Unremitting gore fest – that is what Marco is. If you have a yen for knives cutting through human flesh, blood spewing and body parts being ripped apart with bare hands, it’s the right movie for you. Those faint of the heart may have trouble taking in what is on offer. In an odd way, Marco is satisfying despite being utterly violent and visceral. If you have liked Kill, then it’s likely you would enjoy this one too.
Indian filmmakers are so much into the uninhibited exploration of violence that it has become an independent genre by itself. The conventional notion of extreme is not necessarily a restraint, neither is the set ideas of excess. It’s the central theme, the flimsy plot that drives it exists only to justify the violence playing out. In Kill, it was the murder of the love interest of the protagonist on a train; in Marco, it’s the killing of a blind brother of the lead character.
Marco, the Malayalam original movie dubbed in Hindi, is superficially similar to Animal in the plot line, with protection of the family at the centre of it but minus the misogyny. Both are violent movies, but the treatment of violence in the former makes Animal look like juvenile stuff. Characters are thrown into acid tanks and left to sizzle and decompose in the liquid; a chainsaw cuts through flesh and bone; the heart of a man is pulled out with bare hands; lips of a woman are torn to resemble a smile; a boy is smashed to death with a gas cylinder; and a baby is forced out of her mother’s womb with a savage hit. The mind-numbing acts go on without pause.
The single-tone titular character, essayed by Unni Mukundan, delivers action which is captivating in its rawness. The stunt-action choreography, the only high point of the movie, is exceptional and consistent all through. There’s little emotional depth to the characters, like in Kill, and no effort at adding layers of complexity to them. It’s designed with the intent to leave the audience awe-struck with breathless bloody mayhem. The movie serves the purpose.
How far can it go from here? The Indian audience has got a taste of the gore and the gruesome. In one of the scenes the antagonist carries a just-born baby with its umbilical cord still attached to the body to dump it in the acid tank. In another, the ear of a man is torn apart from the head with teeth. These are possibly among the most horrific scenes in Indian cinema. It won’t stop now. Filmmakers of this genre would try and find more nausea-inducing graphic violence. The less skilled would make it crude and revolting. It would be interesting to watch how the trend shapes up.
(By arrangement with Perspective Bytes)
