Why Thuramukham is an important intervention in Malayalam Cinema

Malayalam movie trailers from recent years with depictions of trade unions and red flags have often filled me with dread, thinking of the methods that the scriptwriters would be using to discredit workers' struggles and trade unions. Since the early 1990s, the days of Sandesham and Varavelppu, scriptwriters in Malayalam cinema, with some exceptions, have done everything in their powers to discredit the work of trade unions. The common prop has been that of a trade union leader who is hand in glove with oppressors and who is actively against the workers' interests. If one were to look at Malayalam cinema of the past two or three decades, it would seem that no other kind of trade union leader exists.

Even those few films which came with a 'pro-left' sticker on top, turned out to be shoddy, dishonest works, made with the intention of tapping the market. It is in this context that Rajeev Ravi's 'Thuramukham' becomes important, with its honest portrayal of the situation of the Kochi port workers from the 1920s to 1950s, the slow building up of a workers' movement, the role played by trade unions in improving the plight of the workers, the lives that were lost in the struggle, the struggles of the women who had to endure for long years, the collusion of the police force, the oppressors and unions floated by the oppressors themselves etc.

It is important that people are reminded that all of the rights they now take for granted were won after long years of struggle and suffering. It might help in curing a majority of the apathy that they display towards workers' protests or when the government dilutes labour laws to take away rights that workers have enjoyed for decades.

Link to my review — https://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/movies/thuramukham-movie-review-rajeev-ravis-film-is-an-important-document-of-the-struggles-to-unionise-for-rights/article66603418.ece