Under the garb of a Zombie film, which it absolutely is on the surface, Zombivali speaks of Class difference and oppression of one class by the other poignantly. Certain stereotypes of people living in the slums which people living in high rise buildings have incorporated within, are given face to by designing characters and putting them in unusual sequences, which doesn’t always hit the mark but makes you ponder nevertheless. Just in the first 10 minutes of the film, it is made clear that the film is not just about Zombies and a city going haywire due to the menace. Instead, it is a film rooted in the socio-political undertakings prevalent in cities. It was a surprise to see such understanding and portrayal from what I had expected earlier to be a no brainer zombie picture.
Zombivali tells a deeply Indian story using a foreign idea, merging the politics with the aesthetics from the very first minute and is widely compelling throughout. The entire film becomes a striking metaphor of people of the slum forced to lead a life like zombies. No one cares about them and when they do, it is only to hurl abuses and blame them for making the city dirty. Right from the doctors, to the media, police and people from other class, everyone thinks of them as unwanted polluters. When their entire existence is systemically deprived from them, the men are looked down upon as being drunkards, the women thieves and the children patted away like dust from a surface, they all become the living dead, the zombies. The film is filled with such parallels and bravely crafted images which go on to show the animosity that exists in the minds of many people about those who live in the slum.
There is one scene which I particularly saw as an understanding of the violence brought forth by the oppressed against the powers that be and how the oppressors invoke and give birth to such a violence in the minds of the oppressed. One of the characters has a dysfunction in his right hand that at times it becomes uncontrollable. At a strike against a capitalist, when things go awry, the right hand goes and tries to strangulate a security guard who had earlier pushed the person and threatened them to leave. Such instances repeat throughout the film, which till then are thought to be there to invoke humor, but its only when the reason is revealed later that it really strikes out as a brave element. It is revealed that the characters’ parents were killed by this capitalist who had snatched away their land and built a factory there. As a kid, he saw this and when he confronted the capitalist, his hand got broken in the process. When he woke up two days later in the hospital, his hand wasn’t the same. This is a nice metaphor to explain that violence is initiated in the minds of the oppressed by violent acts of oppression meted out by the oppressors. And so, the hand resorts to striking blows upon anyone who deny them their humanity. While watching I was reminded of some lines on violence from Pedagogy of the oppressed by Paulo Freire,
“Never in history has violence been initiated by the oppressed. How could they be the initiators, if they themselves are the result of violence? How could they be the sponsors of something whose objective inauguration called forth their existence as oppressed? There would be no oppressed had there been no prior situation of violence to establish their subjugation. Violence is initiated by those who oppress, who exploit, who fail to recognize others as persons- not by those who are oppressed, exploited and unrecognized”.
This comes out absolutely beautifully in the film. Kudos to the writers for this stark observation and bringing it out in this brave manner.
Zombies coming in a Marathi film setting is in itself an interesting cross pollination of cultures and I was curious to see how the marriage happens when a dominantly western idea comes to live in the Marathi setting. I loved it for the matured socio-political understanding and the way it chose to present it.
Zombivali is more than just a film about Zombies. If looked down deeply, it carries the colors of revolution between its ghastly images.
KuchTohBhi 