it flared up. It was never planned to mislead. The photo was taken when Mathew randomly wore the garland and posed with Naslen during the shoot." When asked if he regrets making 'fun' out of a sensitive topic, Arun says, "Not really. In fact, one of the earliest scripts I wrote was a queer story. Though I couldn't pull it off then, I'm always interested in addressing their stories."

Despite his vast experience of assisting filmmakers like Lenin Rajendran, Aashiq Abu and Ranjith Sankar for around 12 years, Arun still regrets not being able to start his independent journey with the kind of films he wanted to do. "Both the films I've done so far are light-hearted entertainers. Though I liked the process and their outcome, they're probably not my personal favourites. I had initially worked on a few subjects, but couldn't pull off because of budget constraints for a newcomer. Those are the films that would give me complete satisfaction as a director. But I'm not sure if they'll work with the masses," signs off the director of two successful crowd-pleasers.