We have picked Minnal Murali, the 2021 Malayalam superhero movie. It is directed by Basil Joseph and written by Arun Anirudhan & Justin Mathew. It is one of the well-written superhero origins that gives an impactful ending. The reason for this is its two characters. The generic label makes one of them a Superhero and the other a supervillain. We, however, find something more than just a generic supervillain. Our concise discussion below is an argument that will help the reader accept the film is also a superhero v/s anti-hero.
The film follows the journey of two characters. They are struck by lightning which gives them superhuman abilities. To understand who the protagonist is we must go through the two premises; Jason’s perspective and Shibu’s perspective. We do not follow Lagos Egri’s understanding of the premise as we did for Tumbbad last time. By premise, we mean an oversimplified understanding of the plot put through a single-perspective story summary. Let us start with Jason first,
Premise: Jason
…Jason is a tailor who wants to get his passport approved. His desire to leave the country remains after his girlfriend breaks up with him. At this moment he also gets struck by lightning as a cosmic chance. He recovers and goes back to chasing approval for his visa. The ex-girlfriend’s father who is a police officer, is not giving clearance to his passport. At the same time, Jason goes through physical changes and learns superhuman abilities. He secretly uses the identity of Minnal Murali for violence against the policemen. He continues to get his passport approved the second time but a worker in his shop steals the saved money. He beats him up in public daylight but later goes through repents when somebody burns his shop along with the same worker. In a police investigation, a CCTV videotape is about to reveal the person who burnt the shop. Jason is there too but he is ambushed by a person superhuman, wearing a mask. He attempts to break the videotape but Jason uses his superpower to save it. Their clash results in an accident which Jason regrets. The masked man goes on to commit more crimes. Jason finds out the identity with a piece of cloth torn out of the masked man’s clothes. It reveals him to be Shibu. Jason meets Shibu and warns him to not hurt people. It is then Shibu reveals his desire to have Usha in his life. At the same time, the villagers find out the identity of Shibu. They gather to kill him. Shibu covers for Jason and the latter exits the mob ambush…this is followed by the arrest of Jason for past violence.
The above excerpts are the premise of the Minnal Murali. It will feel incomplete because it has only taken Jason’s perspective of the story. Jason being a protagonist faces more conflict in the subplot of his passport verification. Shibu is perceived as the supervillain, but he fails to create enough direct obstacles to be eligible as a villain. We will talk about it below as this moves forward. However, we must go through Shibu’s premise,
Premise: Shibu
...Shibu is the other person who is struck by the lightning. The first we see him is through the eyes of the police officer and the shop runner. He is treated as a dumb person. This reveals his place in the society. He goes back home and finds out his childhood love Usha has returned. He wishes to visit her. We see the flashes from his past and now understand the depth of his love. It is here that the lightning strikes him. He recovers and also discovers his superhuman abilities. He begins to follow Usha. One day he notices the shopkeeper harrassing Usha. He uses his power to beat the shopkeeper. He goes down on a dark park as he later robs the bank, and kills the worker at Jason. The worker is the brother of Usha who opposed him. Finally, Usha comes to live with him without knowing his secret. She never comes to know that Shibu killed all the men around her to get to her. He even meets Jason who he asks only for Usha before leaving the village forever. This comes true but he loses Usha in a fire created by a mob started by the same shopkeeper he threatened once..
The two premises tell two different stories. It is difficult in literature but in the medium of a film, the telling of these two parallel stories becomes possible. The two premises have two characters following their want. They both are protagonist of their respective stories, but the film is inclined more towards one. To understand how and why we need to compare the two protagonists. Doing this with clarity gives a clearer view of what makes Shibu not a wholesome protagonist.
Wholesome Protagonist
The film does not interact much with Shibu at first. It only passively follows the presence of him which leads us into his story perspective. There is a character mention of Usha which reveals his external need for his character. He wants to have Usha. Shibu as a protagonist does not let us enter into his internal journey as well. This includes his emotional transformation while taking the steps to achieve his wants. The only time Shibu lets us peek into his thoughts is through an expository dialogue while killing Dassan. The exposition is about how Usha was the only one to be kind to him. He reveals a moment with Usha as a kid, where she shared food with him at the time of abandonment. It is also known as a ‘meet cute moment’ in the romantic genre. It qualifies as a moment from his personal life.
