Body Deep

Gulikan lives with his wife in a tribal colony inside the forest. During summer and subsequent drought they migrate to the riverside with others and go back to the forest when rain swells the river after a few months. Gulikan and Mathi were married in childhood as part of their custom. Born and brought up as a boy, he has the body and soul of a girl. Mathi is okay about that but gets upset when people ask her about child bearing. Gulikan constantly gets raped by heterosexual men when he goes out looking for odd jobs. Mathi falls in love with the fishmonger, with the silent approval of Gulikan, but learns that it was a trap. Social stigma about AIDS culminates in the torching up of their shacks and Mathi goes missing. Guikan looks for her everywhere but couldn't find her. He works at a tile factory owned by a philanthropist, but an incident there forced him to move out, and ends up working with Moorthi at the cremation place by the sea. Mathi disappears. Burdened with memories Gulikan is unable to thrive in the racist and hostile city. Udalazham is about his plight, back to nature and discusses how color of the skin, not the depth of one’s heart, is an approved identity in a ruthless and cold blooded society.
30 people, including the protagonist, acted in this film are indigenous tribal people from Nilambur and Wayanad forests.