Through the Lens of a Mad Man: ‘Rotten Society’ Challenges Our Ignorance of the Overlooked

Rotten Society is a social satire film that follows a mad homeless man as he finds the camera of a news reporter who was trying to cover a political conspiracy and murder, and who now will use it to show people the side of society they often ignore.
There is a lot to say about this film, the first of which is that it presents a very interesting idea. Nowadays we are often submerged in countless political affairs and concerned about endless global problems (and we should be), yet it’s quite easy to ignore what’s happening right under the noses, of the people who live around us. Yes, the world is facing several crises right now and we need to be aware of them to play our part in building a better society. There is no other way around it. But sometimes we need to stop focusing entirely on the global picture and start realizing what is going on where we are and trying to resolve the most immediate problems.
As our colorful protagonist, the “Mad Man” shows us, there is suffering everywhere, especially among the most vulnerable individuals of our society, those we don’t pay enough attention to. We pass by their side, we might see them or we might even step away from them, but then they disappear from our minds and we can’t even begin to imagine the kind of things and experiences they go through. And if we don’t know them, how can we care? And how can we claim to want to build a better society, a better world, if we don’t care for our more immediate and affected citizens? And how can we pay them more attention if we purposely force ourselves to ignore them? If they are not covered by the news? If they are not featured in our social media content?
Hence the beauty of this project. This film brings a very engaging premise in which, in the most absurd way, we get the chance to get a glimpse of the experiences of those we don’t pay attention, to simply because now they have a camera. They can film what’s happening in our society and now, just because of that, we finally get to care. Filmmaker SS Jishnu Dev smartly plays around the idea of how having such a small device can create a big difference in the way we perceive our world, and this seems to be only increased by the Mad Man’s joy to find the lost camera. His face and laugh when he sees us is priceless. He now has the key to get the attention he never has and takes us on a wild ride in which he shares his little joys and the daring circumstances of living in the streets of India. Those we never see. Not in the Hollywood movies. The real streets. The real life. We are in his world for roughly 75 minutes and because of that, now we get to care for him. Whether we will continue to care for people like him after the film is something that remains to be seen and that, more likely, will depend on each viewer on its own, but, at least for this hour and fifteen minutes, we have been faced to the aspects of our more immediate reality and, with any luck, that will make us more compassionate and empathetic when we see our own Mad Men in the street.
A lot of this emotional response comes from two elements – first of all, the excellent performance of T Sunil Punnakkad, who plays the Mad Man in an incredibly convincing way. He is as funny as terrifying, and moving in all sense of the word. But there is also the clever use of the camera. Filmmaker SS Jishnu Dev has opted to tell this story using the “found footage” medium and this adds a whole different level of realism that invites the audience to be more committed to the story. We feel like we are there with the Mad Man, simply because he acknowledges us through the camera, and we become part of his world – though, again, we have always been, but only now we are realizing it simply because we have a screen in front of us. Ah! The magic of cinema!
That’s not to say that the film goes without its problems. Some of the English subtitles were a bit odd, and while engaging and realistic, some of the scenes still feel a bit “staged”, at least for the found footage genre. For instance, when the Mad Man enters the river. This scene was powerful because of what the Mad Man says and his performance, but for a found footage film, choosing a less static location for the camera would have come off as more natural – though, again, this is just a minor detail and we quite admire the filmmaker’s efforts to do this kind of film in India. As he puts it, it’s a rare technique in the Indian film industry, and we really hope this encourages him to keep realizing more films like this.
All in all, Rotten Society is a film that lives up to its title and that offers thoughtful introspection for its audience, not only in India but around the world. Ultimately, the experiences that the Mad Man shares with us, whether it be dealing with contamination in a river to crime in the streets, are universal, and with any luck, the film will help us be more compassionate.

Director’s Biography

SS JISHNU DEV IS AN INDIAN FILM DIRECTOR WHO IS PREDOMINANTLY WORKING IN THE MALAYALAM AND TAMIL FILM INDUSTRY. He is awarded a URF Global Award for making the first found footage film in Tamil, titled “Amanuda.” SS Jishnu Dev was born on March 24, 1994, in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India. He completed his bachelor’s degree in engineering in the stream of electronics and communication and then followed his passion for cinema. Amanuda is his debut film, which he filmed in 2018. The film was released in 2021 following his Malayalam feature film Upama (simile), which also got 120 international festival awards. As mentioned, Amanuda is the first attempt in the found footage genre, and initially struggled to convince the distributors what genre exactly the film was. We know that the Tamil film industry is one of the largest film industries in India. Even Amanuda gets rejected because of its unique style of filmmaking, which is not known to Tamil film people. After creating some awareness about the technique, he was well received by the people. Found-footage movies are very rare in the Indian film industry. But in Hollywood, there are plenty of them with good audience support. In Tamil, there is nothing like this kind of movie. SS Jishnu Dev Gets Inspired By Hollywood Movies Like “The Tunnel,” “Blairwitch Project,” “Paranormal Activity,” and “Quarantine.” These movies inspired him to do a found-footage technical movie in Tamil. Thus, Amanuda was foiled. A website named “Found Footage Critic,” which verifies the Found Footage Technical Movies, has also become the reference for understanding the Basic Rules of Making a Found Footage Movie. Later, AMANUDA got distribution from its owner distribution company, POV Horror, and they released the movie worldwide and also through Amazon Prime PRIME VIDEO.AMANUDA ALSO GOT MANY AWARDS AT THE INTAGORE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, THE INDO–FRENCH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, AND THE FIRST MONTHLY FILM AWARDS IN SERBIA, ETC. Amanuda got many positive reviews from the audience and critics because of its unique style of making. SS Jishnu Dev got an outstanding achievement award for directing the first ever found footage genre movie in Tamil. This film gifted Jishnu the India Book of Records, the Asia Book of Records, the International Book of Records, Kalam’s World Records, and the URF Awards.

His next was Upama, an art movie released in theatres in 2019. The movie is made according to Panchatantra. Film got more than 120 awards from national and international film festivals, including the Best Audience Choice Award from Bridge Fest, the Best Debut Director Award from Las Vegas Movie Awards, and the Best Feature Film Award from Scene Film Festival, USA. These resulted in his getting his second entry in the India Book of Records in 2020, which is titled “Maximum Category Award Received By A Malayalam Feature Film.”

In 2021, he directed a political satire film, “Chila Sankethika Kaaranangalaal,” which used continuous sync sound recording for up to 72 minutes. This resulted in making a mark on history as the longest film to perform a continuous sync sound recording, and it also got into the India Book of Records again. In 2022, he got the URB award again for making the first ever Malayalam movie, Myself Clement, talking about the Alien Hand Syndrome disease.