REVIEW 795: BRAMAYUGAM

Release date:	February 15, 2024
Director:	Rahul Sadasivan
Cast:	Mammootty, Sidharth Bharathan, Arjun Ashokan, Amalda Liz, Manikandan R. Achari
Language:	Malayalam

 

Rahul Sadasivan’s Bramayugam comes to theatres two years after Bhoothakaalam in which he deftly wove themes of mental health, care giving, substance abuse and other pressing concerns into a supernatural/psychological horror drama. Bhoothakaalam starring Revathy and Shane Nigam was terrifying and thoughtful in equal measure, but the burden of expectations is not the reason why Bramayugam does not match up to it. The reasons are simpler.

 

Behind the gloss and beyond an in-form Mammootty, Bramayugam is not scary despite its promising atmospherics. It is also flimsy for a considerable stretch of time until it begins to lay out its caste politics. The film’s allegorical take on caste proves to be muddled and insensitive.

 

Bramayugam (The Age of Madness) is set in 17^th century Malabar where Thevan (Arjun Ashokan), a starving folk singer, chances upon a decrepit mansion belonging to a Brahmin family. The grouchy caretaker (Sidharth Bharathan) is unwelcoming. Both are placed low on the ladder of the caste system, and the elderly master of the house Kodumon Potti (Mammootty) belittles the latter for being disdainful towards the visitor, welcoming the young man warmly instead. 

 

Kodumon Potti rarely has guests. This could be because his home is in what appears to be a land far far away. Or perhaps not. Thevan soon realises that all is not as it seems in this decaying homestead where mysterious sounds are heard from areas declared off limits for him. It is not long before we learn that he is a pawn in a game in which the dice is controlled by an unexplained force. 

 

Sadasivan gets Bramayugam off to a good start by creating a sense of mystery in the forest where we meet Thevan. This tone is sustained till the end with the aid of Shehnad Jalal’s camerawork, Jothish Shankar’s art direction and Jayadevan Chakkadath’s low-key sound design. 

 

Bramayugam is defined by its magnificence, ranging from scenes of desolate natural beauty to the eerie innards of Kodumon Potti’s home. Even shots of a man cooking in a darkened kitchen look ominous here, as are close-ups of the handful of characters in this saga. The decision to make this a black-and-white film further enriches the imagery and adds to its folklorish feel. 

 

Giant landscapes are framed in Bramayugam in such a manner as to dwarf the people in the story and intimidate the viewer, in a style I’ve come to love in recent years in chilling Scandinavian thrillers. The resemblance is confined to the look. Bramayugam threatens to turn frightening, but never actually does. After a while, the spectacle is window dressing for a thin story that picks elements from Indian mythology– a yakshi here, a chaathan there – without saying anything novel until it reveals its flawed hand in the matter of caste. 

 

Initially, Sadasivan makes an insightful point when he shows Kodumon Potti luring Thevan with a pretence of egalitarianism before entrapping him. However, with this episode of truth telling, the film is being as deceptive as Kodumon Potti himself, because Sadasivan’s larger point turns out to be that dominant communities are no more power hungry than those they’ve historically oppressed, and the sole difference between them is that one lot hold the reins in a social system while the others are its victims for now. This is an uninformed blanket statement. On the one hand, it’s true we’re currently witnessing the outcome of a once-oppressed people transforming into oppressors – read: the genocide in Gaza being committed by Israel, the country formed in the 1940s as a homeland for white European Jews after the Holocaust. It is just as true though that this has not been the journey of all persecuted communities. Notice how countries formerly colonised by Europeans have not run around the world colonising other countries since they themselves got Independence. Notice that post-apartheid South Africa is vocally advocating for Palestinians. Notice the scores of white Jewish people, including Holocaust survivors, protesting against the genocide. Know too that Israel’s conduct is a result of numerous factors including but not confined to white racism that prompted post World War II Europe to consider the brown people of Palestine dispensable, and Europe and North America’s oil interests in the Middle East. 

 

Bramayugam’s script does not explore the theme of oppression with depth. Instead it chooses to whitewash oppressors. The writing also betrays a troubling upper-caste view of caste on two fronts. 