The character of Jason serves as a better protagonist. We are not just welcomed to Jason’s personal life but also private life. Sydfield speaks about, in his book Screenplay, the three critical aspects that form a character – professional life, personal life, and private life. The private life refers to the moments when the character is alone. We know the conflict is rising due to the actions that the character is taking, but reacting is equally important. Reacting to a situation allows us to be intimate with the protagonist. These emotions in reacting come out during moments when they are usually alone or in a space of self-reflection. This is referred to as the private life of the character.
Jason has those moments. After his breakup, he is alone in the washroom, crying to himself, just before coming out and pretending to be strongly unaffected. This moment alone does not add anything to the plotting of the story. If removed, the narrative will remain unchanged, but with its presence, we get to see the character’s vulnerable side which he consciously hides from the world and even family.
Another essential scene is when Jason opens the box that belongs to his father. It belongs to the category of private life. The moment is also intercut with flashbacks of more details about the box, this is done to enhance the dramatic note of the moment. Contrasting the previous scene of vulnerability, this moment becomes the strength of Jason and visually as the symbolic name Minnal Murali.
Protagonist’s Perspective
The film is mostly from Jason’s POV, and that is the reason we moments from his life more than Shibu’s. Let's try to get deeper into Shibu’s perspective then. His part in the screenplay is small. It can be compiled into a short film in itself. At the wedding of Bincy and Aneesh, Shibu and Usha are also present. There is a personal moment between Usha and Shibu which should be just as strengthing for Shibu’s story. Unfortunately, this moment is not told from Shibu’s perspective. It is shown from the perspective of Dassan who found them speaking with each other. This change in perspective could be easily replaced with Shibu’s perspective and we can only imagine how would it have changed his narrative. His external want is to have Usha in his life. The emotion supporting this want is love which is a justified reason. It alone generates sympathy in the viewer. Why?
“Love, like all emotions, originates in the brain. The brain, however, one looks at it, is composed of tissue, cells, and blood vessels. This is purely physical. The slightest physical disturbance registers first on the brain, which reacts instantaneously..”,
..*said Lajos Egri in an interview about the psychology of a character. He explained the character’s bone structure which consists of three aspects – sociology, psychology, and psychology. The psychology of a character is not something invisible. One might have to look deeper to see the chain that caused a reaction in a character, and when they do they will know that the root cause of any action is indeed a reaction to hidden complexes in the character’s psyche. The immense love that has generated in Shibu’s heart for Usha is the sole justification for the actions he is taking. Therefore, every moment in the film that brings him closer to his desire is a crucial moment added to the narrative. Shibu’s perspective becomes not a choice but a necessity for us to follow his journey towards his desire.
Antagonist or Anti-Hero
One of the essential elements of a story is character. The actions of the characters determine which way the plot is moving. A character with an external want and an internal need leads the screenplay from the beginning till the end. (Not taking into consideration the non-plot, a kind that houses films that are beyond the classical structure). This journey is inevitable because of the want/desire that sets one character apart, also known as a protagonist. The journey of a protagonist comes to an end when it achieves after passing a set of escalating obstacles. These obstacles are also known as antagonistic forces.
In the case of Minnal Murali, Jason v/s Shibu leads to the memorable climax of the film. It is a simple destruction v/s preservation, demolition v/s restoration, or just life v/s death, yet it has a larger impact because we
witnessed the evolution of Shibu from the foundation. His evolution is the total of all of his decisions, all that lead to the end of the character. He becomes the face of the antagonistic forces but only in the final act. Since Jason’s wants and needs are driving the story, we can say Shibu is not the antagonist of the film. What kind of an antagonist is Shibu then?
Forces of antagonism do not necessarily refer to a specific antagonist or villain.., says Robert McKee in his book Story, but they could be natural, alien, or supernatural as well. In the journey of a protagonist, the antagonistic forces test the hero on both psychological as well as physiological grounds. Genres like horror follow the supernatural design to plot the events in the protagonist's path. Most of the plots will have having human as the face of the antagonist. Such stories have an equal or greater powerful character to challenge the protagonist.
In Bhavesh Joshi's The Superhero, for instance, the protagonist is challenged by an antagonist who holds power and authority. Such kinds of antagonistic force are often seen with levels. Each level is equipped with an adversary of the antagonist, and each poses a challenge. The protagonist fights, defeats, and climbs up for a showdown.
An antagonist that is designed to create challenge at every step is effective. Omkara for instance, where Tyagi constantly plots against Omkara for the showdown. However, there is a larger conversation on whether Tyagi is the protagonist which can be explored later.
