Rabbit hole. The word comes from a story, a much-loved one – Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, where little Alice falls into a strange, fantasy world through a rabbit hole. The dictionary defines rabbit hole as a situation that is strange, confusing or illogical, and often hard to escape from. Sou Sadanandan’s short film Rabbit Hole takes you through a similar situation, where you feel the trauma, sadness and aloofness felt by Christy, a woman who comes to a psychiatrist on his day off to discuss depression.
A topic that needed to be brought to the attention of Malayalis who consider mental health a taboo subject, depression sank in well with the audience. A beaming Sou is happy about the responses. “I have received more than a hundred messages and mails, all of them ending with the word ‘Thank you’. Either they had been there or they are going through it. I think the short film could spread awareness on depression... that like cancer, it too needs to be treated at the earliest.” The conversation between the doctor and the patient, played to perfection by Alencier Ley Lopez and Gilu Joseph, is so convincing and relatable.
So, has she ever gone down the rabbit hole? “I have seen a lot of friends struggling with depression but I couldn’t do anything to help them as they never let anyone near them. I really wanted to know what they were going through and help them. At one stage, I too stumbled into depression and experienced it. It took me more than a year-and-a-half to get over it. This short film is a sort of redemption for me,” she reveals. The idea of a short film on depression struck her when she read the story of the sad clown who spreads laughter, suppressing agony. A person who finds life in all art forms based on literature, Sou decided to make a small film on the story.
“I was sure about not writing the dialogues myself. All my characters would be like me and I couldn’t bring to fore the conflict between the characters,” she recalls. She bestowed the task with Vinu Janardanan, who had co-written her National Award-winning documentary Chembai, My Discovery of a Legend. The screenplay was reworked over and over till they felt satisfied. Alencier readily accepted to play the part and Gilu was referred to by a friend. She says, “I had no money to offer. All I said was that it would be a wonderful role and she gladly agreed. After the first cut, we took a break to analyse how we could better the work.”
It was then she made a discovery – that her friend, playback singer Sayanora Philip, could become a good dubbing artist. “We had felt that for Gilu, a voice one grade up than hers would be nice. While talking to Saya, suddenly I felt she could do it well. She too agreed and perfected the dubbing by working on it for two days. I hope our training did her good. After Rabbit Hole, she is dubbing for Trisha in Hey Jude,” says Sou, who also had on board actors Maala Parvathy and Ramesh Pisharody as voice actors. Currently, Sou is working on her debut feature film, a family satire starring Kunchacko Boban and Nimisha Sajayan, which is expected to go on the floors in April.
