Movie Review: Mathilukal (The Walls)

This is a page torn from life. Blood is spilling from its edges. Some people would have fear and fatigue seeing Hot Blood. They should be careful while reading his book.

--M. P. Paul in his foreword to Baalyakaalasakhi

Mathilukal (The Walls) is the first "art" movie that I saw. Written by the great malayalee writer Vaikkom Muhammad Basheer. The greatness of this writer is seen by the fact that his 75 page novel Baalyakaalasakhi is considered one of the best novels in malayalam literature.

I was a kid when I saw this movie in a very large, dark movie hall in Delhi. It was the first movie which for a moment suspended life for me. I was completely absorbed in the movie that when it ended and lights came on, I was speechless for some time gradually getting my bearing. The power of movie and a good story, I realized then.

Plot Spoiler Warning

It is a love story in which the lovers have never met each other and in the end they never meet. The man is a political prisoner in a prison which has a big brown wall in the middle of the ground seperating the men and women's prison. He strikes up causal conversation with a woman prisoner on the other side who has a very sweet voice. In the whole movie, just as the man we just hear her voice. They form a relationship based only on the voice of each other. And he falls madly in love.

The ending has to be tragic if it has to leave a mark. Suddenly she is released one day without getting a chance to inform the news to him and till now they didnt even ask each other their names or address.

So the love story ends painfully with them not getting a chance to come together after the prison life. And as he is being released, he asks " Why freedom, I dont need it!"