Shibu surely makes up for a supervillain for Jason, but he has his own story to tell. Shibu’s story is not in any conflict with Jason nor is he challenging him until the motif of CCTV videotape, and climax. The forces against Jason are mostly the society. He is a boy wanting to leave the country but his visa is stopped by a police officer whose daughter he dated. The character of Dassan steals his money and serves as an emotional test that the hero overcomes. Such challenges help Jason evolve more as a human in the course of the story. The final acceptance is given to Jason in custody by Saajan the police officer. The obstacles that work against Jason’s journey are not created by Shibu, neither directly nor indirectly. There is a subplot of both Jason and Shibu using the identity of Minnal Murali. Shibu wears this identity to commit crimes while a police officer, Jason’s brother-in-law, investigates Jason as the suspect.
This subplot of investigation acts as an obstacle. Jason easily overpowers it by stealing the only evidence that proves his identity. We have discussed before that every time the protagonist overcomes a force of antagonism, it tests him physiologically, psychologically, or/and sociologically.
In Bhavesh Joshi Superhero for instance, Sikkandar Khanna fakes his departure from the country which marks the start of his journey to becoming Bhavesh Joshi. He does it to secure his identity against one of the adversaries of the antagonist, a police officer. In doing so, he makes a hard choice of hiding his identity from friends and family as well.
In Lage Raho…Munna Bhai, for instance, Munna is desperate to make his relationship with Janvi work. The challenge for him is to maintain his persona of a Gandhivaad in his meeting with her grandfathers. The protagonist has a choice to give up or read every book on Mahatma Gandhi. He does not give up and in the process brings upon a deep change which marks the start of the story.
Shibu’s object of desire is not the same as Jason’s. Due to this, the reactions to his actions are not Jason’s to give. He threatens a man, robs a bank, kills two people, and then climaxes where he destroys a village. None of these actions create any obstacle against Jason except the last event. At a point, Jason looks for Shibu’s identity but Shibu approaches to him first. It makes this action part of Shibu’s journey. The characters although aware of each other’s presence through the subplot's secret identity, are involved in mutually exclusive events. However, if Shibu is not the antagonist of the story, then what kind of a character is he?
Shibu’s character is crafted well. The three-bone structure establishes the character in the setting. Shibu is socially distant and declared to be insane. Two simple points of characterization are dumb and misfit. His childhood desire returns which becomes an easy goal with his newfound powers. Upon the return of Usha, the men of the village begin to eye her. His character-revealing moment is the point where he uses his superpower to threaten the man who harassed Usha.
We are calling it character reveal because the character breaks previously established characterization. He is making a place for himself with an immoral use of powers. This is not followed by the realization of the flaw but only acceleration. He robs the bank when Usha needs money. The underlying emotion; love for Usha, creates empathy for the character. His actions seem justified because the willingness to provide for the lover is a generic trait across humanity. However, the means to the end is not justified. His outlawed actions do not resemble the mark of a hero. A traditional hero embodies ethics and morals which will be reflected in their actions.
Character archetypes like Robin Hood must not be confused with Shibu. Both the characters become outlaws with a mask but Robin Hood steals to improve the life of a larger community, also giving birth to a revolution. It is a noble act as per society, involving selflessness. In the case of Shibu, his actions are selfless but endanger the lives of a larger community. Even with the powers, he is unable to break his characterization of a dumb. It has only transformed it to insanity. His actions of helping Dassan with money are juxtaposed with him buying the Usha with money. It generates sympathy for the character which grows stronger with each unethical action taken. The same sympathy transforms into anticipation for his redemption.
In Maqbool for instance, we sympathize with the protagonist until a no redemption point and also the climax. His kind are called tragic heroes. One of its popular traits is its will to achieve the want through ethical or unethical methods.
When Usha’s life is lost, the series of actions taken by Shibu, come to a full circle. This becomes a no-redemption point for Shibu. Like Maqbool, his wish to live is gone. Shibu uses his last will to take vengeance and ends himself against Minnal Murali. The narrative put out for Shibu turns him into an anti–hero.
The film is a complex journey of multiple characters. We did not dwell in the village which also serves as a character in both of the premises. There are subplots in layers that create a sense of familiarity with the village. These must be analyzed further in time and patience to understand the socio-politics and the class differences of the setting. Learning these only enhances the experience of the film.
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