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A movie by Shyam Prasad based on a novel by Gangopadhyay

Cast includes: Mammooty, Meera Jasmin, Narain, Ramya Krishnan

The Malayalam movie, translated in English as One Ocean, is the story of a middle class under-educated wife and mother who falls in a tide of emotions. Though it may seem centripetal to this woman, Deepthi; the story deals a lot with a much more array of topics, emotions, relationships and characters.

Typically, it can be referred to as a story of extra-marital relationship. But that is if you just want to see an outline of this movie. If you really understood the movie, or if you get really involved with it (I could guarantee this one), you will definitely see the different tangents of life.

The characters include Deepthi and her husband, Mr Nathan and Bela.

Deepthi’s husband doesn’t have a job and her kid is ill. She needs money but he is away looking for a job in Banglore and has been there for a while. Her conversation is overheard by author, economist, professor and lady-lover, Mr Nathan. He offers to drop the child and pays her money for medication.

On his return, Deepthi’s husband asks her to borrow some more money from Mr Nathan and also asks her to ask him for a job recommendation. She gets both done.

Her husband is the ignorant fool. He is unaware of what he is pushing his wife to do. He is unaware of the evil he is smoking up. He is educated but desperate for a job.

The husband is the kind of individual who is innocently aloof. He doesn’t know anything that happens around him, intricately. He only sees the obvious and only believes in the obvious. He is not one to delve into thoughts, read into observations or fall out of consistency. He was programmed to study, find a job, marry a woman, father the children and die. And that is all he will do. He will never trudge the beyond.

Deepthi on the other hand is slightly different. She is the homemaker and the perfect wife and mother but within her lies a fire of passion that the naked eye cannot see – not even her. Until … it is stirred awake by an external force. She had a lonely childhood; she yearned for care and affection, something she never got. She yearned to be loved.

Then, Mr Nathan. He is what you call the intelligent, independent ruffian who self-pledged to lead a life of misery. He is disconnected from his family, even when his mother is on death bed. He doesn’t have any friends. He only has one friend, Bela … a friend for benefits. He loves women and he doesn’t shy away from admitting it. Mr Nathan prefers to be in his solitude and he doesn’t believe in the word love… because he doesn’t love anyone and doesn’t want anyone to love him. He thought.

Deepthi and Mr Nathan’s meeting was purely accidental but the very first meeting set a spark. There was something about her that this man with the iron-heart thinks beyond his life and his writings. He thought about the economy of India… about the uneducated middle class and their lifestyles.

On going up to the ninth floor to return his money at his house, Deepthi (from floor four) finds that she intrigued by him. His life, his books, his profession and his mere presence.

The sparks flew out of proportion during this meet when alcohol-heavy Nathan explicitly carves Deepthi’s neck with his finger. When he explains how she turned him on with her mere presence.

Something within Deepthi awoke. All her hidden feelings of want and desperation for love sprouts like a hungry flame over dried leaves. She doesn’t resist temptation and she allows him to indulge in her.

This is where the thin line of difference between a woman yearning for love and a man running away from it, comes. What she encountered changed her perspective. A greed started building in her, a greed for more of the poisonous nectar. She went back, he welcomed her but with the statutory warning – do not fall in love with him.

Imagine a situation where a hungry child who hasn’t eaten for weeks enters a bakery and the baker tells her to sit in the kitchen but not touch a morsel. Similarly.

Her mind started building the greatest of evils, hope. She started hoping and slowly expecting – to be loved, to be wanted.

Mr Nathan is an escapist. He doesn’t need love in his life because he is afraid. He fears to love or be loved because it is something this brave, intelligent, smart person cannot take. He is honest about his need for women but he is lies blatantly when he says he doesn’t need anyone or he doesn’t love anyone. If that was the case, why was he a raring alcoholic? Because he likes alcohol? How many people actually drink alcohol because they LIKE it? No one. Not even Mr Nathan. Alcohol only makes you forget your fear for the moment.

As was expected, Deepthi falls in love with Mr Nathan and she gets pregnant with his child. But. He turns his back on both. It threw a bucket of ice on her inner flame, her inner desire, her hopes, her want to be loved, her everything. It destroyed her mentally and that is where she did land – in a mental rehabilitation centre after giving birth to his daughter.

Yes, her husband is unaware. He thought it was theirs. Again – innocently aloof.

This is when Nathan realises that the lady who crept into his life so silently and innocently was responsible to make him believe he could love. He fell in love. But it was too late. He couldn’t have her back. Her life was in shambles and she needed her husband and children at this moment.

She returns from the mental institute as a changed woman. She remembers everything save for one little thing. She doesn’t remember giving birth to her daughter. At this point she is disappointed but assertive. She wants to get her life back into shape. With her family.

Life is such that when you get too comfortable in it, the evil lurking in the shadows, jumps out unexpectedly. Her husband, who is faring well in his job, thanks to Mr Nathan, meets him at a bar. Please note. This is years later. The husband invites Nathan home for lunch (he is still unaware).

Nathan goes. But not for lunch. He wants to meet Deepthi because he yearns for her – now that he has realized his feelings for her. This creates mayhem in her mind once again. She doesn’t go crazy, but she builds a giant feeling of fury. So big that she decides the only way to finish off this madness is to finish HIM off.

She goes. With her children. To floor nine. He is there. She tells him about how her mind is at unrest. He says likewise. She argues, cries, accuses. He holds her, looks her in the eye and says “you are the only woman who went mad because of me, the only woman who has loved me so much and the only woman I love.”

The movie ends there with the viewers left to decide what happens next.

They don’t show the fate of her husband, his shock, his emotions, his state of mind, nothing. We have to assume that. They don’t show the fate of Bela – Mr Nathan’s only true friend who stuck by him through thick and thin, through bad times and times of pleasure.

Ore Kadal speaks of emotions and the Indian economy. Which one rules the other, is left for you to decide. As for personal comments, I wills tick to what I always believe, its human to emote.

The movie consists of a background instrumental along with one song sung at points of intense rush of emotions. The tune is deep, clear and it hypnotises the viewer to extents where they get so involved that they enliven it with their own experiences.

The song comes in different pitches according to how intense the scene is. For instance there is one scene where Deepthi wants to forget Mr Nathan completely and is trying to shut him off her mind to get some peace, but the strain of her mind blocking the thought of pushing away the man she loves from her mind is expressed through a very high pitch in the singer’s tone.