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Release
date:
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Kerala: October 4, 2019
Delhi: October 18, 2019
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Director:
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Lijo Jose
Pellissery
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Cast:
Language:
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Chemban Vinod
Jose, Antony Varghese, Sabumon Abdusamad, Santhy Balachandran, Jaffer Idukki
Malayalam
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Jallikattu is the sort of film that gores
its way into the brain and rips right through pre-conceived notions of what
constitutes cinema.
As alive as the beast being
hunted on screen through most of its crisp one-and-a-half hours running time,
the film pulsates with an infectious, unrelenting energy that is
both exhausting and exhilarating, enervating yet
invigorating.
It is violent, but – a
distinction that populist filmmakers like Sandeep Reddy Vanga (Arjun Reddy, Kabir Singh) refuse to acknowledge – it is not a celebration of
violence. Far from it. It is also one of the most intriguing, beautifully
impertinent works to emerge from Indian filmdom this year, brought to us by one
of contemporary India’s most intriguing, beautifully impertinent
filmmakers.
Lijo Jose Pellissery’s Jallikattu is set in a remote Kerala
village where a buffalo goes berserk on escaping an attempt at slaughter by
local butchers Antony (Antony Varghese) and Varkey (Chemban Vinod Jose). The
beast runs amok through fields, plantations and human habitations, spurring the
men of the community to give chase. This happens in the aftermath of a young
man exacting revenge on another in a seething rivalry over a woman they both
lust after, a local policeman getting violent with his wife, and
other conflicts that continue to play out while the buffalo wreaks havoc on
people’s bodies and property.
Jallikattu is written by R. Jayakumar and S.
Hareesh, based on the short story Maoist by Hareesh. The title is drawn from the highly controversial, bloody sport
popular in Tamil Nadu, in which bulls are released into human crowds that are
challenged to physically subdue the creatures. Pellissery and his colleagues
turn that description on its head as the men in their film mine their
basest instincts to defeat the buffalo. Many of them
simultaneously use this battle as a camouflage for and an outlet to vent
other simmering internal struggles, such that it becomes hard to distinguish
between the four-legged animal and the primitive, feral bipeds hot on its
heels.
In this charged atmosphere, men
do not merely speak, they shout, scream, growl and almost spit words out at
each other and at the women in their lives. When one such brute attacks a
woman (played by Santhy Balachandran), he buries his head in her body,
hissing and snarling like a predator hungry for meat. She resists vehemently,
but her subsequent calm conversation with him about a mundane matter is a
chilling metaphor for the normalisation of sexual violence in our society and
the manner in which women condition themselves to gather their wits about them
in the face of male bestiality because of the frequency with which they are
subjected to such savagery.
Jallikattu remains focused on the ferocious
male of the species, but not without reminding us in the briefest of scenes
that women themselves may appear calmer but are not above running a dagger
through other women whose choices they resent or condemn.
Pellissery’s narrative plunges
into action from the get-go, using the rhythm of the human
breath, the flaming red of the title, the activity at a crowded meat shop,
random banter and seemingly extraneous sub-plots to create an electric sense of
anticipation before the animal runs
riot.
Renganaath Ravee’s sound design
intermittently draws drumbeats from every available element in the ambient
audioscape, ranging from the laboured inhalations and exhalations of an old
man, knives striking animal flesh, the buffalo’s hooves and the mob in its
wake. Prashant Pillai’s music cuts in at intervals to inject further adrenaline
into the proceedings. Combined with Deepu Joseph’s brisk editing and
Gireesh Gangadharan’s unapologetic though non-exploitative cinematography, this
gives Jallikattu a narrative
flow so unyielding that it would take one of Varkey or Antony’s meat cleavers
to slice through the tension that hangs thick in the air.
Pellissery has built a reputation
as a non-conformist since his debut almost a decade back. 2017’s Angamaly Diaries and last year’s Ee.Ma.Yau. earned him a well-deserved
cult following nationwide. He has a unique ability to ask uncomfortable
questions through cinema that nevertheless yields unbridled entertainment. Jallikattu is as much a
courageous socio-political essay, a gutsy cultural critique that is
unafraid to tap religious iconography and an allegory for the devolution of men
over the ages, as it is an exciting, hormonally charged thriller.
Men giving in to their most
primeval urges make for a horrifying spectacle. Yet, as in life,
in Jallikattu too it is
fascinating to watch their inability to spot the self-destructive turn
they take in their bid to dominate women and the planet.
Rating (out
of five stars): ****
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CBFC Rating (India):
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UA
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Running time:
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96 minutes
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This review has also been published on Firstpost:
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