Recently, the film 2018 became the highest grosser in Malayalam cinema history and crossed ₹150 crore in box office collection for the first time. The Kerala Story, released at the same time, failed miserably collecting ₹20 lakh in Kerala (and Tamil Nadu). Yet, the film itself collected a humongous — considering its tiny budget — ₹280 crore (and counting) elsewhere.
2018 depicts the heroism of ordinary people, especially the marginalised fishing community, in confronting the catastrophe of the biggest Kerala floods of 100 years. While cinematically, it is not in the league of some of the brilliant Malayalam films, thematically it stresses people’s unity amidst vast social divisions. The Kerala Story is a Goebbelsian film without the cinematic qualities that even some Nazi propaganda films had. It is a shocking demonisation of Kerala and Muslims (other than the infantilisation of Hindu women). Its sole purpose is to scaremonger and establish the Islamic State (IS) as the biggest threat that India is facing presently (even if the now-defeated terrorist group has failed to kill a single Indian in a terror attack, and India has among the lowest number of IS recruits).
As the protagonist of the film says, “Kerala is sitting on live time bomb.”
