REVIEW 794: MALAIKOTTAI VAALIBAN

Release date:	January 25, 2024
Director:	Lijo Jose Pellissery
Cast:	Mohanlal, Katha Nandi, Sonalee Kulkarni, Manoj Moses, Danish Sait, Hareesh Peradi, Sanjana Chandran, Manikandan R. Achari
Language:	Malayalam

 

Malaikottai Vaaliban features some of the most sensational images and sound ever created for the Indian screen. Sadly though, it is proof that visual and aural stimulation alone do not guarantee greatness. Writer-director Lijo Jose Pellissery’s new venture is a feast for the eyes and ears, but it is also stretched to nearly three hours with a plot and character graphs undeserving of that length. This unfortunate combination gives the film its defining characteristic: its soullessness. 

 

Starring Mohanlal as the eponymous protagonist, Malaikottai Vaaliban is a tale of a legendary warrior in an unspecified age gone by. Vaaliban travels across the land in an unassuming bullock cart with his foster parent, Ayyanar (Hareesh Peradi), and the latter’s son, Chinnappaiyyan (Manoj Moses). When they reach a village or town, Chinnappaiyyan announces their arrival with loud proclamations about Vaaliban’s past exploits. At the first stop that we see, Vaaliban vanquishes a local muscle man with more ease than Sunny Deol uprooting a handpump from the ground or Superman stopping a speeding train with bare hands. His confrontations get increasingly more challenging, but none equal an enemy he encounters who combats him through underhand means. 

 

With deliberate ambiguity about the time and place in which this story unfolds and the ethnicity of those among whom it is set, Pellissery makes it clear that he wishes to transport us to a mythical world where cultures, races and even geography cannot be pinned down. Most of the characters speak Malayalam, but at at least one arid location, there are faces in the crowd that look more like the weather-beaten visages found in the Thar or Kutch or in the dustbowls of Haryana. The dancer Rangapattinam Rangarani has a Tamil-sounding name but facial features more familiar in west or north India, her attire and jewels seem inspired by Maharashtra, and she is played by the Marathi film star Sonalee Kulkarni. Katha Nandi who is cast as Chinnappaiyyan’s lover Jamanthipoova is Bengali and looks it, while the Kannada cinema actor Danish Sait steps into the role of Vaaliban’s foe Chamathakan. In most films, this mix ‘n’ match might have been random, but in Malaikottai Vaaliban it feels deliberate considering everything else going on here.   

 

At one point in this Malayalam language ecosystem, characters break into a Hindi song. The story also includes a brutal European coloniser king with a name rooted in present-day UK but speaking a language from mainland Europe. 

 

This heterogeneity is attractive for a while. The cast is immensely likeable and immersed in the theatrics required of them as they surrender themselves to Pellissery’s vision headlined by the all-round splendour emanating from the screen. Those grand shots of vast barren terrain, a rust coloured stole with a sequinned trim being dragged dramatically on the ground, the golden lights of a crowded bazaar in the night, a primary character introduced through shadow play, a crimson-dominated palette that matches the blood splashed across a stone wall at one point, a Colosseum-like arena (more Game of Thrones than Gladiator) and bird’s eye views of human bodies dancing, fighting, advancing towards each other – they are all framed with loving attention to each dot, line and tint on cinematographer Madhu Neelakandan’s colossal canvas, complemented by Gokuldas’ art direction and costumes by Sujith Sudhakaran and Ratheesh Chammravattom. 

 

Malaikottai Vaaliban’s soundscape – with sound design by Renganaath Ravee and music by Prashant Pillai – is just as fabulous. Its signature refrain resembles a male mob letting out their breath in a collective whoosh. 

 

Each of these elements is spectacular as an independent entity, but when woven together, the overall package feels self-indulgent after a while with too much use of slow motion, too many aerial shots and too little substance in the script written by P.S. Rafeeque and Pellissery. People here are treated less like people and more like props, epitomised by the sinful under-utilisation of Manikandan R. Achari in a bit part as a jailed slave.

 

As the thinly sketched characters begin to weigh the narrative down, these embellishments are exposed as just that: embellishments, trying to convince us that there is more to Malaikottai Vaaliban than its luminous epidermal layer. Truth: there is not. I kept willing myself to be drawn into the story being told, but an overwhelming sense of tedium made that impossible. 

 

Like Deepak D. Menon’s painterly portraits of scenery, including one that “should be framed for museum display” as I wrote in my review of Padavettu (2022), a zillion moments in Malaikottai Vaaliban ought to be frozen as stills for the walls of prestigious galleries. A shot of concentric circles of humans in this film is surpassed in its beauty in recent Malayalam cinema only by Rajeev Ravi’s compositions for Thuramukham (2023). Malayalam films are known for delivering world-class camerawork even on tiny budgets, but these three films, regrettably, prioritise/d visual appeal over characterisation. Malaikottai Vaaliban is the cinematic equivalent of a gorgeous, lifeless mannequin rather than the pulsating life form that a quality film always is.

