Ouseppinte Osyathu (2025)

Ouseppinte Osaythu is one of those rare Malayalam films that sneaks up on you. What begins as a taut thriller gradually transforms into something more profound, a deeply human story that lingers long after the credits roll.

The movie rides primarily on the shoulders of Dileesh Pothan, who delivers a performance that reminds you why directors-turned-actors are becoming such a compelling trend in Malayalam cinema these days. But this movie isn't a one-man show by any stretch - Shajon, who could easily be considered a co-lead, matches Pothan's energy with a nuanced portrayal that keeps you invested in the story's emotional core.

Director Sarath Chandran R.J. crafts the narrative with remarkable restraint, allowing the thriller elements to breathe without overwhelming the character development. The film's setting across various towns in Kerala's Idukki district becomes almost a character itself, with the mountainous terrain and small-town dynamics providing an authentic backdrop.

What impressed me most was how the supporting cast elevated every scene they appeared in. Vijayaraghavan, as the family patriarch, brings gravitas without falling into the trap of melodrama that such roles often demand. His presence anchors the film's emotional weight beautifully. Lena, Zarin Shihab, and Hemanth Menon round out the ensemble with performances that feel organic to their characters' world.

The film's greatest strength lies in its understanding of pacing. Where many thrillers rush toward their revelations, Ouseppinte Osaythu takes its time, building tension through character interaction rather than manufactured suspense. By the time the thriller mechanics give way to the story's more human concerns, you're so invested in these people that the genre shift feels natural, even inevitable.

The cinematography captures the beauty of Idukki without romanticizing it, presenting these locations as places where real people live real lives rather than picture-postcard destinations. The technical aspects never draw attention to themselves, which in a film like this is exactly what you want.

If there's a minor quibble, it's that the film occasionally feels a bit too measured in its approach, but that's hardly a fault when the alternative is the breathless pacing that mars so many contemporary thrillers.  In a year where Malayalam cinema has delivered some impressive outings, this film stands out as one of 2025's better offerings.

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Ponman, featuring the "actor" Basil Joseph

Basil Joseph has been having an identity crisis for sometime now or maybe this was his endgame - to be an actor. Basil figured out that the best way to get the exact performance you want is to give it yourself. He hits an incredible home-run with the 2025 movie, Ponman, directed by Jotish Shanker. 

Following in the footsteps of Dileesh Pothan, who made the seamless transition from behind the camera to in front of it, Basil has delivered what might be his strongest acting performance yet in Ponman. It's funny how all these directors are suddenly discovering they can act better than half the people they've been directing.

Ponman arrives as one of 2025's better offerings, showcasing Basil's metamorphosis which has been happening since Jaya Jaya Jaya He (2022). Gone is the slightly awkward energy we've come to associate with his earlier acting attempts - here he's completely comfortable in his skin, delivering dialogue with the kind of natural rhythm that comes from understanding exactly what the scene needs. You can see the director's brain working behind the actor's eyes, but instead of feeling calculated, it feels precise. 

What makes Ponman particularly effective is how Jotish Shanker has positioned it in Kollam and captured the suffocating nuances of the dowry system. This is not just another family drama - it's a surgical examination of how gold becomes the measuring stick for a girl's worth. The entire narrative revolves around the crushing weight of expectation that families work their entire lives to accumulate enough gold ornaments for their daughter's wedding day. 

 The supporting cast, particularly Lijomol and Sajin Gopu, complement Basil's performance without getting overshadowed by his transformation. Lijomol especially brings a quiet dignity to her role. Sajin Gopu, as always, delivers with that effortless naturalism that makes you forget you're watching someone act. 

Jotish Shanker's direction keeps the focus tight on the family dynamics without getting preachy about the social commentary. The dowry system critique emerges organically from the characters' actions rather than through heavy-handed dialogue, which is probably why the movie works as well as it does. By the time the wedding sequences arrive, you're not just watching a celebration - you're watching the culmination of a system that has consumed everyone involved. 

Ponman might not revolutionize Malayalam cinema, but it does what good regional cinema should do, holds up a mirror to a specific community's practices while telling a universally relatable story about family expectations and the price we pay for tradition.

 

 

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Best of 2024: Movies, Music & Reading

Here are some movies, music and books that caught my eye/ears in 2024.

Movies: Most of the movies in the list are from Malayalam. Malayalam movies have seen a remarkable resurgence in the last decade. In contrast  Bollywood or Hindi movies appears to be in a state of creative stagnation, trying to lift themes and stories from the Telugu industry (Tollywood) and miserably failing. 

I found myself struggling to recollect any Hindi movies I had watched in the past year, let alone any that left a lasting impression. This is a far cry from the vibrant era spanning the early 2000s to the mid-2010s, when Bollywood flourished with an array of memorable works.

Some of the movies in my list below were not released in 2024, I happened to watch them this year. But most of them are.

Bhoothakalam (Malayalam, 2022): One of the best paranormal movies in Malayalam that I've ever watched. Here is my review.

Premulu (Malayalam, 2024) : A chick-flick, a light-entertainer, third in a series - you decide. My review is here.

Civil War (English USA, 2024) :  I have been burrowing deep into the annals of American civil war, abolitionists and Abraham Lincoln this year. Coincidentally I watched this movie, which is unrelated to 150+ year old original version of civil war, months before I started down the rabbit hole of the 1860s civil war. Same land, different time, similar divides. My review.

Kishkindha Kaandam (Malayalam, 2024): Probably one of the best films that Malayalam produced this year. 

Bramayugam (Malayalam, 2024): Shot in the same location as Kishkindha Kaandam, but set centuries apart and brilliantly shot in black-n-white. Mammootty lords over a mad dark mansion and the movie, my review is here.

