Written By: Saiya Floyd
Imagine you’ve lived a long life as a loving father. You worked hard and did what you could to provide for your family. Then you fall into a coma for three months, and when you wake up, you hear your children planning to carry out a ritual to kill you.
This is the predicament the titular character in “KD” finds himself in. Writer/director Madhumitha came up with the idea after she heard about a ritual for senicide and that it still happens in parts of South India. This spurred her to conduct further research and interviews to understand the different perspectives of the ritual. At around the same time Madhumitha’s own grandfather was beridden after breaking his hip in a fall. When she visited him, he asked if they could go travel. “While there was no way in hell he would even be able to move out of his bed, the life in his eyes, hit me like lightening. This was it. This was my angle. This is how I wanted to tell this story of death, by showing life and him living it.”
And that is what “KD” does. Upon escaping his family, KD (Mu Ramaswamy) meets Kutty (Nagavishal), a young orphan, and the two form an unlikely friendship. They travel around Tamil Nadu as Kutty helps KD cross off items on his bucket list. The bucket list itself went through several drafts. “I spoke to people in that age group and it was such a humbling feeling to realize that they had such simple things on their wish list … I listed a number of things on the list, and then narrowed it down to these ten based on visual aesthetics and emotional relatability.”
If the bucket list provides the framework for the plot, the relationship between KD and Kutty is at the center of the narrative’s heart. Casting KD. took over six months. “Somehow, he kept evading us. Finally, a friend suggested Mu Ra sir and the moment I saw him, I knew I had found KD.” In order to find Kutty, the team auditioned children from different villages in the area. Nagavishal accompanied his brother to the audition, but originally had no intention of auditioning himself as he had no interest in cinema. Once she had her lead actors, Madhumitha spent 20 days conducting workshops between them to bring out their chemistry. “Mu ra sir was a theatre actor and Nagavishal had never been in front of a camera and thus began my challenge.”
The workshops paid off. After a rough start, KD and Kutty seem genuinely fond of each other, and their friendship is a joy to watch. Kutty is precocious and street-smart, but Nagavishal balances this out by bringing an impish charm to the role. He is after all, just a kid. While Kutty takes great pride in being able to fend for himself, the film does not let the fact that he is still a child get forgotten, and that just because he can take care of himself, it doesn’t mean that he should have to. And as KD, Mu Ramaswamy is engaging as an old man ready for a second chance at life. The contrast between him and Kutty shows that life should be savored from all walks of life, even if the approach and consequences are different.
KD and Kutty’s travels serve to bring them even closer, and is a perfect way to show off the Tamil Nadu region. “KD” was not shot on sets, but on location in the Tenkasi/Courtrallem belt. The film in some ways feels like a love letter to the region with gorgeous shots of the temples and forests and villages that populate the area. “While the film dealt with death, I wanted to show contrast visually and therefore picked locations that were vibrant and full of life,” according to Madhumitha.
She accomplishes this by creating what feels like a snapshot of South India. The whole film is in Tamil (most of Madhumitha’s films are Tamil language films as she herself is from Tamil Nadu). There is one montage in particular — featuring catchy and original music by Karthikeya Murthy – that shows daily life in the rural region as KD and Kutty try to make a living by doing odd jobs. The more day to day parts are balanced out by KD and Kutty going to a festival, where the excitement at the special occasion is on full display. Whether KD and Kutty are in their usual neighborhood or travelling as part of their list, they live life with exuberance, and this joy is almost palpable on screen.
Food is another crucial part of showing Tamil Nadu culture. Biriyani is KD’s favorite dish, so much so that eating a lot of biriyani is an item on his bucket list. “In most Asian cultures, food is an expression of love. Every time my mom calls me, she asks me if I’ve eaten. I wanted to incorporate this expression of love into his bucket list to show that his needs were so basic.” Biriyani was chosen as KD’s favorite food partially because it is such a common dish in India, but also because of how it would pop on screen. “Sucking the bone marrow, ripping the piece of meat, hand mixing the rice, the visual appeal of it all excited me.” (Madhumitha herself is a vegetarian).
“KD” captures the beauty of the simple things in life: food, friendship, and being brave enough to do what makes you happy. If it could be described in one word, it would be: vibrant. Vibrant actors, vibrant scenery, vibrant music, vibrant message. Or as Madhumitha put it, “We simply wanted to make a film about living life.”
Director: Madhumita Sundararaman
Stars: Mu Ramaswamy, Nagavishal
Running Time: 1 hour 55 minutes
Genre: Narrative, Drama
This film is in Tamil