 This is Polly of the Latino Slant. Welcome to our film retrospective on the career of Mamuti. And what we're doing here is just simply watching his films from his most recent and tunneling our way back. And in this edition, it is the 2023 Indian Balamayam Language Indian Drama, Kathal, the core, directed by Geo Baby, and it was produced and financed by Mamuti as well. This is, at heart, a family drama of a marriage that is no longer filled with love, maybe never had. A marriage of 19 years between the two leads, Mamuti in Jyothka, who is fantastically bittersweet, tragic, and lovely in her role. Now they live in a small town where he decides to run for public office. There is a bit of a scandal that slowly comes out because she files for divorce. However, in the divorce papers, she states that he is homosexual. Now, being from America, these themes are not new hat. And we are very familiar in regards to living a, as far as cinema, living a life in the closet and coming out. It's been done many times, some successful, some not. This one, this drama, pretty successful. It does cover a lot of familiar territory in regards to the family, religion, their community, and what the small town ultimately would think of them. Mamuti's character in particular is one of an awkward, shy man. He doesn't even know why he's running for this election, for this position, as he is such a non-public speaker, which I thought Mamuti did fantastic with. I also wanted to just pause for a second and give you guys a perspective, an American perspective as to which kind of leading man who has the macho bravado and career like that of Mamuti would suddenly do a film where he is homosexual. And we were talking about this in the name of Denzel Washington. It would be not a shocker, but you could see that it would raise a lot of eyebrows to where Denzel Washington would take on a role such as this, and not the Philadelphia role where he played the sympathetic lawyer, but the Tom Hanks role. And here, this is the same effect. It created a lot of stir, so much so that this film was banned in several countries, and religious clerics condemned the film because of the subject matter of homosexuality. I don't want to go into more detail of the story. There are some ham-fisted scenes, a little sanctimonious for my taste. I think when this story is more, most effective, it's when they're saying little and their relationships are by a look, by a quiet conversation and that one Indian critic that I saw, he just said, it's done with dignity. And I think that's the best thing I could take away from this. I really hats off to Mamuti for doing this film with such dignity and hats off to Geo Baby, the director. There are some really gorgeous camera setups showing you life in the small town, life at their house and really kind of like moving camera angles where you think maybe one or only two people are in the shot and then you pan left or right and you realize there's other people that had been there, which is great for pretty much a straightforward drama that kind of adds to the different relationships. This is a fantastic cast and I saw this on Amazon Prime. So what did you think of Kathal, the core? A family drama with some adult themes and just some wonderful acting. We will return with more films in Mamuti's film career as we tunnel back the career of Mamuti here, really measured and vulnerable performance in particular. There is a fantastic scene with him and his father towards the end of the film. Good stuff, good stuff. That is Kathal, the core. I'm Paulie, the Latino slant. Thank you so much. Make sure you are subscribed wherever you're at. Keep your slant working. Gracias.