Bougainvillea (Malayalam, 2024): A stylish movie from Amal Neerad with his wife and actor Jyothirmayi rocking grey hair and her character and Kunchako Boban presenting new dimensions to his actor persona. Both actors have given great performances in an unconventional story which fails to hold together towards the end. But I loved the slick, urbane presentation. Maybe the allure of Jyothirmayi's silver strands will urge older folks, esp. Malayali men with sagging jaws and creased cheeks to abandon the harshness of jet black hair-dyes and embrace the timeless sophistication of grey hair. Sthuthi!

Barbie (English USA, 2023) : Barbie is a visually captivating and cleverly subversive film, blending playful nostalgia with sharp commentary on identity and societal expectations. It’s a whimsical yet thought-provoking exploration that transcends its toy-doll origins, offering a refreshing take on modern femininity

Society of the Snow (Spanish, Netflix, 2023): Alive by Piers Paul Reed was one of the books that I read in my teens that left a deep impression in my mind. It was about a team of Uruguayan rugby players whose plane crashed in the remote Andes and narrated their resilience in the face of unimaginable odds. Hollywood made a version of this real life survival story in the 90s starring Ethan Hawke. But Netflix's take on this incident, Society of the Snow, is the best and gripping version of this raw survival tale till now.

Sector 36 (2024): This is the only Hindi movie in my list, a Netflix production starring Deepak Dobriyal and Vikrant Massey. 

Music:  One of my favorite bands from the past released a new album this year, after long. Linkin Park's From Zero has head bangers like Emptiness Machine and Heavy is the Crown, along with many other great tracks, which makes it an almost no-skip album.

Shaboozey is my discovery of the year. It is like he found a place in music we didn't know existed and made himself at home there, at the confluence of hip-hop, country and pop. My favorite song of Shaboozey is Let it Burn.

Books : I hardly read any books this year and I am yet to finish the last two, but do plan to finish them 

1. And There was Light  - Jon Meacham
2. Circe - Madeline Miller
3. The Covenant of Water - Abraham Verghese
4. How to Hide an Empire - Daniel Immerwahr

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Manjummel Boys - where boys will be/remain boys : A review

Manjummel Boys is a survival cave-rescue movie based on a real life rescue event that happened at Guna Caves (previously called Devil's Kitchen) near Kodaikanal in the Western Ghats region of south India in 2006. 

This is another one of those pan south-Indian movies (other recent ones I have reviewed in this category are Premalu and Aavesham) responding to the possibilities of profit-making through streaming  and OTT platforms where a movie needs to transcend, meta-relate, hyperlink across language and regional barriers. Bilingual characters, diverse locations across the country,  a supporting cast of regional actors from the area where the story takes place and other regional influences baked into the narrative are strategies to grab more eyeballs and box-office bucks. Setting this movie in Kodaikanal will also help boost the Tamilnadu tourism industry. Nothing wrong with making products people want.

To attract Tamil moviegoers and strike box office gold, Manjummel Boys frequently references the 1991 Tamil film Gunaa and its music, specifically the song sequence filmed at the Devil's Kitchen cave system featuring the legendary Kamal Haasan. After Gunaa's release, the cave acquired a unique identity, being renamed as the Guna Caves, setting it apart from the countless rock caverns across the globe  all going by the name of devil's kitchen. This devil dude might be quite a chef, had a kitchen at every port of call. 

Manjummel Boys also belong to my 'favorite' emerging genre in Malayalam, which I call the MCMs or Man Child Movies in this blog. In the real life incident which served as the inspiration for Manjummel Boys, it is actually a group of young boys from Manjummel between the ages of 17 and 21 who go on a tourist expedition to Guna caves and one of them slips and falls down a deep crevasse. They have the excuse of their under-developed pre-frontal cortex for the risky decisions they might have made.

the real Manjummel boys

But what is the excuse for the men in this movie where all the actors who play the 'boys' look like 30+ year old men who have not really grown up and are still displaying the antics of teenage boys. This is one place the director should have curbed his creative liberty and recruited some real youngsters, instead of Soubin Shahir, a decent actor, but looks forty.  To me Manjummel Boys is a literal man-child movie filled with men-children.

A targeted social media blitzkrieg in the days immediately after the  film's release must have paid off. The S.Indian social media frenzy over this movie could have very well been generated in bot farms in the wilds of Asiatic continent. That is the only reason I can think of why Manjummel Boys became a hit beyond compare. It is an okay movie, but there are survival movies that have been told better  including Thirteen Lives, Castaway, Society of the Snow, The 33 etc. Considering that language and geography are no barriers in this streaming global media landscape, where movie-makers has easy access to inspiration without much perspiration, this movie could have been  made better. 

The script is practically non-existent, and character development is sorely lacking. The characters' dynamics and relationships are left largely to guesswork. The current theater-going audience in Kerala seems to be mostly Gen Z and younger millennials. This realization makes me feel like a fossil in a world where anyone over 40 is considered a 'boomer.' Therefore please take note that this review comes from someone a couple of generations removed. Manjummel Boys appears to be a movie tailored for the TikTok/Instagram reels generation, whose attention spans are challenged by coherent scripts. In fact, the director Chidambaram S. Poduval's previous film, Jan.e.man, was more relatable.

But let me not rain on Manjummel Boys' parade entirely. The movie deserves praise for its strong technical execution, particularly the cinematography, production design, and sound work. Recreating the cavernous underworld of Guna caves, complete with vertigo-inducing visual effects of a bone-rattling plummet into the craggy depths is expertly crafted. 

