DECLARATION

Official Selection, 2022 Locarno Film Festival

Official Selection, 2022 Busan International Film Festival

Official Selection, 2022 BFI London Film Festival

Malayalam filmmaker Mahesh Narayanan’s tense and compelling fourth feature chronicles the fallout of a migrant couple’s attempts to secure foreign work visas after a leaked video exposes one of them to accusations of adultery. 

Reshmi (Divya Prabha) and Hareesh (Kunchchacko Boban) work at a latex glove factory outside New Delhi, far from their hometown of Kerala. When an illicit video meant to show off Reshmi’s deft assembly line skills subsequently reveals evidence of a sexual act featuring an unidentifiable woman, an enemy of Hareesh’s circulates the video in revenge, implying Reshmi’s infidelity. Unleashing the full force of Indian society’s deeply embedded misogyny, this sequence of events culminates in a masculine unraveling, pitting Hareesh’s paranoid entitlement against the couple’s hopes for a brighter future. 

With terrifying dramatic momentum, Narayanan reveals both the stultifying labor conditions imposed upon India’s poor and the double bind faced by women in a world of male violence. 

—Inney Prakash