Holding a satirical mirror to the murky status that communism holds today in God’s very own country is Lal Jose’s Arabikkatha. The title is a misnomer as the movie is not an Arabian fantasy. Instead, it is a  hard look at what the Red politics has been rendered into, thanks to the petty power play that goes on ad nauseam.

In such a sorry setting, trying to do a Fidel Castro among the diaspora who live on petro-dollar dreams is the suggestively named Cuba Mukundan (Srinivasan). But then Kerala is no Cuba nor the modern day capitalist-communist China which Mukundan and his ilk can mould into their way of thinking.

Fed on the strong, fire-brand idealism that his father Society Gopalan (Nedumudi Venu) has espoused, Arabikkatha's Che Guevara finds himself a misfit and caught in a cleft stick of clinging on to old ideals and unable to digest the rot that has set in. The deliverance for him comes in an attractively packaged Chang Shu Min who he meets in Dubai, having flown there to eke out a living to clear off his debts.

Lal Jose proves his metier yet again in Arabikkatha whose Aesopian fable tells some harsh truths about today’s Kerala. Jose’s job is made easy, thanks to the superlative screenplay by Iqbal Kuttipuram.

Well, while Srinivasan & Co adeptly enact the Arabikkatha with their usual elan, the beauty quotient is provided by the Chinese import in Chang Shu Min.

The subtle tagline with which the film tries to sell its tale — Cuba Mukundan’s Chinese Love — itself underlines the satiric tone of the film. Well done, Lal Jose and crew!