Domesticising Macbeth in Malayalam Cinema: Dileesh Pothan’s Joji

Abstract

Shakespeare, a long-standing enigma hailing from the English dramatic tradition, continues to be reinterpreted by artists across the globe in multiple media even after four centuries. Though a colonial import, Shakespeare’s literary, performative, and cinematic adaptations have made their presence felt in India for over two and a half centuries.  The present paper explores ‘Joji’, a Malayalam film directed by Dileesh Pothan, as an indigenous adaptation of Macbeth. This film transposes the dramatic hypotext from the 11th-century Scottish royal court to a 21st-century Christian rubber-plantation-owning household in pandemic-stricken Kerala, recontextualising the royal politics within the intimate domestic power dynamics. This paper examines the intertextual engagement of this film with the source play through the lens of film adaptation theory. The paper argues that this cross-cultural cinematic adaptation deconstructs Shakespeare as an imperial icon and reconfigures him instead as a literary figure of enduring cultural significance and relevance in the postcolonial Indian context.