 

Pellissery has created abstract art earlier too, but unlike the seminal Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakam (2023), here we get abstractness for the heck of it. His influences and references in Malaikottai Vaaliban are as disparate as they come, ranging from Westerns to samurai cinema, conventional Indian action drama – the sort with outlandish stunts performed by omnipotent heroes exemplified by Rajinikanth – and even Tinkle Comics. The predatory Chamathakan, for one, comes across as a human cousin of the jackal Chamataka from my favourite Tinkle series, Kalia the Crow. Pellissery also replicates a scene from that most famous of Spaghetti Western-inspired Indian films, Sholay: the one in which Gabbar forces Basanti to dance on shards of glass to save Veeru. 

 

A game of Spot The Cultural References is not stimulus enough to stay awake through Malaikottai Vaaliban though. The only character whose skin we are allowed to look past is Ayyanar, but by the time that happens, the film is in its finale. 

 

Vaaliban says at one point: “What the eye has seen is the truth. What has not been seen is a lie.” The lines that ensue and a disclosure by a prominent character indicate a Rashomon Effect not visible within the space of this single film but over a span of at least two. Yes, there’s a sequel (the announcement comes in Malaikottai Vaaliban itself). I’ll explain vaguely to avoid spoilers: until the point in his life at which this film ends, Vaaliban had believed a certain something that he was told; we believed what he believed; but the events in this film are being recounted after he learnt the truth, which will now be revealed to us in Malaikottai Vaaliban 2. Sort of. I think.

 

Interesting idea, but it comes too late in the day to save Malaikottai Vaaliban 1. So am I looking forward to Part 2? Not really. There’s not enough coffee in the world...  

Rating (out of 5 stars): 2   

 

Running time:

155 minutes

 

Poster courtesy: IMDB 

REVIEW 779: VEEMBU

Release date:	April 8, 2020
Director:	Vivian Radhakrishnan
Cast:	Sujin Murali, Shanavas Sharaf, Rajalakshmi V.V., Rajeev D.H.
Language:	Malayalam

It is tough for an independent film without familiar faces to get public attention – even less so when it is not in theatres or on a prestigious streaming platform. Yet debutant director Vivian Radhakrishnan’s Veembu, now available on Youtube, has generated a fair amount of conversation this season. One reason is that actor Joju George unveiled the poster online. Another is that director Midhun Manuel Thomas promoted it on his Facebook page when it was released earlier this month.

Since these artistes are known for devotion to their craft, it is natural for expectations to be built solely on the strength of their support for Veembu. Thomas is just fresh from the stupendous critical success of the crime thriller Anjaam Pathiraa, so his patronage, if it can be called that, is particularly significant here because Veembu too is a thriller.

Now for the bad news. If Messrs George and Thomas meant to be kind, their kindness was misplaced – because Veembu does not deserve them.

At a basic level, the film’s concept is thought-provoking and seems exciting. Veembu means to offer an insight into how the truth is manipulated in the media to suit the powerful while maligning the weak. The journey from premise with promise to full-fledged film is rocky though. Veembu is pretentious, trying really hard to be cool and gives the appearance of being convinced that it has achieved that goal.

Veembu’s protagonists Kinavu and Abukutty are friends in remote rural Kerala. Kinavu is an autorickshaw driver taking care of his old mother who has been diagnosed with dementia. One day, desperate for a large sum of money, he agrees to commit a serious crime. Circumstances go out of his control largely as a result of his own inability to stay focused.

Veembu’s primary problem is that it is more preoccupied with form and structure than content. It starts with a man of small build being tortured by what appears to be a criminal gang. The fellow appeared in a selfie with someone he claims not to know. His captors think he is lying. One of them orders him to describe the circumstances that brought him to this pass as if he is narrating the script of a film. He agrees. That’s how it comes about that we get to hear the story of Kinavu and Abukutty.

The narrative device serves little purpose, the storytelling is over-stretched and the characterisation inconsistent. A man is rough with his elderly parent half way through the film but seems utterly devoted to her before and after that. Time is wasted on extraneous developments, such as Abukutty trying to have a fling with a married woman, that contribute nothing to the character development or the denouement. And by the time that neat twist comes around, involving two intruders and a heavy object, I was struggling to keep my eyes open and care for the people on screen.

