Charlie (Malayalam)

Maybe The Bible just isn't getting it done for you, aesthetically speaking. Too much melodrama, too many remakes, too much cult following. 

Thankfully, a team of Malayalam filmmakers made Charlie, a kind of New Testament for the early 21st century. Charlie (Dulqueer Salaman) is a mysterious and elusive bohemian, pursued by the free-spirited Tessa (Parvathy), a young woman who has fled to the island of Kerala to escape her family's pressure to marry. Known to the locals as "the genie", Charlie practices a Christ-like ministry of service, his laughing magnanimous spirit aiding mankind in its varied moments of distress. 

While episodes in which Charlie keeps the company of prostitutes and fisherman make the Biblical parallels fairly obvious, there is a distinct and different value system here, one decidedly different from the "Judeo-Christian" values loved in our red states. While there is a generosity of spirit here which has been lost in the American prosperity religion, even more striking is the total sense of personal liberation Charlie exhibits. Without Christian duty or piety, Charlie offers his overwhelming benevolence free of dogma or obligation. A cult figure without a cult, he is more akin to a Nietzschean Zarathustra than Jesus, a lonely soul whose ministry is as much about living boldly as it is about preaching. 

Also unlike Jesus, his priestly celibacy is only a temporary condition, as he is sought by an equivalent female companion. Charlie must be found and Tessa must find him. Charlie must be loved as he has loved, be returned as he has given. Tessa must show the courage to resist her family's more mundane concerns in pursuit of this ideal man. Like King Arthur's sword, only the woman able and willing to find Charlie will pull him into a commitment. This kind of active, equal adoration is, again, very different from the desperate "save me" thinking common in contemporary American relationships. 

It is also worth noting that both Charlie and Tessa are like alternate reality versions of American Millenials. Tessa even has the whole hispter glasses frame style happening. At times, this film is like waking up in the US and discovering that everyone has a soul again. 

But, if you are a conventional American, do not see this film. The hero destroys a smartphone and laughs at the idea that he needs one. It may just be religiously offensive, and worse than eating beef to a Hindu.  

Final Word: But for those who seek, you shall find... 

 

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