If there's one scene that elevates the film, it's the portrayal of that pivotal fall - the turning point of the story. The way it casually unfolds onscreen with creativity and nuance is quite impressive. It catches the viewer a bit off-guard, highlighting the creative brilliance of the director.If only he had recruited some young teen Youtube stars or Insta-influencers, instead of thirty plus year old men to play boys....... 

 

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Aavesham, an agender review

The first half of 2020s is the period of man-child movies in Malayalam. There is a profusion of young male directors in Malayalam these days, many of them are very talented. This is indeed a better situation than in the aughts (late 90s up to 2010), a period I consider the driest season for good movies in Malayalam cinema. The only problem we've now is while many of the creations directed by these young stallions are technically brilliant, my almost half a century old lenses notice the myopic and know-it-all worldview of the young first before I grudgingly appreciate the movie's technical finesse. I hope this stage will not last long for these talented filmmakers as they mature taking cue from the lessons they learn down their own life-paths.

The latest in the series of man child movies is Aavesham starring the versatile experimentalist Fahadh Faasil as the fun-loving man-child of a mafia don. Aavesham is one of the better man-child movies in the recent past, a trend I started noticing from Lijo Jose Pellissery's 2017 porcine classic overdosed on testosterone, Angamaly Diaries. Another more recent one of this 'genre', also from Lijo Jose Pellissery that I had the good fortune to watch was Churuli, my review here.

Aavesham starts at one of those numerous engineering college hostels that line the outskirts of Bangalore where three freshman are hazed by their seniors and want to take revenge.Their novel idea of revenge entails recruiting or finding a local don who could be their local support and protection. Enter the crowd-surfing, quirky and fabulous Mr. Ranga, a much emaciated Fafa (Fahadh Faasil), in an offbeat action role.

The three new kids were probably recruited from Instagram or through auditions and do well with the roles they are entrusted with. The transformations of their characters as the film progresses are captured well. The modern and endearing thug sidekick, Amban is also fleshed out well. Fafa brilliantly portrays Ranga, perfect to the last bit of Bangalore-Malayali accent.  Vinayak Sasikumar's lyrics and Sushin Shyam's music  is reminiscent of Tamil movie songs. Maybe that is the trend we've to live with in these days of pan-(S.)Indian movies. Directed by Jithu Madhavan, Aavesham is a decent entertainer worth a watch for its quirky performances and the interesting treatment of its 21st century cinematic don theme.

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Premalu, a review

Naslen, Mamitha, Sangeeth & Akhila

Girish A. D. is a god of small things. Third in his series of coming of age movies flavored with dashes of rom-com spice, Premalu is a light entertainer/chick-flick with an immensely like-able young cast. The director Girish A.D threads together a narrative from nothing but stringing together tiny pearls from everyday life, just like he he had done in his two previous directorial outings - Thanneermathan Dinangal(transl - Watermelon Days, 2019) and Super Sharanya(2022.) Both of which were also utterly delightful.

Shyam Mohan & Mamitha Baiju

The script, the framing of the scenes and even seemingly inconsequential dialog between the characters bring out the depth of observation of the movie's creator. While it is a run of the mill trope of boy-meets-girl from a slightly different social milieu, it is the attention to detail and impeccable casting that makes Premalu a winner. 

Naslen K. Gafoor, Mamitha Baiju, Sangeeth Prathap, Shyam Mohan playing the four main characters steal the show. The only badly developed character (the director or writer's fault, not the actor's) is Mathew portrayed by Mathew Thomas, which was a comic exaggeration of someone on the spectrum. 

It is an urban film relatable to majority of the  newer generation film-goers in India - maybe you have lived in a different city with room mates for your first job, maybe you went to an engineering college outside your hometown and fell in love with a girl and it didn't work out as you had planned, maybe you worked in a software company for your first job, maybe even after four years of college you still remained an aimless kite, maybe you will find something of yourself in this movie, maybe you won't. Just sit back and enjoy the show.

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Bhoothakalam

Shane Nigam knows his strengths and chose the right story, location and director for his production house - Shane Nigam Film's maiden(?) venture. - Bhoothakalam. The angst ridden, depressed, down on his luck, angry and scared young man from Kochi is a role tailor-made for Shane. He is not going to lose his Kochi accent anytime, why even take a risk when he has a stake in production?

Bhoothakalam (transl. The Past,) Rahul Sadasivan's second directorial outing after Red Rain (2013) is a slow burn psychological horror/ghost story.  Shane and veteran actor Revathy play the leads as a depressed mother and an equally depressed son who got handed a load of generational trauma on top of his helplessness. They both have outdid themselves in the acting department, although when it comes to Shane I felt that he just had to act as himself on a bad hair day. For her role in Bhoothakalam Revathy won the Kerala state award for the best actor (female) in a lead role for the first time in her career, which has spanned almost four decades. 

Bhoothakalam (2022) is one of the serious ghost stories I have watched in Malayalam after long, along the lines of Sixth Sense or The Others, but on a much lighter budget. There are no cheap tricks like jump scares or odd camera angles as it moves steadfastly towards a satisfying climax.

Just like Rahul Sadasivan's next film, BramaYugam (2024), Bhoothakalam too is plenty open to interpretation. Armchair psychoanalysts and hidden meaning seekers have the opportunity for the metaphorical peeling of a few psychological onions. This is considering both the lead characters have issues which need intervention by mental health professionals. Under those circumstances it is easy to explain away the supernatural as tricks of the mind, shared psychotic disorder, drug induced hallucinations and the like. 

But I would rather watch Bhoothakalam as a ghost story it is. We have not had a good one for long and Bhoothakalam builds up slowly but surely towards a flash-freeze spine-chilling end.

