‘Bramayugam’ movie review: Mammootty’s performance elevates this middling film on the evils of unrestricted power

Half an hour into Bramayugam, the thought of a black gap crops up in a single’s thoughts. The eerie, outdated ‘mana’ that Kodumon Potty presides over, appears to be welcoming of everybody who passes via that area, however nobody who has ever gone in has emerged out… very similar to in a black gap. Even Potty says he has not seen the surface world in fairly a very long time; it’s uncertain whether or not he ever has, contemplating the story that reveals his true id.

Time nearly involves a standstill right here, very similar to close to a black gap, with the occupants shedding all sense of the times or years that they’ve spent inside. Even within the sport of cube that the Potty (Mammootty) challenges the most recent entrant (Arjun Ashokan) to, it’s time that he’s compelled to gamble with. Dropping the sport would imply the individual would spend his whole lifetime within the ‘mana’. It’s into this timeless world that Rahul Sadasivan transports us to, nearly making us consider that we’re additionally on the mercy of the vile Potty, who doesn’t tolerate those that look him within the eye.

The ingenious remedy of horror in Rahul Sadasivan’s earlier movie Bhoothakalam seems to have fuelled sure expectations from Bramayugam. However this movie is designed as a fantasy, thriller story with a couple of mildly scary moments thrown in. The looks of a ‘chaathan’ and an ‘yakshi’ on the display actually doesn’t do a lot, for what’s unseen is extra scary, as we realized in Bhoothakalam. Amidst all that, probably the most chilling aspect in the entire movie occurs to be the evil laughter and the deep-throated voice of Potty, portrayed fairly convincingly by Mammootty. He treats the function fairly not like any that he has performed until date, though one will get a faint sense of the ghost of Bhaskara Pattelar from Vidheyan (1994) at some factors.

The aesthetic option to have your entire movie in black-and-white helps Bramayugam in no small measure. The drowning out of distracting colors and erasure of all of the pointless parts not solely helps in transporting us to the fairly primitive seventeenth century during which the movie is ready in, however provides to the eerie temper that pervades the run-down family. This sense of minimalism is mirrored within the writing too, with a lot of the narrative revolving across the three principal characters and the 2 further characters getting solely a few scenes.

There are fairly a couple of factors the place the writing suffers, however Shehnad Jalal’s frames, Christo Xavier’s music and the artwork division helps the movie paper over a lot of its weaknesses to an extent. As for the fundamental story, there may be nothing actually new right here from the people tales that we’re all already accustomed to. It’s the environment that the makers create, and the remedy of the story which saves the day, however they nonetheless fail to ship something that stuns the viewers, apart from a disorienting, claustrophobia-inducing sequence in the long run.

Bramayugam elevates itself when it slowly transforms right into a meditation on the character of unquestioned energy, and the way in which it brings out the worst in individuals, generally even the well-intentioned ones. It’s at that time that this story from one other period speaks to the current.

Bramayugam is at the moment operating in theatres