About Victoria
| Title: | Victoria |
|---|---|
| Original Title: | വിക്ടോറിയ |
| Plot: | Victoria, a young beautician in a suburban beauty parlour, decides to elope with her Hindu boyfriend after a fierce clash with her conservative Catholic parents. Amidst the turmoil, a neighbour asks her to temporarily house an offering rooster destined for a festival at St. George church inside the parlour. Juggling the rooster's antics, unexpected clients, and her boyfriend's uncertainty, Victoria grapples with conflicting emotions leading to a day of intense personal and spiritual revelations. |
| Cast: | Meenakshi Jayan, Sreeshma Chandran, Jolly Chirayath, Darsana Vikas, Steeja Mary, Jeena Rajeev |
| Director: | Sivaranjini |
| Editor: | Sivaranjini |
Victoria
Aditya Shrikrishna
(for The Polis Project)
Independent Film Critic
Feminichi Fathima and Victoria Interrogate the Interiority of Women’s Lives and Celebrate Seemingly Small Victoriesvictoria-2
Two Malayalam films that world premiered at the 29th International Film Festival of Kerala in December 2024 share DNA despite employing different milieu and techniques. Fasil Muhammed’s Feminichi Fathima (also screened at the 14th Indian Film Festival of Bhubaneswar) is about the eponymous Muslim housewife in Ponnani in Malappuram and possesses a day-in-the-life narrative. Sivaranjini’s Victoria designs a single day as a series of single takes in the life of Victoria, a beautician at a parlor in Angamaly who is juggling a characteristically busy day at the office and a tenuous period in her personal life. The two films have little in common in terms of setting and visual grammar, but they share philosophies and wrestle with the politics of survival and existence. They focus on women’s labor, the physical strain on their bodies, and the casually developing solidarity with the women around them.
Victoria
S. R. Praveen
The Hindu
A crafty portrayal of a woman’s inner turmoil
Sivaranjini J’s debut film, screened at the Malayalam Cinema Today section at the 29th International Film Festival of Kerala on Saturday, is set almost entirely inside a beauty parlour
The spark that initiates a work of art can come from anywhere. For Sivaranjini J., it came from the unusual sight of a rooster sitting inside a beauty parlour near her home in Angamaly. Victoria, her debut film which was screened at the Malayalam Cinema Today section at the 29th International Film Festival of Kerala on Saturday, is set almost entirely a beauty parlour.