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Bramayugam

The age of black and white is here in director Rahul Sadasivan's The Age of Madness or BramaYugam. It was a brilliant idea to post-process the entire movie to monochrome black-n-white which not only elevates the story but also makes it easy for the production design team. If the mana (translation: mansion) in the movie was in color it would have looked like a stage prop strongly giving off western false-facade vibes. 

The cinematography by Shehnad Jalal is enchanting making the mansion a strong contender for the supporting lead. Here below is one of the powerful introductory shots from the movie where Arjun Ashokan's character, Thevan wandering lost in the jungle finally chances upon what looks like an abandoned mansion.

BramaYugam, while it may not be considered as a horror movie in the traditional sense, is a quality period-horror or psychological thriller. The tight setting of the eerie abandoned mana and its jungle environs, the three main characters who are pretty much the only characters in the story and a yakshi to add an extra dollop of Malayali authenticity, all hold the well directed movie together. 

The casting is on point. Mammotty essays the role of Kudomon Potty, the lord of the dark mansion with Sidharth Bharathan as the caretaker and cook of the mansion. Thevan is a paanan or a traveling folk singer who had escaped the Portuguese slave traders in this 17th century Malabar tale, who seeks refuge in the mana. 

Arjun Ashokan's portrayal of Thevan is raw and intense, capturing the essence of a man trapped in a world of shadows and secrets. With his half a century of acting experience Mammotty leads the charge of the trio of characters, while  Siddharth Bharathan's portrayal as the servant of the house is not far behind the other two either. Amalda Liz's Yakshi who has no dialog and a few minutes screen time in the entire movie is the only miscasting (in my eye.) She has a very modern face for 17th century female vampire. 

BramaYugam is a roller-coaster ride through a world where nothing is as it seems, and danger and dark secrets lurk behind every shadow. An atmospheric horror (or thriller?) movie that cleverly uses monochrome to take us back to a bygone era of yakshis and chathans, it is a successful cinematic experiment and a must-watch.

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Neelavelicham the movie, Bhargavi Nilayam & a question for Aashiq Abu

Neelavelicham (literal translation: 'blue light', poetically liberal translation adopted by the filmmaker, 'blue radiance') is a famous short story by Malayalam literary giant and a renaissance man of simple tastes, Vaikom Muhammad Basheer. It has been made into a movie half a century ago, at the time the director A. Vincent had titled it "Bhargavi Nilayam", the name of the fictional abode of the ghost lady in the short story. Bhargavi Nilayam has long since become synonymous in the Malayalam culture and lexicon as any building that has been taken over by ghostly presence(s) overstaying their visa status on the earth. About a decade ago I wrote a one paragraph review of the movie in this blog, when what I really wanted to talk about was that movie's hero - Madhu.

Not sure what Aashiq Abu, the director of this new take on the short story wanted to talk about by taking on the enormous risk of remaking an old blockbuster movie and a much-read short story of a beloved author. Everyone is going to have opinions and any fault is going to be magnified manifold and scrutinized to death. Maybe the man just loves taking risks in pursuit of honing his craft. This is what I like to conclude because I have always looked forward to Aashiq Abu's directorial outings and love to watch the technical improvement happening with each new release. Neelavelicham is no different in the technical department - production design, cinematography, casting, script are all excellent.

Tovino Thomas as Vaikom Muhammad Basheer has been styled and executed better than the suave Madhu who when you think about it reflected none of the life experience as a hotel manager, shepherd, sports goods agent, activist, watchman, fruit seller (to name a few) multi-faceted background of the real author. Roshan Matthews and Rima Kallingal's characters as the lead romantic pair is on par with Prem Nazir and Vijaya Nirmala's characters from the 1964 film and have been scripted to be digested by a contemporary audience. 

The production design recreating the era of the newly independent India where the story is set is probably one of the best I have seen recently in any Indian movie and is a welcome relief compared to the staged sets of the 1964 version. Not to blame any of these on the 1964 movie which was made at an age and a time when actors lived and emoted in a different plane than ordinary people and that sort of disconnect and staging was the norm. It is most evident nowhere else than the villain character Nanukuttan essayed in the 1964 movie by the stalwart actor P.J. Antony in blackface makeup. In the 2023 version it is Shine Tom Chacko, without any black paint on his face, but with the essential villainy captured through his acting and the script. The director has taken the same care to make necessary changes to make it a suitable for a contemporary audience, trimming down the length and dialogs.

The only question I have for Aashiq Abu is, if this was your take of Basheer's story Neelavelicham why did you take on the role of an editor or a quality analyst instead of being the ingenious director I have credited you to be? Neelavelicham (2023) is a scene by scene, quality improved copy of the 1964 Bhargavi Nilayam. You, Aashiq Abu, who has always given a relatable perspective on life through movies (especially to Millennial and Gen Z audience) whether it be Salt n Pepper or 22 F Kottayam or Da Thadiya or Idukki Gold or Mayanadhi, what stopped you doing from giving us a fresh take on Neelavelicham, instead of making a low-effort photocopy, albeit technically brilliant?

 

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Mukundan Unni Associates : Where Karma Goes to Get Killed

In the absence of the specter of sin employed by monotheistic religions to keep their followers all sheep-ly and righteous, Indian religions and philosophy, use Karma to enforce lane discipline on the morality highway. Mukundan Unni Associates (MUA) is the first anti-karmic Malayalam or Indian movie I've ever watched. 

Abhinav Sundar Naik's directorial debut is an unapologetic feature film, out to prove Hindu and (subsequent) Buddhist philosophy's first law of universal causation and effect has no street cred in the twenty first century world. The movie opens with this text, "human beings are mostly grey, but in some cases they are just black." If you are into armchair psychoanalysis as I am and have read aplenty about serial killers sporting the harmless guy vibe or have watched American Psycho or Nightcrawler, this one line should give you some idea how the protagonist of this movie is going to turn out, with a flat, dark, un-empathetic psycho/sociopathic edge, prone to plenty of mental monologues. The monologue voice-overs of the main character written by the director kicks a$s. It does not come as a surprise that during a low period in his life Naik is said to have watched Dan Gilroy's Nightcrawler multiple times, MUA is brimming with this dark inspiration.