 

(Spoiler alert) The earliest clue that a certain character is not the Brahmin individual he claims to be comes from his food habits. It’s not that this person eats meat, but the savagery with which he eats it that is supposed to be a hint. Portraying meat-eaters as crude, equating meat-eating with animalism and associating unsophisticated meat consumption with Muslims and ‘the other’ has become a hallmark of the right-wing ecosystem and right-wing Hindi cinema in the Modi era (Padmaavat, Panipat, Tanhaji, Adipurush, Animal). Bramayugam employs the same symbolism in the context of caste in the Malayalam language. 

 

Bramayugam’s thesis seems to be that Europeans were able to colonise India due to power struggles among Indians. While disunity in the subcontinent did help Europeans, the problem with Bramayugam is that it implies an equivalence between Brahmins and Dalits in this regard, and trains its accusatory finger primarily – metaphorically – at the downtrodden. For a metaphor to work, it must work all the way, but in Bramayugam what we are shown, literally, is white intruders taking advantage of  a ‘half caste’ and a lower caste person being at loggerheads after escaping a demonic tyranny, while the first victim of the battle among Indians in the narrative was a Brahmin. More to the point, a Brahmin we don’t meet at all, as a result of which we don’t get to determine whether he was good, bad or evil, while we get to see the evil in the rest of the social order. 

 

It’s also strange that in the almost-all-male world that Sadasivan builds in Bramayugam, the only female presence is a beautiful, blood-sucking seductress.

 

Amalda Liz as the yakshi is just an eye-catching body and face on display. Manikandan R. Achari gets similar dismissive treatment in the opening scenes. This is the second film in three weeks to reduce this gifted actor to a prop. The other was Malaikottai Vaaliban. Women are objectified in cinema worldwide, Malayalam cinema is objectifying this man probably because most writers are unable or unwilling to envision a black-skinned actor as anything but exotica. 

 

Only three roles count in Bramayugam. Mammootty and Sidharth Bharathan deserve as much credit for the film’s menacing air as its visual landscape does. In the Indian arena, it takes courage for a star as big as Mammootty to take on a role that is meant to be as repugnant as this character is, but he does it with evident relish. Both actors also benefit immensely from the embrace of Shehnad Jalal’s camera. Arjun Ashokan’s performance is not quite as immersive as theirs here, but he does a fair job. 

 

Bramayugam is a great-looking film based on a script that quickly runs out of steam, until it revs itself up to take a terribly skewed stand on caste and colonialism.

 

Rating (out of 5 stars): 1.5   

 

Running time:

139 minutes

 

Poster courtesy: IMDB 

REVIEW 765: SHYLOCK

Release date: Kerala: January 23, 2020 Kerala: January 24, 2020 Director: Ajai Vasudev Cast: Language: Mammootty, Siddique, Kalabhavan Shajohn, Rajkiran, Meena, Baiju Santhosh, Hareesh Kanaran, Hareesh Peradi, Bibin George, Arthana, John Kaippallil Malayalam with Tamil

He is known simply as Boss or Shylock to the film industry. He has held producers in a vice-like grip since 2016. This nameless moneylender (hence the nickname, in a mindless nod to Shakespeare) is played by Mammootty, whose sole goal through the insufferable Shylock seems to be to emphasise his conviction that his stature remains intact and that he is a pan-generational star.

No really, I am not talking about subliminal messaging – he literally says so here.

Actually, scratch out that paragraph. Because “subliminal” is a word that should not even be whispered in the vicinity of this film directed by Ajai Vasudev who earlier made the Mammootty-starrers Rajadhiraja and Masterpiece. Every point here is stressed ad nauseam, the background score is loud enough to make a hole in the ozone layer and Mammootty’s character actually says in the closing minutes, “This is a game that will be a massive hit of the year,” in response to Villain No. 1 telling him that his game is up. This exchange is followed by the same bad guy (the Ernakulam Police Commissioner Felix John, played by Siddique) telling Shylock that the era of heroes like him is over, we have entered the age of villains and so he needs to look for secondary roles. To this, Shylock – who does not pretend to be anything but Mammukka’s alter ego – replies after bashing up a bunch of men: across generations, Boss is still the hero.

Okay okaaaay okaaaayyyy, got it: Mammootty rules.

This conversation in the middle of the bloody climactic fight follows about two hours of a singer screeching out a signature refrain for Mammootty every time he, in his avatar as Shylock, wallops a villain or spouts a grandiloquent line.

The music of Shylock is so painful and the narrative so clichéd, that if this were an Easter week release, Jesus might have raced back into his tomb begging never to be resurrected. And don’t get my imagination started on paavam William Shakespeare’s reaction to the appropriation of one of his most famous characters for this story’s protagonist.

