Aamis: Breaking down the most mind blown movie of 2019
*Spoilers ahead*
*Trigger warning: cannibalism*
What if The Stanley Kubrick was /born as ‘Shantanu Kalita’ in Assam? Sounds absurd, right? Going by what Aamis offers, this hypothesis seems normal. Only ‘Shantanu Kalita’ in some universe can be justified in making such cinema. That is how biased we are towards our local filmmakers’ capacity.
Aamis seems like an astral projection out of Bhaskar Hazarika’s mind and whatever happens, can only be credited to his sub-consciousness or some psychological phenomenon, Freud failed to explain to us. No wonder the movie raises the distinction between a Holocene and a food item.
The film proceeds in a linear narrative, but the questions it asks are definitely not linear. It is so, so cool to have a dream sequence that creates such a beautiful yet dark transition. This changeover can be compared to Shakespeare’s Othello, which gets all too horrific after the famous climax following the handkerchief scene.
The Plot
The imagery associated with Aamis surpasses even its provocative plot. Briefly, it is a story about Sumon, a Ph.D. scholar, who is in love with Nirmali. Nirmali is married and has a kid. Sumon and Nirmali spend quality time together, only their love is not conventionally “physical”. They both explore varieties of meat in different places surrounding Guwahati. Sounds like safe fun, right? Things get messy when the exploration increases. First with bat meat and then the inevitable human flesh. Their own flesh. Finally, in a “Crime Patrol-ish” ending, Sumon gets caught while cutting a human being into pieces for their supposedly “last supper” ever. Sumon and Nirmali get arrested.
The character list includes Sumon’s friend, Elias, who is his constant moral support and helps him with his cannibalistic ventures unknowingly. Then there is Nirmali’s friend Juri, who is having an extramarital affair and is married to a dead beat workaholic husband. She ends up getting pregnant. Nirmali’s husband is a doctor cum social worker, helping the villagers with Japanese Encephalitis, and can’t seem to stop talking about his valour and his work. Plot-wise, it is a normal story with a gory twist. However, its thematic exposure sets it apart.
Let’s discuss this.
Extremities
An interesting quote from the movie is when Sumon says that his father gifted him a hen to pet. One day his father asked him to cut and both have it for dinner. To which Nirmali asks, “Didn’t you feel bad”? Sumon replies, “I was also hungry”. In another scene, Nirmali asks Sumon, “Will you eat a dog?” He says he won’t as he loves dogs. The movie jig-saws between both these extreme scenes.
The idea is that you eat something you love when you are hungry versus why would you eat something you love. The former being Nirmali eating the flesh of Sumon and the latter corresponds to Sumon vomiting when he has to eat Nirmali’s flesh. Here, the gender roles come into play, as Nirmali can eat Sumon’s flesh, but not the other way around. Much like sexual roles between a man and a woman in procreation. Cannibalism is an inhuman act yet that too can’t escape gender norms in Aamis. So, were they doing anything inhuman at all?
Taboo Hierarchy
To explain the plot poorly, this movie in the later part transcends into Bonnie and Clyde – Bunty Aur Bubli zone. Both team up to eat human flesh (the crime) and get caught doing it which makes their relationships stronger. The question is, is there a hierarchy of crime? Are robbers more acceptable than cannibals when two people are in love?
Bhaskar Hazarika, in an interview, has explained how the story’s inception happened. He wanted to explore the idea of “taboo and sin and what is permissible and what is not”. This puts the other directors and writers in an awkward position as they have glorified couples going to any extent to justify their love.
Even in the movie Kabir Singh, physical violence has been normalised between a couple. Can we accept Sumon and Nirmali in the greater cause of love? This hierarchy of taboo is evident in the film. Juri ends up getting pregnant with her illicit lover – that seems normal in relation to what our main characters do. How far can we as a society accept and draw a line?
Cannibalism
Why would Sumon who hesitates even to touch Nirmali offer his flesh? Of course, he was scared to ruin whatever they had, as he confessed that to his friend Elias. Was this the only option left? The line of ethics is inconsistent here. We must understand Sumon’s objectivity towards meat. To him, the quality of meat matters more than its quantity. He cares more about the freshness of meat than what the meat itself is. This has been consistent because he reacts to Dilip (Nirmali’s husband) story where the doctor claimed that he was stuck by leeches. To which Sumon casually replies that “It is a delicacy in Europe”. Thus, for him, the meat is just an expression he has for Nirmali.
Why would Nirmali consent to cannibalism? She understands Sumon’s expression initially, nevertheless gets addicted to it. As her moral high ground prohibits her from getting physical with him, she sees the act more of a way of expression about their affair. Later, her addiction to it is what makes it more uncomfortable for the audience. It counters the societal expectation that women are not supposed to be openly expressing or enjoying sex and should play a passive role in lovemaking.