Mukundan Unni, the lead of the movie, is a lawyer who prefers to wear the impeccable white on white 'uniform' worn by lawyers in India, but has a mind which is the darkest shade of black, just like a lawyers' robe. Vineeth Sreenivasan, who has essayed the title role is growing into these sociopath roles (LOL.) Will Mukundan Unni stand the test of time and have the staying power of Sreenivasan Sr.'s Thalathil Dinesan? From Ravi Padmanabhan in Thannermathan Dinangal to Mukundan Unni, Vineeth has been delivering some killer performances essaying the unrecognizable-psychopath-next-door.  Other actors like Suraj Venjaramood, Jagadeesh, Sudhi Koppa, Tanvi Ram have meaty roles although their screen time is nowhere near that of the lead. 

The message of the movie is there is no message. But if you are one of those viewers who like message(s)-in-a-movie, try these - karma is still a b@#ch, but s/he is on vacation, there is only truth(reality) no consequences and feel free to engage in haymaking during daytime. 

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Churuli : A properly prejudiced analysis

Lijo Jose Pellissery(LJP) is the messiah Pooh Bear of the new new-wave Malayalam cinema with his growing ranks of proselytizing followers of the male kind. He had started amassing this cult following since he had Fr. Vincent Vattoli perform miracles in his 2013 film, Amen. In my books, Amen was the last amazing film Pellissery directed. 

Amen painted a Gabriel Garcia Marquez-esque story on the vibrant and verdant canvas of Kuttanad. If the audience had missed his previous film - the raw and experimental City of Joy (had a lot of Amores Perros in it) Amen established LJP with a bang. He almost missed the mark with his audience in the next one, Double Barrel, although I had liked it. But I am not his audience. Then came Angamaly Diaries, Ee.Ma.Yau, Jallikattu and this latest film I watched a few days ago – Churuli.  

Every one of these later films are darker and progressively masculine. I must have made half-way through Angamaly Diaries, got quarter way in to Ee.Ma.Yau before giving up and didn’t attempt Jallikattu at all – India’s official entry for Oscars (Feb 2021.)  

Churuli is his 2021 release, the first movie in Malayalam that explores the possibilities of watching a movie using a VR headset. The interpretation of Churuli is best left to film critics who name drop Kurasawa to Kubrick and Tarantino to Tarkovsky to Truffaut with a side of Lijo over a cup of coffee and not someone like me, who has a biased view of LJP films. These eminent film critics might have already reviewed Churuli on hundreds of review sites and reaction videos. LJP fans, please head on over there, there is nothing for you here. But if you are here for a properly prejudiced and completely kosher (unlike the film Churuli, my review will be 100% expletive free) review, continue reading. 

Churuli means a spiral or a circular maze in Malayalam. According to Maze Building 101, some mazes have bridges, obstacles and other interesting features like boot-leg liquor stores, fire-balls and surreal characters which add to the character and mystery of the maze. Our neighborhood Halloween corn maze has Freddy Krugers and other similar boogeymen jumping out with torches or fake chainsaws. It is pretty impressive on a dark Fall night, even when you know it is all fake. Churuli also has that dark atmospheric effect (better viewed on VR headsets than wide screen TV), reinforced by its story, dialogs and cinematography, taunting the audience to discern between the real and the unreal or just enjoy the ride.

It also has an ominous bridge. Yes, the same bridge we all put off crossing till we come to it. The two main characters in Churuli are afforded no such choice - they have to cross the bridge after which the mood of the movie changes abruptly. These two undercover cops cross the bridge to reach the high range settlement called Churuli. They are in pursuit of a criminal named 'Joy' who is supposedly hiding in this settlement.

In addition to the bridge, the maze @ Churuli has a liquor store turned makeshift church and a handful of frontier roughnecks - an authentic wild West setting. The lingua franca of this mountainous labyrinth is Malayalam laden with un-adulterated 100% pure profanity, most referring to female genitalia. The film is also notable in the absence of any significant female characters. A couple who are there could have been the products of hallucinatory maze, if you ask me. 

I appreciate the presence of a director like Lijo Jose Pellissery in Malayalam cinema, the one who bravely explores different story telling configurations in his films. From the hyperlinked format (City of God, 2011) to magical realism (Amen, 2013) to alternate world building while exploring the animalistic tendencies in humans (Churuli, 2021) LJP has presented engagingly unusual cinematic compositions to Malayalam audience. 

But somewhere during that journey, LJP lost me and I stopped putting any effort to appreciate or understand the innovation he has been putting forth. Totally my loss, I guess.

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Joji : A movie review

Joji is an operatic movie about a dysfunctional family, set in Erumely. The director Dileesh Pothan is on his way to becoming the Bard of Kerala's malanadu (the foothills of Western Ghats) - the Kottayam-Idukki border lands.

I was on a K. J. George rediscovery trip during 2020 and Irakal, one of K.G.G's path breaking movies I watched a few months ago is still fresh in my mind. Joji is very similar in setup and composition to Irakal than Macbeth which Dileesh Pothan acknowledged he was inspired by, in his movie announcement poster.

Joji is a 21st century version of the K. G. George's 20th century masterpiece.  Then again, I have not read Macbeth, except as an abridged comic book, thirty some years ago. Pardon my Shakespeare.