About that ‘story’... So Shylock is a guy with a swagger, fancy-schmancy sunglasses, shoes that the camera loves, expensive cars and a misplaced sense of humour that he employs to lighten the mood in the bloodiest of scenes. The only few seconds of fun in Shylock come in its opening minutes, but are soon lost to repetitiveness. The first half of the film sets up a clash between the hero, along with his non-descript sidekicks played by Baiju Santhosh and Hareesh Kanaran, and the slimy film producer Prathapa Varma (Kalabhavan Shajohn) whose partner in crime is Felix John.

When one of Shylock’s flunkeys questions him about his uncharacteristic brutality towards Team Varma, our man launches into a loooong generic flashback brimming with generic sunshine and song, generic flowers, generic family, generic friendship, two generic pretty women and generic romance that all add up to two generic enmities, generic tears and ultimately, a generic quest for vendetta. Tamil actor Rajkiran plays Ayyanar, the generic motivation for Shylock seeking generic revenge against Varma, John and their generic murderous gang. In this portion, Shylock has little curls and is known as Vaal (meaning: tail), a nickname explained by some pseudo-philosophising about a serpent. Never mind what.

Ho hum.

To compensate perhaps for the absolute lack of novelty in the script, camerawork and all else here, multiple references are made to other films and their Tamil superstars, human beings are killed by the dozen and we are treated to numerous close-ups of various types of knives slashing various parts of various bodies. Since a certain kind of formulaic Malayalam film can only be explained by comparison, here are a whole bunch to help you fully understand this one: Shylock is as boring as the Mohanlal starrer Big Brother released last week, the violence in this blood-spattered film is of a lesser degree than Kalki, women are microscopic sidelights in the plot but it is not misogynistic in the manner of Kasaba and Ittymaani: Made In China, and though Mammootty struts about here too, his preening is not offensive as it was in The Great Father.

Here is the saddest comparison of all though: Shylock is a reminder that Mammootty’s soul-searching performances in brilliant films like Peranbu and Unda are an exception to his current norm that is exemplified by Shylock.

Rating (out of 5 stars): 0.25

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	131 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/shylock-movie-review-mammootty-uses-this-insufferable-film-to-announce-that-hes-still-the-boss-7952101.html

Posters courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/Mammootty/                 

REVIEW 755: MAMANGAM

Release date:	December 12, 2019
Director:	M. Padmakumar
Cast: Language:	Mammootty, Unni Mukundan, Achuthan, Prachi Tehlan, Kaniha, Maala Parvathi, Anu Sithara, Siddique, Tarun Arora, Iniya, Kaviyoor Ponnamma, Manikandan Achari, Sudev Nair Malayalam (Dubbed versions in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi have also been released. This is a review of the original Malayalam film.)

Art does not exist in a vacuum. The socio-political context in which it has been created lends it layers and meaning it may not have when viewed in isolation. So, as violence erupts in India’s North-east following the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Bill 2019 in Parliament, beef-related lynchings no longer provoke public outrage on the scale witnessed when Mohammed Akhlaq was murdered in Dadri in 2015, and large sections of the citizenry this month have been cheering what they consider an extra-judicial killing by the Telangana police, a pacifist film assumes great significance. It becomes especially crucial when that film casts one of India’s biggest stars as a character asking his people to give peace a chance.

This is why Mamangam: History of the Brave is impossible to ignore. Directed by M. Padmakumar, the film features Malayalam megastar Mammootty as a legendary warrior from Kerala who turns his back on violence when he becomes convinced of its pointlessness. 

Mammootty here plays Chandroth Valiya Panicker whose community is embroiled in a long-running blood feud with the ruling Saamoothiris a.k.a. Zamorins. In a bid to assassinate the incumbent monarch, these Kalari maestros have been targeting the extravagant Mamangan fair that takes place every 12 years on the banks of the Bharathappuzha river.

When the film opens, a voiceover explains the background to this enmity. The narrative then plunges into a bloody battle between Valiya Panicker’s band of fighters and the Zamorin’s forces at a Mamangam fair in the late 17th century. Cut to 24 years later when Chandroth Panicker (Unni Mukundan) informs his family that the Goddess appeared to him and instructed him to attend the upcoming Mamangam. His wife (Anu Sithara) and mother (Maala Parvathi) are just recovering from the shock when, much to their dismay, his adoloscent nephew Chanthunni (Achuthan) announces that he too has been similarly guided by the Devi.