Absurdity
Meat exploration, yes. Cannibalism, yes. While in the theatre, even random popcorn munchers. who non-stop chat and disturb genuine cinema-goers, were all glued to the screen by the end. Few (probably boomers) found it too hard to take it and left the theatre. Aamis grabs your attention as it engages us in relativism, disgust, suspense among other things. But, is it all absurd? The basic themes of extramarital affairs, Assamese middle-class conformism, the monotony of marital relationships, murder and the pseudo nature of Guwahati’s urban class are common issues in the real setting.
Morality
The movie begins with an important scene, when we find Sumon’s friend lying in agonising pain, holding his abdomen. Nirmali on inspection claims it to be a simple case of indigestion and advises him not to overeat meat. Here she discusses gluttony, a cardinal sin in Christian values about overindulgence in food. The movie is not about some biblical morality. It juxtaposes the Assamese conformist psyche with the Christian belief. The middle-class values associated with a married mother prohibits Nirmali from indulging in an extramarital affair, and any attempt to breach such norms can be branded as sin.
Exclusivity
Nirmali tries hard to justify that she is different than Juri. Her friend is open about her affair, unlike Nirmali. It’s like every lover attempting to justify his/her relationship is different from their parents or other people by seeking refuge in exclusivity. The road which both, Sumon and Nirmali take, is shaped by the moral compass of the society, but they justify it with exclusivity. The rarity is their “self-proclaimed platonic” affair. In the restaurant scene, Nirmali is constantly judging Juri and her boyfriend Eddie, (although she is one who eats human legs on fine Wednesdays) and when she is asked about Sumon, she says to stop asking “vulgar” questions.
The Armchair Husband
Dilip da is the everyday Assamese elite achiever. On paper, he is doing a great job and is well respected among the community. He is depicted as that wild goose chase guy who comes home after a long time and still talks about his work. He introduces his wife in relation to his achievements. Is he just a typical husband or more than that?
Well, it can’t be denied that he too may have indulged in infidelity. In one scene, he claims to eat local meat wherever he goes. The usage of meat definitely means more than edible flesh in the movie. In the beginning, Juri mimics a friend of theirs who got scared of Dilip’s thrill for overspeeding in an underlying sensual tone, “Slow down Dilip, slow Dilip”. The director doesn’t venture more on it. We will never know more.
The Dullness Of Urban Guwahati
Guwahati is the gateway of Northeast but in contrast to other metros, it is quite small. There is an unsaid monotony about the city in which the conformist claim stability. No filmmaker has ever dared to portray that until Aamis. The boredom is immense, especially with the burst of nuclear families. The modern Guwahati is confused between the age-old Assamese ethos of community living and the modern life’s assertion of personal spaces. This dilemma is evident in the film through its characterisation.
In this monotony, the human mind quest for the primal need for adventure has transfused illicit affairs. This is a hard reality of our society, which we fail to see, because we have created this bliss narrative of a happy family, with a happy four-wheeler. Hazarika also explores the rural-urban divide with Guwahatians buying processed meat while Sumon and mostly outsiders prefer to buy local produce. Guwahatians face an identity crisis, where they have appropriated modernity, yet are exposed to traditions which create in them an identity crisis. Most of the characters are battling that.
Digestion
Every film’s narrative strives for a catharsis. Simply put, a defining moment through which some form of repressed emotions come out. Like when we listen to a romantic song, we release emotions relating to love. This movie is difficult in this aspect. People had left the hall because they tried to restrict the cathartic effect. They are not able to digest and let out their repressed emotions entangled in them. That’s why many have found this movie to be uncomfortable. It shakes your core beliefs and tries to humanise taboos. It is the fear of taboos that restricts people from indulging and holds the social fabric. Bhaskar Hazarika makes the audience go into full contemplation and that gets uneasy for them. It’s like his way of saying “ok boomer” to society.
Universality
To narrow down, the movie into particular archetypes will defeat its very purpose. It is ambiguous and might mean many things. For those of you, who found it difficult, pretend cannibalism never happened and Juri’s story was the main story. Now, will you accept her situation better than Nirmali’s actions?
As for Indian cinema, Aamis takes forward the emancipation of regional films in the mainstream. Cinema has always existed in the region but was looked down upon as some fringe group affair. Now, thanks to the power of the internet and the modern-day revolution of subtitles, India’s diverse narratives have finally found their space and better shelf life. The paradox to it is, good cinema should not be tagged as regional. Although it is based in a cute city like Guwahati, Aamis’ universality says a lot about how constricted we are as Indians.