If Joji reminded me anything Shakespearean, and it does with its operatically wailing violin BGM, it is King Lear. I had to sit through repeated screenings of Grigoriy Kozintsev's Russian B&W classic Karol Lir from 1970 at an impressionable young age of 8 or 9. All I remember of that King Lear movie is that the King had 3 adult children and they were all plotting/waiting for him to die, much like in this Dileesh Pothan classic half a century later. 

Joji is a socially detached loner, the youngest son of a rubber estate owner. His American equivalent will be the 30 year old son living in his parents' basement, surviving on Cheetos and video-games, without a job in sight. While the youngest no-good son of a rich plantation owner living in a joint family is the common theme in Joji and Irakal (there are more similarities which I am not going to explore as I don't feel like going into thesis mode today), their greatest contrast is in the treatment and exploration of this theme. 

Irakal in 1985 presents you a Gen X-er dealing with his powerless position, taking matters into his own hands and exerting his independence. Ganeshan in his debut role as Baby, the youngest son - engineering college drop-out and black sheep of the family, is very much a product of the turbulent 70s (ref: declaration of emergency in India in the late 70s) when he came of age and is a seething angry young man with some psycho-social tendencies thrown in for good measure.

Joji meanwhile is a millennial and he inhabits a movie reflective of our current times. He is laid-back and lacks focus, but acts too cool to care. The writer, Syam Pushkaran, the master of minutiae, reveals every one of his characters and their psyches through layered yet succinct dialogue. Shyju Khalid's camera is instrumental in capturing the fine nuances of the characters and the location in a film that relies very much on subtlety. 

There are only a handful of characters in the film, and the story and camera are tightly focused on them. There is the iron-fisted patriarch Panachel Kuttappan (V. P. Sunny), who is in better shape than his three sons and does several push-ups, too many to count, every day. He is served by his two older sons - the divorced elder son Jomon (Baburaj) who loves the bottle and the meek second son Jaison (Joji Mundakayam) who manages the family businesses with the trickle of money released each day by the patriarch. Between them is Jaison's wife and the daughter in law of the family, Bincy (Unnimaya Prasad), and finally there is the title character - the lazy dreamer with half-assed plans - Joji (an almost emaciated Fahadh Fazil.) Other significant characters are essayed by Shammi Thilakan as Dr. Felix - Panachel family's friend and physician, Basil Joseph as Father Kevin and Alister Alex as Poppy, Jomon's teenage son.

Joji's transformation from a detached sleep loving loafer who spends endless afternoons with a fishing rod that catches no fish (the fishing rod or the fishless pond might be the problem here) to the person he ultimately becomes is a bit incomprehensible for my Gen X brain. Unlike Baby in Irakal who had all the makings of a psychopath from scene one and whose character arc was predictable, Joji's metamorphosis has shades of implausibility. Despite this flaw, the technical harmonization of all the elements of the film - script, camera, acting and background score makes it a treat to watch.

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The Great Indian Kitchen : a movie review

The Great Indian Kitchen: the recipe for success as below.

Ingredients

• One measure of the good
• One measure of the bad
• One measure of the ugly

Directions

Turn back the clock a hundred years. Retain electronic gadgets and newer modes of transportation from the current age. Combine all ingredients in a majestic old bowl house and whip them into a frenzy. Rinse-n-Repeat. Each day. Every day. Save the last dance.

The good: Some truths need to be made into films. As many films as you can, to hammer the point home. This movie would have been a decent documentary and could have even made it to a few international film festivals if it was made by a white woman film maker on a noble mission to empower and bring freedom to third world women. As a regional Indian feature film it found the right audience though - the local south (or north, with subtitles) Indian men who have been blissfully living their sedentary lives while their better halves toil from sunrise to midnight in the kitchen. If these wives work outside their home, the toiling continues at their work-place too. The cook-clean-perform wifely duties narration, executed in a minimally perfect style by the director, Jeo Baby, hits the mark. 

The fact that this movie got to be made as a feature film and not a documentary, thus reaching a wider audience, is inspirational. The dialog it has created on different platforms and groups is the ultimate goal of social impact films. The movie has a feminist theme and the female lead is the real lead of the movie with more screen-time than any of her male counterparts. Nimisha Sajayan is perfect as a new bride turned house-wife. Suraj Venjaramoodu has reliable job security as Nimisha's onscreen husband if her career continues on the upswing.

The bad (a tiny-bit frazzling): Why do I feel like Jeo Baby is Blessy in new clothes? Not that Blessy has gone anywhere - can't wait to unwatch Aadujeevitham when it hits the theaters. I am all braced up to re-read Benyamin's novel to get rid of the taste of the movie, which I do intend to watch in order to write a biased review right afterwards.

There was shades of Blessy in Jeo Baby's previous directorial venture Kilometers and Kilometers. The social cause part, a signature of Blessy's films was missing in Kms & Kms, but it made it up with a surplus of the virtuous characters without any real depth.

In The Great Indian Kitchen, the Blessyness comes from its  kitschy moralization, absolute disregard of grey areas and its social justice theme, which only focuses on the extremes. Unlike Blessy whose heroes were always those few good men in our midst who operate in a perpetual God mode, Jeo Baby is more open-minded and trains his camera on a woman, who since she is a woman has not unlocked the God mode. 

Like Blessy with his moralizing movies, Jeo Baby in TGIK, comes across as this self-righteous and principled unicorn crusader against the specter of patriarchy that hangs permanently over Indian woman kind, like grey clouds on a typical Seattle sky. TGIK must have begun its life in the spasmodic vibrations of a tuning fork triggered picking on the preachy sentiments of keyboard activists and social media warriors. The media - social and traditional is lapping up the spirit of revolution Baby's movie has unleashed on the morality militia. It is constructive in a sense, but anything holier than thou is a suspect in my book.

