Nearly half a decade ago, when a certain lifestyle content page on the socials broke the internet with their viral comedy clips featuring stereotype characters of women, people in the metro cities in India couldn’t get enough of it. Anything that appears close to the truth and is exaggerated on the internet is loosely termed to be “relatable content” and thus, the stereotype of a certain rich Aunt (Masi) who would instruct her driver to take out her car and the other stereotype of the South Delhi girl who is snooty and bratty beyond belief made for relatable content online, especially pointing fingers and showing a mirror to the women, and men in their families.

That’s one way of doing things and I may not agree with that approach entirely—cause to my mind those caricatures lampooning privilege and class divide may have pushed back the feminist movement struggles by about ten years and god knows how regressive this niche genre of elite content creation is—but it was here and it made an indelible mark on the psyche of those who consumed it. That genre of content creation still remains actively prominent. Every six weeks, a content creator becomes huge on account of bringing to life some hidden Indian woman on our mobile devices. Could be a Punjabi Biji or a Marwari Bahu or a lunatic film starlet talking trash, Indian content creators are having a field day on account of women's representation and using the current affairs/day to day to stay active in the public discourse online.

Starkly in contrast to the aforementioned content is Jeo Baby’s latest The Great Indian Kitchen (2021). One of the finest films of the year (I saw it in January and am willing to stick to it), it has left an indelible mark on its viewers. This film takes the mundanities and the chores carried out by the women in the kitchen and sharply projects them on screen, juxtaposing that with those of the men of the house. And that is saying this with as much subtlety as possible. It is jarring how great that disparity and inequality is, in the Indian family system, between the male and the female figureheads in the house, and that further carries down to the youngest member of the family, all down to their gender. The film is a representation of that in an unnamed household in Kerala, foregrounding discourses around mensuration/purity and religious fanaticism.

The film is loosely divided into two parts—the first primarily focuses on building and establishing the role mapped for a newly married woman in her household, living with her in-laws and caring for the family. This involves cooking, cleaning, washing, being omnipresent to serve one and all, and finally to consent to the demands of the husband in the bed. This part is seemingly awe-inducing, despite growing up and living in India where the care-taker is often the woman in the family, across age groups. While the men of her house are expected to carry out tasks such as read the newspaper or attempt yoga, the demands from the women of the house are entirely different—prepare chutney with sambhar (because “we eat both in this house”) and clean up after the men are done eating (pick-up their half-chewed vegetable waste from the table).

The first half of the film sets the trauma that the unnamed female protagonist (played by the extremely talented Nimisha Sajayan) bears throughout. The trauma is activated each night while she lays on the bed, her unnamed husband (Suraj Venjaramoodu) thrusts himself, in what looks like a painful missionary. With each repetition of her visual memory from the day, she thinks of the tasks that have irked her since morning. The audience, too, is traumatized by all the goop she has to tackle day to day while cleaning up after her husband and her father-in-law. She feels sick to her gut as she tries to ward off the thoughts concerning a leaking waste pipe, food waste, and the general lack of etiquettes in the house that she has to deal with (on account of men being men?).

The second half of the film is where personal becomes political. There’s a celibate husband, pilgrimage, menstruation, and a very real backlash of the Sabarimala Temple issue, all put together against the day to day of this family. The second half of the film also in a way shows what happens when the unnamed woman speaks upon any occasion, against the bullshit she’s served on a platter (prepped, cooked, cleaned, washed, soaked, ironed all by her). An example of this that stings hard is when the husband demands to have sex with her and she requests for him to include some foreplay, he reacts angrily to claim how foreplay only comes into action if the man has any attraction towards the woman. Fairly certain, this is far more relatable content than what these viral influencers choose to make for their #Bridechilla demographic, dancing in their make-up reels, who never in their lives know what domestic abuse looks like.

What may have terrified you (as subject matter) is sharply contrasted with easy to blend in visuals of the kitchen, the household, and the chores. The Great Indian Kitchen makes chopping, soaking, cleaning, and cooking look real and enticing. Even if you have not worked a day in your life, you would be left asking two questions— how did the women in our house/our ancestors do it all? And, how has nobody ever stopped to show you this reality on the silver screen in this gritty manner?

