Vishal Menon

It’s very much a part of the design to start watching Pennum Porattum (The Girl And The Circus) from Suttu’s POV. Voiced by Tovino Thomas, Suttu is a white mongrel with black spots all over and the refugee the film talks about in its opening statement refers to those like Suttu. In his introductory voiceover, he’s letting us in on his daily routine and the number of times he’s been shifted in and out of his master’s house. He isn’t particularly happy there, nor is he comfortable in his tiny cage. And as we see stones being pelted at Suttu from outside, in a fit of rage, he shouts back and calls them “Manushyante makkale!”, which is something along the lines of “You sons of humans!”

‘History repeats itself’ is the phrase that kept coming to mind while watching Jayaram’s delightfully old-school Ashakal Aayiram, co-starring his son Kalidas. Yet, when you think of a film reuniting this real-life father-son duo, you might first be tempted to recall Kochu Kochu Santhoshangal, the charming Sathyan Anthikad comedy that brought them together the first time. But if you observe closely, the soul of Ashakal Aayiram is closer in spirit to another Anthikad classic, the 1999 family drama Veendum Chila Veettukaryangal.

There might be a hundred things you may not like about Raju Murugan’s cinema, but not having a voice that is distinctly his own, cannot be one of them. This voice isn’t just limited to the overarching themes he wants to discuss, his films’ politics or plot, or the manner in which even familiar actors behave differently when they’re in his movies. Even when you get in and out of his movie, there could be dozens of frames only this man could have thought of.

For all the credit Jeethu Joseph gets for being the Malayalam master of suspense, one doesn’t realise how often he’s made films that talk about something as soft and subtle as parenting. Of course he’s no Sathyan Anthikad to be making mild-mannered family dramas, but the parenting theme has always popped its head all over his cinema, even if the genre isn’t quite the expected safe zone for said discussion. We saw this topic getting addressed in a predictable, if entertaining manner in his second film Mummy And Me. Aspects of parenting became one among the many themes of both Life Of Josutty and Thambi. It’s also no debate how both Drishyam and its sequel were as good as two families (and two sets of parents) fighting it out in their ways to achieve justice for their children.

As an audience, perhaps we underestimate the power of nostalgia done right. In what was being marketed as India’s first WWE-style wrestling movie, the makers of Chatha Pacha could easily have begun their movie as a story about a group of twenty-somethings, who start their local wrestling league just as a business idea. But the writers of the film, which includes director Advaith Nayar, decide to begin the film with a flashback of three little boys, taking on each other in their life’s first wrestling ring… their parents’ double cot.

Among the many clever ideas that make Nalan Kumarasamy’s Vaa Vaathiyar a peculiar beast is how the first half both begins and ends with death. The film opens on December 24, 1987, the very day MGR passed away. We see crosscuts of a pregnant mother being taken to the hospital, when a group of the idol’s die-hard fans force the local theatre to play the print of an old MGR classic. They’re worried about their idol’s health who is being treated in the US and try to pacify themselves by re-watching the same film, arguably for the 100th time. The moment news of MGR’s death arrives, we see the first cries of a baby boy taking over the screen. He even has a mole under his right foot, just like MGR did. It’s a mass movie miracle, reminding one of how KGF opens with the discovery of gold, just as Rocky is born. Nalan doesn’t just want to make a tried-and-tested star vehicle…. he also wants to remix the formula upon which the biggest-ever star was created.

As far-fetched as it may seem, one can make the case for Sirai to be added to a list of suggested reading material along with Rajinikanth’s Vettaiyan. They are both films about impossibly upright protagonists who invariably prefer to take law into their own hands, as long as it fits into their notions of having a moral conscience. They are both films that begin by making us sympathise with these heroes, who are as good as the heroes of a hundred other cop movies, only to then realise that even they could go terribly wrong. Their transformation from a trigger-happy hero to an empathetic human is the arc both films take. But if Vettaiyan was burdened by the weight of its mega star voltage, Sirai is more than happy to make the movie about other characters too, resulting in an unadulterated debate about encounter killings and the biases that make this act more complex.

Rain isn’t just a character in Mindiyum Paranjum as much as it is this film’s entire ensemble cast. It has moods and meanings, faults, and feelings, all of which keep drifting in based on how Leena (Aparna Balamurali) or Sanal (Unni Mukundan) perceive it. For Sanal, rain is a happy sight for tired eyes. He lives in Dubai where it rains once a year. In the song that plays in the background, Sanal associates the rain with the imagery of being able to see Leena again, his wife who lives in Kerala. During their conversations, Sanal asks Leena if it’s raining and if it’s cold; more than worry, these questions come with a bit of mischief, that of a husband who has forgotten what it felt like to touch his wife.