The suspicion proves valid when the audience is asked to believe the impossible. The story takes place at a huge family house spread out like a lumbering, grounded, two-storied jet plane. While it looks squeaky clean (except the kitchen/dining area which resembles a battle-field most of the time) we are asked to believe it does not have any full time retinue of maids or cleaners. Cleaning that house looks like a week long project. The kind of project that calls for project trackers, Gantt charts and responsibility matrices, and should only be attempted as a sub-project before bigger projects like weddings or funerals. But according to the movie, the new bride is expected to clean it every day? 

Then there was a tiny side story injected into the script that was totally unnecessary. The audience would miss the activist episode if they blinked. What purpose did it serve other than incite some fringe religious or political group? Maybe the intent was to create a PR controversy and make more people watch the movie? 

The ugly:  It is about half a century late. The story probably takes place in the early 1900s where they happen to have cellphones, cars and refrigerators. Or else in this day and age, where in Kerala is a woman routinely quarantined for almost a week due to her 'impure' menstrual period? 

There is no subtlety in the way the message of feminism is inflicted upon the viewer. I am as feminist as they come. But this movie is like someone's take on feminism after reading a few WhatsApp forwards on the subject and doing-your-own-research on YouTube. It goes from a dark feminist zero to a blinding hundred without passing through any modulatory gray zones in-between. 

Dance, according to the revelation I received after watching TGIK, is a safe and accepted career choice for female feminists in Kerala/India. Kerala is the highly literate Indian state where almost every millennial adult woman has a Bachelor's degree at the minimum, usually in a STEM field. But as a nascent feminist she will seek her emancipation only through arts or so the movie tells us. Not that there is anything wrong with arts jobs, it just doesn't make it through my ground truthing sensor.

Nimisha Sajayan who does not have a single dance bone in her body looks utterly out of place as a dance director in her new woke life. Even as she is reviewing the final rehearsal of her dance troupe, she is a detached spectator, her body feels rigid, while impassively watching a fluid dance performance which she supposedly directed. 

The last dance: The fusion dance group looks absolutely stunning - a beautiful blend of Thai/Far-east dance with Kerala's kathakali (in looks.)

Jeo Baby, go on make some more movies, now that the conversation has started, let's keep it going. Get this man some producers. 

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Ishq, Malayalam movie review 2019

Ishq is unsettling. The fine print of its subtitle – ‘not a love story’ warns the audience to get rid of their preconceptions about the title – Ishq (means love or passion), at the opening credits. Even with that ominous heads-up the movie starts off pretty tame with two young lovers – Sachi (Shane Nigam) and Vasudha (Ann Sheetal) sneaking texts and phone calls as they carry on their semi-long distance relationship.

The film makers have boldly attempted to address the issue of moral policing prevalent in every-town, India. In a society and culture still squirming and yearning to be free from under years of traditions, patriarchy and conventions, Ishq is a young couple’s encounter with this formidable wall and its aftershocks.

Shane Nigam has been getting a lot of tortured young hero roles – from Kismath and Eeda, to Kumbalangi Nights and Ishq. He is inching closer to being typecast with every new movie. Maybe it is his vulnerable, barely legal looks with a hint of rebellion, that leads to these type of roles land on his plate. This is wishing him he choose wisely as he goes forward.

Ann Sheetal, Shine Tom Chacko and Leona Lishoy have essayed their roles brilliantly. It was harrowing to watch the incident which became the crux of the movie without reaching for the remote. The torture the lead couple was undergoing was palpable. Good work director - Anuraj Manohar, script writer (Ratheesh Ravi) and editor (Kiran Das)! These central moments along with the ending left me a bit disturbed. The creeps-in-the-car scenes unsettled me with their sheer terror that was so subtly executed. The climax was upsetting because this was not the triumph of feminism I had wished to see. But then again had the hero turned into a feminist instead of the heroine, where is the shock factor, right?

BTW Anuraj Manohar, why the name Ishq? This is the third movie by the name of Ishq that I have seen in the last 25 years albeit they were all in different languages. Love/Ishq transcends languages, eh?

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Varathan

Varathan is a liberal Keralite couple's POV and experiences in a part of Kerala, which suspiciously feels more Bihar than Kerala (IMHO.) More on the Bihar situation later. In addition to having two stylish lead actors - Fahadh Faazil and Aishwarya Lakshmi, style has been injected into the track by the liberal use of slow motion. It is wonderful to watch Aiswarya Lakshmi evolve as an actress, although this movie is essentially a Fahadh vehicle where he headlines in and as the film title (character.) The easy going chemistry between the lead pair contributes much to the smoothness of the narrative.

Costumes, casting, BGM, sound track and production design are excellent. The frames are beautifully metaphorical. The cockroach-killing metaphor is an overkill, if you ask me, but then again you have to appeal to all sorts of audience.

The only unconvincing part of the story is the BIMARUfication of Kerala. The high range town/village where the movie takes place is shown populated with lecherous males with pent-up sexual frustration and out-dated ideas about women's place in society in the age of Whatsapp (which is Tinder, Snapchat, FaceTime - all combined for the Kerala populace.)

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Theevandi

Theevandi has an old-timey charm. It brings to mind the un-pretentious story lines about the common man that was symbolic of mid to late eighties Malayalam cinema. In an age of omnipresent cellphones, missed calls, Whatsapp groups and Facebook posts it is quite an achievement for the story and the script writer to create a realistic blend of digital and analog worlds we seamlessly inhabit.

Tovino Thomas is Bineesh Damodaran, a chain smoking, unemployed young man who dabbles in politics as a hobby in a North Kerala village, somewhere near Kozhikode, would be my guess. The movie tracks his progress from his induction to smoking as a high school-er to the event that leads him to quit it years later, with several comedy gold instances that keep the audience entertained.

