SHUTTER (Malayalam - 2012) (Movies To See Before You Die - Thriller/Drama)

There are films that make a strong, significant comment over our biased social standards verbally, and there are films that don’t make a single direct comment, but still leave you simply stunned, raising several upsetting questions through their multilayered narrative and all realistic next-door characters making an instant connect.

SHUTTER, a 2012 Malayalam gem stands tall among this second category of not to be missed, important Indian masterpieces. And the film has such an intense, compelling subject that points towards male dominance in a family, sex being a major issue in our society, casual paid sex post marriage, friends facilitating in the moral corruption of a family man and a father’s conservative outlook towards his daughter contradicting his own misdeeds, all together in a splendid storyline of two days and a night depicted thoughtfully.

An amazing debut project of director Joy Mathew, SHUTTER is a simple but highly meaningful social satire comprising many delightfully enlightening moments and stellar performances (from the entire cast) that are sure to haunt you for long post its unexpectedly disturbing and thought-provoking finale.

However to inspire you further, let me give you an indication of the story behind its strange title SHUTTER, which though would reveal the plot, but still needs to be explained in order to convince those friends, who otherwise might not like to go for a regional Indian film for some weird, inexcusable and (allow me to say it) silly reasons of their own.
As a mature, sex-based subject unveiling the fake masks representing our social double standards, the story revolves around a father (of a soon to be married young girl) returning from Gulf and the uncertain circumstances he gets caught in due to an urge to have sex with an attractive hooker found standing alone on the road-side waiting for her daily client.
Finding no place to spend the night with her in the near-by local hotels, his friends (led by an auto-rickshaw driver) think of an idea of locking them both in an empty shop for few hours, owned by the gulf-returned friend only, which is incidentally situated in a busy market just behind his residence. But instead of coming back after a few hours in the night, they get caught in some unforeseen situations and the couple remains locked for the whole night and the complete next day too resulting in an unexpected, embarrassing chaos.

Now what happens in that shop with the two locked up unwillingly, what do they do in this painfully long time and why the friends outside are not able to return in time, becomes the main crux of the innovative plot with many unpredictable twists and turns converting it into a highly thought provoking film with a terrific climax.

Referring to the title, interestingly there are two SHUTTERS in the shop where the middle aged father gets locked up with the hooker for more than 24 hours. One is the main shutter in the front closed by the friends with a lock and the other is a very small window at the back from where he can clearly see his residence, situated just behind the shop at a close distance.

And it’s through these two SHUTTERS only that the writer/director skillfully mocks at the sick, moral corruption visible all over in our society without indulging in any vulgarity, skin show or cheap crowd pleasing tactics resulting in a very fine film.

Besides, who eventually opens the shutter in the end after the news reaches his family and the last dialogue between the father and his young daughter is a sheer masterstroke played by the director leaving you with hundreds of thoughts about the future interaction within the family post that one shameful incident of a locked SHUTTER.

Highly recommended, the original ‘must watch’ Malayalam film got later remade in more than five languages including Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Punjabi too, which should clearly give you an idea of its strong and compelling content not to be missed.

‘A Poetic Violence on Celluloid” as one of its poster says.
Written and Directed by : Joy Mathew
Starring : Lal, Sreenivsan, Vinay Forrt, Sajitha Madathil, Riya Saira