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I love to see stories like Average Ambili, written and directed by men which show sensitivity, and awareness of a woman's psyche and lived experience in our culture. Remember The Great Indian Kitchen?
I love to see stories like Average Ambili, written and directed by men which show sensitivity, and awareness of a woman’s psyche and lived experience in our culture. Remember The Great Indian Kitchen?
Average Ambili is a Malayalam web series produced by Karikku that is free to watch on Youtube. Currently 5 episodes have been released which are just 10 to 20 minutes each.
I have not seen such a nuanced and blatantly FEMINIST series or movie in Malayalam yet.
Karikku is a group of Youtube creators that became immensely popular with the Malayali audience and now have their own production company called Karikku Fliq. It is amazing to see such good content being produced and created by them that is disrupting the monopoly of the movie industry.
There is a product placement in each episode that is smoothly worked into the plot. I can imagine how it helps covers their costs, but if the result is content like this, I am ready to see 10 product placements in 10 minutes, no problem at all!
Here’s episode 1.
This is directed and written by Adithyan Chandrashekar with script and dialogue writing by a young woman writer whose name I unfortunately forgot. The acting is spot on by all, but especially by the lead actress played by Arsha Baiju. The background music rises to each scene perfectly to play on our emotions.
Social media is now overrun with memes made from dialogues and scenes from this series which seems to have resonated with youngsters across Kerala. I don’t blame them. It resonated with me as well.
This dialogue from a mother to a daughter: ”I spent my youth listening to my parents. After marriage, I listened to your father. There are a lot of things I missed in life to get a ‘good character certificate’ from society. Your elder sister also is just like me. Don’t become like us, Ambili. You do what you think is right.”
From a wife to a husband after hearing from him that she is totally dependent on him and is not fit to do anything on her own: ”You can’t even wash your own underwear or cook your own food. Don’t teach me about independence”.
Woah.
Average Ambili is a tribute to people who are seen as ‘average’ by the f**d up standards of society which only emphasize external achievements and shallow milestones, but not the deeper, stronger, internal qualities that actually make such people far more interesting than the so-called ‘achievers’.
I can so relate to that.
The future of Malayalam cinema, whether big screen or small screen, is in safe hands indeed.
Karishma has been writing short stories since she was 8 and poetry since she was 12. She ended up studying Zoology, then Montessori, and then psychology, always feeling ‘’something was missing’. She worked in the read more...
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