Vini Viswalal’s story and script directed by T.P Fellini has in addition to Tovino, Suraj Venjaramoottil, Surabhi Lakshmi, Saiju Kurup, Samyukta Menon, Sudheesh and a bunch of other talented actors. The music by debutante music director Kailas Menon is a perfect fit for the simple yet meaningful lyrics penned by B.K.Harinarayan.

Mayanadhi, Maradona, Theevandi – 2018 has been a rewarding year for Tovino, his smart choice of scripts and directors is paying off pretty well.

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Kannur : Inside India's Bloodiest Revenge Politics by Ullekh NP and a companion movie Eeda

Red - Kannur breathes and radiates red. From the laterite hills to the communist party flags and from its blood killing fields to its iconic Theyyams, red is the go-to color of this west coast city at the northern tip of the southern Indian state, Kerala.

With my personal connection to the place, it would have taken some significant amount of restraint to stay away from the red-jacketed book titled Kannur : Inside India's Bloodiest Revenge Politics by Ullekh N.P. The author is a native of Kannur and a journalist with Open Magazine.

The book tracks the history of violence and blood-letting that has become synonymous with the Kannur as the political killing capital of Kerala. Many faces and names of people appearing in these pages reminded me of people we might have ran into at an afternoon political discussion, at a panchayath function or at the neighborhood AKG vayanshala, all those years ago in the eighties.

My impression of the eighties Kannur, where Congress party and CPI(M) as the de-facto rivals contradicts the murders painted by numbers in this book. It is true that post-1990s, after the Babri Masjid demolition, religious fundamentalist organizations like RSS made considerable inroads into Kerala, one of the last bastions of the liberal left in India and thus replacing Congress as the main enemy for CPI(M) in Kannur. The passing of the mantle of the main CPI(M) enemy from Congress to RSS (BJP) is not evident from the narrative. At present almost all (if not all) the political killing victims are either Marxists or Hindu nationalists, Congress party members are nowhere in the picture.

The book also explores the question, why? Why did Kannur become the hot-bed, by exploring some unusual theories about the social, historical, genetic and geographic composition of the district and its inhabitants. From Chekavars to Assyrians to Portuguese it is fascinating to see various interpretations of history in an investigation to make sense of the mess.

...........

Eeda (translated as Here)is an excellent fictional companion piece for Ullekh N.P's book. It is a contemporary look at the political rivalries of Kannur through a Romeo-Juliet angle. Communists and Hindu nationalists stand in for Montagues and Capulets, while a young couple tries to escape the tentacles of their inherited political legacies.

Shane Nigam (Kismath) and Nimisha Sajayan (Thondimuthalum Drikthasakshiyum), the protagonists come from similar families in Kannur except their political affiliations - one with strong Marxist connections and other with Hindu nationalist leaning, which is the other side of the tracks as far as the other is concerned.

It is a smooth, natural flowing movie, the directorial debut of editor turned director B. Ajithkumar and Collective Phase One. Although other than the lead couple's accent, most of the other characters do not sound like locals, it is not because they didn't try. There is an impressive lineup of supporting characters essayed by Alencier Ley Lopez, Surabhi Lakshmi, Manikandan Achari, Sudhi Koppa and others.

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Basil Joseph's Godha

Basil Joseph deserves a special pat on the back for reining in the irresistible urge to recruit Mallu Singhs to play Sardarjis in Godha. Half of the movie is set in Punjab, a place teeming with Sardars, a generous world full of possibilities for Malayalis to release their inner Santa-Banta by wearing turbans and beard-nets. The temptation could have been enormous. But Basil didn’t budge, authenticity being one of the admirable qualities of this movie. So much so that he even recruited a real Punjabi kudi, not from Gurgaon or Goregaon but from the Punjabi metropolis designed by a French man (read classy), Chandigarh (balle~ balle~)

Godha is a light-hearted tale of wrestling families – one from Kerala and the other from Punjab. In 2010s wrestling or contact martial arts theme have been the new favorite of Indian movie makers for sports inspired movies. Dangal, being the most well-known of the lot. Sultan, Mary Kom, Irudhi Suttru (Tamil) / Saala Khadoos in Hindi are some others in this category. Most of them also had stories focused on female athletes.

In Godha, we have the Wamiqa Gabi playing the Punjabi wrestler Aditi Singh counter balanced by Tovino Thomas’s reluctant wrestler/aspiring cricketer as the beautiful idiot, Anjaneya Das, B.Tech. The casting is superb, from Aditi’s Punjabi clansmen to Anjaneya’s Tamilian classmate – Pandi and beyond.

Renji Panicker is an indispensable element for all Malayalam sports movies these days. It could be because we really have a dearth of modern day fayalwans (pehalwan – Hindi, body builder -English) in Malayalam movie industry. Panicker’s seniority means his role will be that of a coach or a mentor, while appearing more buff than the main character who plays the hero/sports star. We can’t blame Renji Panicker if the younger heroes have no respect for six packs. Parvathy as the mother of the hero is another example of great casting.

Godha is like the perfect beef curry (this recipe is described in the movie – a meme-worthy scene, one that will be often quoted and re-quoted in the years to come), simple with few essential ingredients in  right quantities, blended in, to create the final product. It recognizes cricket – a game synonymous with sports (of any kind) in India and creates humor contrasting it with the not-so glamorous wrestling. Then it injects wrestling talk into communist party-office sermons, another common entertainment activity prevalent in central and North Kerala. There is also the guy meets girl track, their quests for glory and all of these playing out to the uplifting tunes by Shan Rahman. Light, natural and entertaining.

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