The High Court of Kerala ruled in favour of ‘Churuli’ last Monday. The esteemed body took a dig at the plaintiff as well, by describing this PIL as a publicity interest litigation and not public interest litigation, as it is known. The PIL, if you didn’t know, wanted to remove the aforementioned Malayalam mystery-thriller film, ‘Churuli’, from SonyLIV, the OTT platform where the film is currently streaming in. However, upon reviewing the report made by the police panel who had recently watched the film, the HC concluded that no statutory provision seems to have been violated when the film was screened. However, this “legal saga” has left many of us with an important question – has the debate for the right to be offended finally arrived in Malayalam cinema?
‘Churuli‘ is neither the goriest nor the most vulgar Malayalam film to have been produced by the South-Indian film industry. We can actually say that there were Malayalam films that featured even more taboo/vulgar topics than ‘Churuli’, which should have faced criminal charges (over the same film), that are currently available for streaming as well. Not that any film should face such charges for being an expression of art. Being offended by expressions of art makes as much sense as being offended by the painting of the Mona Lisa. Still, it hasn’t stopped many from being offended by the hard-hitting language.
The 2020 released Malayalam drama, ‘Biriyaani’, as well as the 2021 released psychological feature, ‘Kala’, were both films that should have “harmed the sensibilities of a common man” and earned litigations themselves. The only difference between these films and ‘Churuli’ was that the latter had a lot more swear words. While there is some legitimacy for the motion of the “right to be offended” debate, nitpicking popular movies over topics that will help them does not make sense.
‘Churuli’ is available for streaming on SonyLIV.