DoP Vishnu Vijayarajan does deliver some eerie frames, well complemented by ominous background music. Particularly impressive is the shooting of a man held captive through Veembu. After a while though, these feel like embellishments masking weak writing. No amount of overhead shots of men weeping in a forest as seen through falling raindrops can camouflage the fact that the men are written as outlines without the colours filled in.

In its tone and tenor, from the beginning Veembu feels like a wannabe Angamaly Diaries, but again, no amount of stylisation, lookalikes in the cast and derivative music can give you the panache and heft of Lijo Jose Pellissery’s lovely 2017 film. After watching Veembu, I learnt from Google that Vivian Radhakrishnan assisted Pellissery on Jallikattu and has earned some praise for a recent making-of-Jallikattu video. Clearly, admiration for the boss does not necessarily translate into great art.

From among an inconsistent cast, several actors in Veembu stand out as naturals. Sujin Murali as Kinavu and Shanavas Sharaf as Abukutty are both easy before the camera, and will hopefully get better films in future. Sharaf reminded me of Tito Wilson, Angamaly Diaries’ U-Clamp Rajan, both in terms of looks and conviction. Another charismatic presence is Rajeev D.H. playing a man imprisoned for no fault of his – he is attractive and though his role is largely silent, manages to convey anguish with his intensity.

According to Radhakrishnan who wrote, directed and edited Veembu, the film has been in the cans for two years mostly due to censor troubles. If you can bear the tedium of its 2 hours and 20 minutes, in the end you will discover its troubling politics. Through a raucous monologue in the climax, in the guise of criticising the media – a worthy objective, no doubt – Veembu takes potshots at those who highlighted the communal angle in the rape of a Bakarwal child in Kathua in 2018 and other liberal causes.

In a better-made film, that finale – confused or intentionally illiberal? – would have merited a critique. Veembu is so vacuous and boring, it is not even worthy of anger.

Rating (out of 5 stars): 0.5

Running time:

140 minutes 57 seconds

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/veembu-movie-review-wannabe-angamaly-diaries-with-a-nice-concept-but-lacking-depth-coolth-and-the-smarts-8278571.html

Poster courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/veembu/

THE ANNAVETTICADGOES2THEMOVIES AWARDS: BEST INDIAN FILMS 2019

Poetry and courage across languages, from Assamese to Hindi, Khasi, Malayalam and more

2019 was a year in which small films in the Assamese and Khasi languages drew eyeballs beyond their traditional audiences, the Kerala-based film industry a.k.a. Mollywood outdid itself, and its counterparts in Bollywood under-performed. In this year that no seer could have predicted, here is a list of my favourite Indian films, with the top spot going to one that enjoyed an unprecedented months-long run in theatres across India, from Thiruvananthapuram to Chennai and the National Capital Region. 

1: Kumbalangi Nights / Malayalam

Madhu C. Narayanan’s Kumbalangi Nights feels like what you might get if you were to sit by your window in a house in Kumbalangi – a tourist village on the outskirts of Kochi – and gaze at life as it passes by. Realism has never been as enjoyable, educational and romantic as it is in this delicately woven saga of a dysfunctional family. A couple frolicking in the bioluminescence in the waters outside their home, an angry woman telling her boyfriend her biopic could be titled “The Girl Who Fell For An Idiot” and a generally light-hearted veneer partner this film’s grave concerns ranging from patriarchy to mental health. At once hilarious and thoughtful, Kumbalangi Nights is a sublime experience. 

(For more on the significance of Kumbalangi Nights, click here)

2: Aamis / Assamese 

Bhaskar Hazarika’s Aamis revolves around the attraction between a married doctor and a PhD student in Assam. A love of meat here becomes a metaphor for carnal longings, but gets a whole new layer in this story’s setting, since India’s North East is othered by the rest of the country for, among other reasons, its differing food choices. Only a deliciously wacko mind could zero in on this everyday reality and mould it into the surrealism of Aamis. If you have seen Kothanodi, you already know Hazarika has just such a mind. 

Aamis is about sexual desire in a repressive society and the definition of “normal”. It is scrumptiously twisted and an electric shock to India’s cinematic conventions. 

3: Iewduh / Khasi

Iewduh is set in an iconic marketplace in Shillong, which serves as a microcosm of Indian society. While the film’s characters go about their daily grind, the hustle and bustle of the bazaar absorbs a constant and lethal churning. Pradip Kurbah’s naturalistic storytelling is perfect for this slice-of-life film in which a community seems largely unmoved by a battered wife’s cries that are now a background score to their lives, but kindness too rears its head amidst apathy and despair. Iewduh is a beautiful film, and Kurbah one of the most significant voices to emerge from Indian cinema this decade. 

