REVIEW 737: JALLIKATTU

Release date:	Kerala: October 4, 2019 Delhi: October 18, 2019
Director:	Lijo Jose Pellissery
Cast: Language:	Chemban Vinod Jose, Antony Varghese, Sabumon Abdusamad, Santhy Balachandran, Jaffer Idukki Malayalam

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): ****

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	96 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/jallikkattu-movie-review-lijo-jose-pellissery-presents-audacious-eye-popping-take-on-masculinity-and-our-savage-species-7523161.html

Visuals courtesy: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8721556/

REVIEW 592: SWATHANTHRIYAM ARDHARATHRIYIL

Release date:	Kerala: March 31, Delhi: April 20, 2018
Director:	Tinu Pappachan
Cast: Language:	Antony Varghese, Chemban Vinod Jose, Vinayakan, Tito Wilson, Sinoj Varghese, Aswathy Manoharan, Lijo Jose Pellissery Malayalam

When a film’s leading man is Antony Varghese, the handsome hottie who shot to fame as Vincent Pepe in last year’s groundbreaking hit Angamaly Diaries; when Angamaly’s director Lijo Jose Pellissery and writer Chemban Vinod Jose are its co-producers; when Pellissery has a cameo in this film, Jose a major supporting role, and another important character is played by Tito Wilson who was Angamaly’s U-Clamp Rajan; when the same technical team is on board here too; and when Pellissery’s associate on that project, Tinu Pappachan, is the director of this one, of course speculation will arise, as it has, about possible similarities between the two films.

So let us get this question out of the way first: no, Pappachan’s debut directorial venture, Swathanthriyam Ardharathriyil, bears no resemblance to Angamaly Diaries.

That 2017 film was an earthy, profoundly insightful take on gory gang wars in a Kerala town. This one is an action thriller set in a jail complex as a new inmate plans a break.

Antony Varghese plays Jacob, a finance firm employee who ends up behind bars for a bloody crime involving a policeman and linked to the woman he loves (Aswathy Manoharan). As soon as he enters this all-male universe, he starts trying to get out.

The film is as much a series of observations on the experience of being a prisoner suffering filthy toilets, mucky food and constant aggression, as it is about the protagonist’s escape strategy. Its title, which means “Freedom At Midnight”, refers to the date (August 15) and time Jacob chooses to take flight.

To say that Swathanthriyam Ardharathriyil is elegantly shot is stating the obvious. Girish Gangadharan is one of Mollywood’s finest cinematographers, and his approximately 11-minutes-long uncut single shot of two rival groups battling it out on a crowded street during a jampacked church festival in Angamaly Diaries is still fresh in public memory.

He seems to be enjoying himself in Swathanthriyam Ardharathriyil, playing around with the rain, close-ups of faces and the hero’s pretty eyes. Those frames provide a telling contrast to an arresting aerial view of the jail that highlights its sparseness in comparison with the verdant surroundings and the isolation of its inmates from the bustling world outside. The camera pulls out to that shot in an attention-getting staccato manner.

Gangadharan is at his astonishing best during a ferocious fist fight between two men in a muddy underground tunnel. Shameer Muhammed’s editing sleekly interlaces those orange-lit shots with the stillness and gray-blackness of the night overground.

Their work is beautifully teamed with Deepak Alexander’s throbbing background score. Alexander’s percussion-heavy instrumentation is particularly effective because Pappachan knows when to use it and when not, occasionally letting the film’s soundscape go blank to dramatic effect.

That said, it speaks volumes about Swathanthriyam Ardharathriyil that I gravitated towards waxing eloquent about its technical accomplishments before describing its characters. Stylish and suspenseful though it is, the film remains fun at a superficial level because the people in it do not come alive as they should in Dileep Kurian’s screenplay.

And so we never get to understand Jacob as anything beyond a good-looking guy with a ticking brain. Chemban Vinod Jose’s Devassy, nicknamed Kallan (Crooked) Devassy, is never more than a criminal who becomes Jacob’s strongest collaborator. Simon (played by the wonderful Vinayakan from Kammatipaadam) is a brute and an unlikely ally. Vattan (Crazy) Girijan, played by Sinoj Varghese, is the prisonmate whose deceptively off-kilter façade masks a sharp mind. Tito Wilson’s character is at all times only the chap who will not forget that his own attempt at fleeing was impeded by Jacob. As for the drug-peddling twins, they are…well, they are twins who love each other, that is it.

This stupendous cast is capable of great things when given substantial writing material. Antony Varghese, for one, has the confidence and camera-friendliness of a seasoned artiste although this is just his second film. The entire troupe marks their presence in Swathanthriyam Ardharathriyil because of their personal charisma, but the screenplay does not flesh their characters out with emotions and motivations we can be invested in.

Even the cultural details that have made Pappachan’s mentor Pellissery’s earlier works so pleasurable are absent here. We are told Swathanthriyam Ardharathriyil’s jail is situated in Kottayam, but frankly it could have been placed elsewhere without making an iota of a difference to the storyline or its treatment. 

The writing of Jacob’s scheme also required greater thought. While some of his ideas are clever, too many things fall too conveniently into place, and we are expected to buy into too much of what happens just because it does. For instance, without giving anything away, let me just say you cannot throw an unlimited amount of liquefied or soft solids other than faeces down a toilet without clogging it. And, (spoiler alert) did the police in a prison housing murderers lack firearms and communication equipment that night?

Swathanthriyam Ardharathriyil still remains entertaining because Pappachan’s adept direction, his cast’s appeal and his tech team’s sophistication keep the thrills going when all else falters. The atmospherics, the haunting ugliness of that prison complex and the suspense hold out enough excitement to make this a watchable albeit flawed film.

Rating (out of five stars): **

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	138 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/swathanthriyam-ardharathriyil-movie-review-the-angamaly-diaries-team-returns-with-a-fun-but-flawed-jailbreak-flick-4441207.html

Poster courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swathandriam_Ardharathriyil