As the two young men journey towards their fate, on a parallel track the Zamorin’s representative (played by Siddique) is shown investigating the mysterious disappearance of one of the king’s agents from the abode of the courtesan Unnimaaya (Prachi Tehlan).

The link between the two threads is Valiya Panicker.

This is a story with immense potential. As north Indian cinema increasingly celebrates violence and cashes in on the  hyper-nationalism dominating the public discourse, it reflects well on Malayalam cinema that it has not followed suit. Mamangam chooses to defy the bloodlust of the off-screen mob.

Thematic relevance, courage and sensitivity are not enough to hold up an entire film though when the writing is shallow and the storytelling style dull. These twin problem areas combined with action scenes and visual effects that are a mixed bag end up pulling down Mamangam.

It is all very well to show Valiya Panicker denouncing bloodshed, but the only way the messaging could have been effective is if we had been taken along on his inner travels. Sadly, the screenplay fails to satisfactorily explain how or why enlightenment struck him. One day he is driving swords into the Zamorin’s soldiers, and the next time we see him he is questioning the purpose of this seemingly never-ending hatred that has claimed numerous lives.

Even the conversations sound stiff. There is incessant talk about the wombs that have borne children only to give them up to this bloodletting. The women of the hero’s clan, in fact, speak of little but that. They though are better off than the courtesans who are given nothing much to do but gaze at the men with inexplicable expressions. In fact at one point in the narrative, as Valiya Panicker and Chanthunni chat while working together on a mural, Unnimaaya is present throughout their exchange but all she does is stare, then stare again, and then stare some more. I mean c’mon, Prachi Tehlan is pretty and has a curvaceous body showcased here in elegant minimal clothing, but considering that she serves little purpose in Mamangam beyond her visual appeal, the producers may as well have stuck her poster on one half of the screen during that scene instead of bothering to rope in a live human being for the role.

While on the subject of spectacle, the production design is one of the nicest technical aspects of this film. Both Unnimaaya’s residence and the Mamangam festival are bathed in a warm glow, drawing on a rich palette dominated by a tasteful blend of gold, cream and reds. The costumes share this colour scheme. Whether they are authentic to the period is for historians to say, but they are certainly easy on the eye.

The camerawork in Mamangam though is surprisingly lacklustre, and unable to capture the famed natural beauty of Kerala. This is odd since cinematography is one of contemporary Malayalam cinema’s great strengths.

The stunts, which should have been Mamangam’s USP, are unevenly executed. While wide swathes of the  action choreography are certainly impressive and had me on edge, the gravity-defying leaps taken by Valiya Panicker and Chanthunni lack fluidity, a fluidity that has been summoned up often enough in earlier depictions of Kalari on the Indian screen. When they fly, they look like images being manipulated on a computer rather than actual people.

The only characters in Mamangam that have some flesh are all men. It is unforgivable that gifted women like Anu Sithara have been cast in this film and wasted. Not that the men do much with the space they gave been given. Mammootty is the only actor who draws something out of his role, but given that the writing does not at all look within Valiya Panicker, there is only so much he can do. Still, it is important to note that in an avatar of his character where he is required to alter his body language and posture in favour of what is popularly considered effeminacy, he is measured and avoids caricature. Moreover, in an industry notorious for male stars who have not bothered to stay fit and maintain their physiques, he is the only one of his contemporaries who could possibly have suited this role.

Mamangam’s release has been preceded by a series of controversies more dramatic than the film itself. Director M. Padmakumar’s last film Joseph is still memorable for its ruminative air and Joju George’s career-defining performance. In Mamangam he is unable to fully exploit either his leading man’s brilliance or the large budget for which this film has made news.

Still, Mamangam is hardly the worst end Mammootty could have asked for in a year that has been elevated by his smashing performances in Peranbu (Tamil) and Unda (Malayalam). At least he does not romance a woman young enough to be his daughter in Mamangam as he does in too many of his films, and despite the pale writing he manages to leave his mark on the role. Most important though, at a time when many Indian male superstars are playing along with a murderous public frenzy over community and country pervading contemporary India, it means a lot to watch Mammootty head in the opposite direction.

 

Rating (out of 5 stars): 2

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	156 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/mamangam-movie-review-mammoottys-much-needed-call-to-peace-falls-victim-to-shallow-writing-7777641.html

Visuals courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/MamangamOfficial/