Rhythm of Dammam, a highly evocative and visually striking film written and directed by Jayan Cherian, a Kerala-born filmmaker working in New York, highlights the Siddis, a community that is under-represented in Indian cinema.
The 55th International Film Festival of India in Goa hosted the film’s premiere this week. It is currently on its way to the 29th International Film Festival of Kerala’s International Competition lineup.
The film Rhythm of Dammam, which draws inspiration from a Siddi musical tradition, highlights the predicament of the disadvantaged Afro-Indian group that resides at the bottom of India’s socioeconomic scale.
Cherian’s first feature, Papilio Buddha (2013), examined the physical and structural violence against women, Dalits, and the environment. Three years later, he produced Ka Bodyscapes, a film about three disobedient millennials who challenge gender and sexuality stereotypes that are ingrained in a culture that is resistant to change.
Though not quite as subversive, Rhythm of Dammam is fundamentally political, much like the director’s earlier works. Using relatively muted means, it examines the marginalization of the Siddis who have suffered centuries of oppression.
Cherian’s script makes vague but clear references to the erasure of the history, culture, and language of the endangered minority. It heavily draws from his in-depth documentation of the life of the forest dwellers.
Rhythm of Dammam has the feel and feel of a documentary because to Sabin Uralikandy’s lighting and lensing. But for the sake of clarification, the seeds of an ethnographic film that is incorporated into the film are grafted onto a fully realised fictional structure. The tactic is quite effective.
The protagonist of the movie, a 12-year-old Siddi kid named Jayaram (played by Chinmaya Siddi), finds it difficult to accept the death of his grandfather, Rama Bantu Siddi (Parashuram Siddi). The way the adults in his immediate vicinity respond to the death and its aftermath adds to his suffering, confusion, and anxieties.
His younger brother Ganapathi (Nagaraj Siddi) and his drunken, indebted father Bhaskara (played by Prashant Siddi, who is well-known to Kannada filmgoers) argue nonstop. The two men are looking over what is thought to have been left to them by the deceased man.
The upper-caste landlord to whom Bhaskara owes several thousand rupees threatens to confiscate their house and the land it is situated on. He intends to use the inherited funds to prevent the situation. However, the trinkets in the box Bhaskara unearths from a corner of the home are of minimal material value.
However, Jayaram saw the heirloom—no matter how worthless—as a ready, if unnerving, conduit to the ancient roots of his tribe, who had been brutally exploited by Portuguese and Arab traders who brought them to India as slaves and then left to endure centuries of persecution and subjugation.
The main characters in Rhythm of Dammam, which is set in Yellapur, Karnataka’s Uttara Kannada district, which is home to a sizable Hindu Siddi population, are all non-members of the group. All of the tertiary roles, such as the landlord, a doctor, or an instructor in a hostel for tribal boys, are portrayed by actors who are not tribal and who appear to be actual people.
The actors are allowed to improvise their songs, dances, and performances by Cherian. While Jayaram’s visions of his ancestors transport the youngster and the audience to a bizarre, frequently unsettling, zone, numerous long shots with a static camera offer naturalistic, unmediated frames to create a tangible backdrop for the Siddis’ sufferings.
Ironically, just as the Siddis in the movie have fully assimilated, they have also become estranged from mainstream India. Their religious chanting are in a creole of Konkani, which they speak. They have Hindu gods and customs. However, their spirit is motivated by a desire for identity and is represented by the white-robed image of the grandfather Jayaram sees and touches in his nightmares and dreams.
Politics is strongly incorporated into Rhythm of Dammam. The dual-headed cylinder drums known as dammam, which also serve as the name of their primary musical heritage, accompany the Siddi songs and dances.
There is no choreography in the dances. Once they get into the rhythm of the music, the actors go into a frenzy and start making up their own moves. It is marked by a distinctly Afro accent.
Jayaram becomes feverish, verges on madness, and is labelled a problem child in need of treatment because he is haunted by what his grandfather is attempting to tell him. A neighbourhood shaman, a worried mother, an aunt who is possessed by Goddess Yellamma, and a doctor who recommends psychiatric treatment all offer solutions to help the youngster get over his issue.
The reality of a community that hovers between a past they would prefer to forget and a current they would prefer to move on from is reflected in Jayaram’s precarious mental state.
A young man laments the loss of the community’s identity, language, and soul in an angry rap. The distance between the Siddis of India and their Bantu ancestry is indicated by the languages that Jayaram speaks.
Kannada is the language of instruction at Jayaram’s school. Before assessing the students’ understanding of the seven continents of the world, the non-Siddi teacher has them recite a patriotic oath. Jayaram is deep in contemplation.
He is made fun of by the teacher. “Where do you live, Jayaram?” he says. “Please,” the boy answers. His village is called that. There is a thick fog surrounding Jayaram’s ancestry, which spans two continents. According to him, the claim of location specificity is motivated by a need to fit in.
The Sanskrit mass prayer at the hostel where Jayaram is staying is obviously religious. The blows his forefathers have endured are symbolised by each step he takes away from his moorings.
Through the innocent eyes of a preteen child, Cherian infuses the story with pure magic amidst the politics that Rhythm of Dammam promotes. The delicate, poetic imagery conveys a hopeless quest for security in the face of a terrifying lack of certainty.
Rhythm of Dammam focusses its sympathetic attention on a single community’s problems. However, in addition to giving voice to the voiceless, the movie addresses everyone who has been marginalised by history.
Rhythm of Dammam, which hits all the right notes, bemoans the destruction of a cultural fabric that depends on diversity.