This film should be a compulsory watch for every man over the age of 15 in a country like ours where the male-children are revered to be the incarnation of saints and gods and women, second to them. In no way, does the film feed you a lesson on morality, feminism, religious dogmas, patriarchy, and/or abuse and yet it subtly engages with all these without saying as much a sermon. Everything is subtle, everything is quietly carried out, without any objection—clothes to be washed by hands (for their long wearability), rice to be cooked on the stove for an enhanced taste, hand-grounded chutney to be made instead of using the mixer—the film picks on delicate, everyday moments and chooses to highlight the idiosyncratic by not punishing the women as much as the patriarchy that leads to those moments. The shots are framed in a manner where you see the space and you hear sounds of the food being prepared, the table is laid, the house is cleaned, and the clothes being washed. You do not see faces while the chores are being carried out, and consequently, do not hear any form of exaggerated content.

Thappad (2020; dir: Anubhav Sinha), in a manner of speaking, attempted to show this repetition of the daily chores on the screen to highlight each passing day and establish the consistency in their narrative; only that film attempted this on the editing table with shorter cuts of the day’s activities repeated over. Meanwhile, The Great Indian Kitchen attempts this with their solid camera work and compelling sound design, and sharp editing. Salu K. Thomas has done a mega job in creating depth with his visuals and ensuring the viewer is hooked at all times, without making the repetition a boring experience.

This is a visually stunning film, that comes together with the sound design that compliments it together, held together with production design that will transport you inside the four walls where most of the film takes place (barring the last few scenes). The film truly looks real and hits you like a brick in the face. For someone who does not understand Malayalam and has to rely on the subtitles throughout, I did not, for a second, find the viewing tedious despite the repetition of chores and visuals. If anything, the sights and the sounds that made The Great Indian Kitchen great were good enough for me to get hooked to the film from the first shot onwards.

There are few films where the acting and the screenplay make you want to lodge bullets in the eyeballs of the characters and The Great Indian Kitchen is one of them. You truly feel frustrated each time the male characters open their mouth to say something truly obnoxious or do something completely horrific. As the audience, you curse them through the course of the film and want them to die a painful death. In that manner, the climax of the film is the most satisfying thing you will see on-screen in a while. The redemption that the unnamed female has against the males of her house will make you truly believe that this is truly #FeelGoodCinema, the kind that does not involve making a list with Shawshank Redemption (1994; dir Frank Darabont) alone.

Whatever little I have been able to relay about the film and around it does no justice to the actual work of art that Jeo Baby and the team have managed to put together for the world to take and make it their own. It is a film that has been well-thought-out and definitely been worked out in a manner where the experiences are personal, relatable across caste, culture, religious divide, and privilege in India. The Great Indian Kitchen is one of the finest films I’ve seen from India, where the screenplay, cinematography, sound, editing, production design, acting, and direction all comes together to make a point to you, regardless of your ability/inability to understand Malayalam. The film will leave you with uncomfortable questions and resolves and if that’s not quality cinema then I don’t know what is.

The film is slightly tricky to stream (only available on Nee Streams). What that means is a new platform to subscribe to, if you want to go all the way without trespassing the alarms. However, it is worth it to go all the way, be it you resorting to begging/borrowing/stealing or paying for it.

Allegedly, both Prime Videos and Netflix rejected this film due to the highly controversial subjects it involved (largely the religious angle of the film and the fictional story along). Not surprised one bit because for all their talk of commissioning and hosting eyeball-popping controversial content, attempting to put a trailblazer film like The Great Indian Kitchen on the roster of their popular international platform could never happen. That’s perhaps the first sense of actual censoring of content (outside of cuts), you will find with regard to the OTT history in India.

The Great Indian Kitchen tastes delicious and smells pretty darn good. It’d be a pity if you miss this on account of bullshit excuses such as language hassle or convenience. Some dishes are wholesome yet exquisite and are only served once in a blue moon. This film is one such meal on a plate. Devour it in its entirety without wasting your time, and definitely prioritize over a night-out. The feel-good factor in the climax will truly be the most relatable representation of anger outbursts you will see on-screen in a long, long time.