4: Virus / Malayalam 

How Keralites joined hands in 2018 to contain a deadly Nipah outbreak forms the story of Aashiq Abu’s Virus. The film’s clinical tone mirrors what must have been the business-like persistence of the politicians, bureaucrats, healthcare professionals and average citizens involved in this real-life emergency. Virus’ massive ensemble cast featuring some of Malayalam cinema’s most respected names in big, small and even tiny roles serves to underline the importance of every available individual in a crisis, including those who have no clue that they served a role. The film is a stirring ode to human compassion and a reminder of the best that we can be in trying times. 

(For the full review of Virus, click here)

5: Asuran / Tamil 

In Asuran, writer-director Vetri Maaran gives his hero a larger-than-life persona and all the trappings usually reserved for upper-caste male leads in masala films. The protagonist journeys from defiance to pacifism then all-out aggression through his life-long battles with the caste system and class. Within a mainstream format, in a space most unexpected, Asuran demands that we step out of our privileged existence and confront the demonic force of caste in our midst. 

(For the full review of Asuran, click here)

6: Jallikattu / Malayalam 

When a buffalo goes wild in a Kerala village in Lijo Jose Pellissery’s Jallikattu, the men pursuing it go wilder. Their chase soon becomes an outlet for their true selves, a camouflage for personal battles and ultimately, the most imaginative deconstruction of the self-destructive nature of patriarchy seen on the Indian screen. 

(For the full review of Jallikattu, click here)

7: Super Deluxe / Tamil 

Some of the biggest stars from Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam cinema come together in Thiagarajan Kumararaja’s gut-wrenching Super Deluxe, which tells the stories in parallel of an unhappily married couple trying to dispose of a corpse, teenagers surreptitiously watching pornography, a trans woman returning to the wife and son she abandoned in an earlier life and a porn actor seeking hospital treatment for her child. The fine balance it strikes between its sense of humour and its sensitivity is one of Super Deluxe’s many achievements.

(For the full review of Super Deluxe, click here)

8. Article 15 / Hindi 

In Anubhav Sinha’s Article 15, an upper-caste policeman is dragged out of his privileged cocoon when two Dalit girls are raped and murdered in an Uttar Pradesh village where he is posted. Through the Dalit activists Gaura and Nishad, he is forced to confront the very real dangers faced by India’s most oppressed community. This line spoken by a policeman in Article 15, “Aap se nivedan hai Sir, santulan mat bigaadiye (I beg you Sir, don’t disrupt the balance),” must rank among the starkest samples of status quoism ever showcased in a Hindi film.

(For the full review of Article 15, click here)

9. Hellaro / Gujarati 

A group of women discover dance and with it the courage in their veins in Abhishek Shah’s Hellaro. The story is situated in an isolated Gujarat village where women have accepted domestic violence including rape as a way of life, even as some of them in turn target the less fortunate in their midst. Swept up in an outburst, a hellaro, a gust of energy and optimism when they chance upon dance, they learn the power of solidarity and find in it a reason to live. 

10. Gully Boy / Hindi

In the richly rewarding Gully Boy, Zoya Akhtar places a poor Muslim slumdweller in Mumbai’s underground rap scene. Gully Boy’s gripping story is bolstered by the addictive rhythms of the hero’s compositions and his infectious rebelliousness, which are the handiwork of a host of Indian rappers including Naezy and Divine whose lives Akhtar acknowledges as the inspiration for her film. 

(For the full review of Gully Boy, click here)

A VERSION OF THIS ARTICLE IS ALSO ON FIRSTPOST:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/best-indian-films-2019-poetry-and-courage-across-languages-from-assamese-to-hindi-khasi-malayalam-and-more-7855491.html

ALSO READ: 

The Kumbalangi Nights Phenomenon: One small step for Mollywood, a giant leap for Indian cinema

Best Bollywood Films 2019: Article 15, Gully Boy and a handful that shone in an otherwise annus horribilis

Best Mollywood Films 2019: Kumbalangi Nights, Virus, Unda and more in perhaps the best year ever for God’s Own Cinema

Bollywood Awards 2019: Rani or Kangana? Rap or Niyam ho? Ayushmann or Ranveer? A pick of the year’s best work

Mollywood Awards 2019: Parvathy or Anna? Uyiril Thodum or Jaathikkathottam? Mammootty or…? A pick of the year’s best work

Aadukalam, Andhadhun, Sairat, Kammatipaadam, Mahanati, Village Rockstars: 100 great Indian films of the 2010s

Photographs courtesy:

Kumbalangi Nights poster: https://www.facebook.com/KumbalangiNights/

Aamis poster: https://www.facebook.com/AamisTheFilm/

Iewduh poster: https://www.facebook.com/iewduhthefilm/

Asuran poster: https://www.facebook.com/DhanushKRaja/

Super Deluxe poster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Deluxe_(film)

Hellaro poster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellaro