Fire on Water

Karthi, a disgruntled assistant on commercial productions, is working on an honest, personal film script, but his project is without industry backers. In the dispiriting pursuit of his dream, he loses his love and sinks into alcoholism, until he meets a kindred spirit adrift in the world. Fire on Water, the sophomore feature from Sun-J Perumal (Thaipoosam, 2007), zeroes in on a highly particular and rarely seen milieu: the travails of artistically minded filmmakers within the Tamil media industry in Malaysia. 

Part satire, part drama, Perumal’s entertaining and revealing film shines a light on the triple threat that independent Tamil filmmakers in Malaysia are confronted with: the biases that mainstream Malaysian culture holds towards minority artists, the commercial and aesthetic pressure exerted by the Tamil film industry in India and the inherent risk aversion of Malaysian Tamil producers themselves.

Despite its cultural specificity, Fire on Water speaks to the frustrated aspirations of creative minds across the globe. As Karthi, played by a burly, humorously poker-faced Karnan Kanapathy, navigates a universe hostile to individual expression, he comes to embody the broader struggle of free-thinking artists everywhere against the forces of conformity and commercialism.

– Srikanth Srinivasan