Some films believe in getting the viewer immersed in the universe of the film, and once those who were uninterested in what the film has to say are weeded out, that is when the film shows that the return on attention invested was actually quite high. Adrishya Jalakangal, or Invisible Windows, is a remarkable film that quite subtly but effectively depicts the ill effects of war and the brutality people have to face, especially those on the margins of our society. It also brings a dystopian beauty to the composition in each frame, which wasn’t expected from it, but the message is clear: a place where people’s voices are suppressed or aren’t believed—that is the madhouse we must all be wary of. Written and directed by Bijukumar Damodaran, the Malayalam language film stars Tovino Thomas and Nimisha Sajayan, who play quite against their type and do quite well in portraying their characters. Tovino plays a nameless character, the genius bum, who was put in a mental asylum when the country was going to be at war. The bums were seen as foreign agents perhaps. Luckily, he got out after six months, as there were others who were to be accommodated. Nimisha plays a sex worker who finds shelter in one of the railway bogies near the mysterious factory.
Spoilers Ahead
Plot Synopsis: What Happens In The Film?
The nameless bum was lucky to get a free pass out of the asylum, and he was let go, but not without a warning to never be found roaming in the night, as if it were a crime. Now he had the chance to return to his railway bogie that he had found and made into a kind of electronics lab where he would invent stuff. The man spoke very little, but he was wary of the girl in the bogie right in front of his, and she invited factory workers and policemen to her place, making it clear to the man that she was a sex worker. He did one day, however, go and peep in to confirm. He got a job at the local mortuary and spent his days inventing stuff and playing football with the kids who called him uncle. The kids’ grandfather knew the man well, and he was at the end of his life. Responsibility for the kids would perhaps fall on the man, and the mortuary job was perhaps a way to earn more money. At the mortuary, he gets to discover that the dead talk to him, telling him about how they were killed.
How Did The Man Bond With The Sex Worker?
There was a lot of hostility between the two. She had seen him peeping in through the bogie’s window. There was another reason: the man didn’t like any policemen or factory workers to come near the bogies or the grandfather’s house. They always caused problems, and recently two men had asked the old man to vacate his place as the land his house was built on was now the factory’s property. There was talk of a war, and the factory had been set up to produce weapons, most probably chemical in nature, for the war effort. Our nameless inventor didn’t like the war, as it was the reason he was put in the asylum. People roaming outside or sleeping out in the open, especially those without proper identification, were now considered to be threats and were placed in the mental asylum. The sex worker was making her living by inviting such crooked cops and shady factory workers. Naturally, there was a little apprehension in the man’s mind. He had judged her for her choice of work and did not want the kids to mingle with her. But she had started to give the kids tuition, and they didn’t mind her presence at all. The kids’ grandfather told him not to judge her, and listening to the old man, he softened a little. He was fascinated with her from the very beginning but couldn’t admit that to himself. She too tempered her anger a bit once she noticed he was actually an inventor and a mild-mannered man. The dinner she had organized for him, after asking him to fix her bulb, really did the trick. They shared their life stories, whatever they could, and a bond was formed. She revealed that she grew up with a Portuguese family, where her mother was killed and she herself was molested. The man started sobbing after revealing that his mother was killed by someone on a night when it was supposed to rain. He woke up thinking he was drenched in the rain, but it was in fact her mother’s blood.
What Is The Real Meaning Behind What The Dead Told Him?
He heard from Basheer, the writer, and then the guitarist in the band, who told him how they died. Later, he heard from the four factory workers who had died working in the factory. Basheer represented the learned men who had to bear the brunt in a society that had grown intolerant. His death at the hands of men who shot him at point blank range must be because he was challenging the establishment and had irked those in power. His meaning could be that only people who picked up guns would someday drop them to pick up a book instead. The guitarist died during a stampede. He was performing in a concert that spoke about the unity and brotherhood of man. The police started beating all those who had come to see the concert, and when they pushed the guitarist around, breaking his guitar, his heart gave out. His death would be meaningful only when people understood the value of music in bringing people together. The nameless man was put on the spot when the four factory workers told him that they had died because of faulty pipes that were leaking liquid phosphate, which, when mixed with air, would wipe out all signs of life within a 20-kilometer radius. The nameless man did go and tell the police about the faulty pipes, but he was kicked out as he also mentioned the source of his information, i.e., the four dead factory workers in the mortuary.
Is Everyone Dead?
If the workers are correct, then the factory would start to function after it was visited by the local minister. It would be around 7 p.m., and the nameless man tried in the afternoon to visit the factory and tell the workers about the fault. But he was fired at, and then he was shooed away by the police once they judged him to be mad. There was no way a man like him could pull some strings to stop the tragedy from happening. He had done all he could. At sundown, he returned to the same bogie, which seemed to be within a 20-kilometer radius of the factory. If the factory did have faulty pipes that were not corrected, the work should have commenced by then, which meant that its effects would be underway.
The kids’ grandfather had died a natural death, and the sex worker was taking care of them. She was visited by two cops, it seemed, who wanted to have their way with her, but she refused. When they tried to barge their way and molest the young girl, the sex worker killed the men. Strangely, when she returned with the nameless man, there were no bodies present, and the two kids had also vanished. When they started their search, the nameless man was joined by Basheer, the guitarist, and the factory workers. But there were more. A crowd had gathered and began a search mission. The dead had told the nameless man that they didn’t know anything about what transpired after they died, so they couldn’t tell where the kids went. What we can surmise from this is that everybody searching for the kids has died, including the sex worker and the nameless man.
When she went out to look for him, she went out into the open, came into contact with the poisonous air, and died. During the ending of Adrishya Jalakangal, the workers talk about how they had died within seconds. So it could be that she and the nameless man were dead; hence, they could see each other. The kids might have been rescued, as there were helicopters in the end, signifying that there might have been such an operation. But perhaps they were coming in to save the minister, who had left for the factory. Another theory could be that the kids have gone on to bury the bodies and are still alive, as are the sex worker and the nameless man. The rest of the dead being shown searching for the kids might just represent others who have come forward to help the nameless man now that he was in a spot of bother.
