The COVID-19 pandemic serves as backdrop for filmmaker Mahesh Narayanan to explore the fragile male ego in “Declaration,” an austere Indian drama that’s as far away from the macho postu…
,” an austere Indian drama that’s as far away from the macho posturing of the country’s robust commercial film industry as one can imagine. Set in the dead of winter, the film spends most of its time at a factory in India’s National Capital Region where medical latex gloves are manufactured, following married couple Hareesh and Reshmi as they go about their respective tasks of driver and product tester.
A video with footage of Reshmi intercut with an unidentified woman performing a sex act emerges, spreading rapidly in the closed world of the factory, and the hitherto pleasant facade of Hareesh rapidly alters as he loses faith in his wife’s fidelity. The couple are already strangers in a strange land, being emigrants to north India from the southern state of Kerala, who are looking to move abroad, and the video puts further pressure on them.
Narayanan, a veteran editor with more than 60 credits, explores seemingly different genres with each new outing, ranging from survival thriller “Take Off” to human trafficking drama “C U Soon” to mafia epic “Malik,” though each of these projects shares a focus on themes of personal struggle.
Boban, a marquee star in Kerala who has evolved over the years from romances and comedies to dramatic roles, also serves as producer. Unlike in other Indian film industries, where star-produced films are often vehicles to further an actor’s image, Boban has no hesitation in portraying an increasingly unlikable and conflicted character as he grows convinced that his wife is the woman in the video.
High drama this isn’t. “Declaration” is a sober piece of cinema that lays out its themes gradually without judgment, even while depicting corruption in the manufacture of vital personal protective equipment that could potentially result in more deaths in a country already devastated by COVID-19 deaths.
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