Lijo’s ‘Nanpakal’ review: Post-siesta drama a lofty cinematic experience | Movie Review
Like falling asleep, is Dying;
Like waking up from sleep, is Start – Thirukkural
‘Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam’, or siesta, is a even handed mixture of fantasy and actuality, cinema and drama. NNM is also positioned alongside the blurring traces, if any, that differentiate between hallucination and trance.
Lijo Jose Pellissery revels in immersing himself within the fantastic artwork of cinema. If he will get a excessive from it, so be it. Nobody is complaining.
Lijo’s storyline is etched in an earthly pilgrimage journey to the Holy Shrine of Velankanni by a bunch led by the protagonist James (Mammootty), his kith and kin.
Pellissery’s protagonist is the archetypal fussy character you so usually bump into in Kerala’s excessive ranges. He isn’t averse to displaying his likes and dislikes which we may tag as foolish. James’ aversions in all probability are extra dominant than likes because the group embarks on the return journey – It appears as if the pilgrimage itself is born out of compulsion.
The siesta modifications all of it. Lijo metamorphoses his result in a distinct terrain post-siesta in a random interaction of fantasy and actuality.
The characters accompanying him, together with his spouse and son, retain their identities and see in him a distinct persona – A villager with hanging similarities to Sundaram.
Now, Sundaram is a lacking character, however Lijo seamlessly weaves the fussy excessive ranger into an image postcard locale someplace within the Tamil hinterland.
And into Sundaram’s circle of kith and kin, who’re but to determine his mysterious disappearance. James begins to stay, or enact Sundaram’s life and breathe his mannerisms as all others within the drama stay surprised onlookers.
They wrestle to separate the myths. Pellissery’s mastery is his innate potential to traverse totally different tracks for the filmy craft he so dearly holds. The backdrops his reels traverse too range as a rule.
Lijo appears to have positioned Theni Eswar, who wields the digital camera, in numerous spots within the image postcard village that our protagonist strays into.
Eswar and his digital camera then get dug up there. However nowhere have we seen static photographs seize the poignant temper like NNM, as the brand new Sundaram avatar crisscrosses his long-forgotten alleys and fields, maybe hoping to bump into his long-lost affections.
Nobody appears to purchase his eccentricities although — Just like the milk he affords to promote to villagers. For they’re offered milk by a faceless man and never Sundaram, who can also be surprised to determine a temple is being constructed in what he thought was an deserted stretch of land until yesterday.
Sundaram is misplaced, and so are his former and current close to and pricey ones, because the viewers treads the trance. NNM’s frames curated by Eswar type the proper static background for capturing a charming drama.
Lijo isn’t inhibited to shun his digital camera’s slalom we noticed in ‘Jallikattu’ or ‘Churuli’. For NNM is in a distinct plain altogether – it doesn’t ooze the eerie rusticism of Churuli or the flamboyant symbolism of ‘Jallikattu’.
Just like the apt, static digital camera angles which hang-out us, NNM is considerably bland in motion however wealthy in nuances. The orchestrated chaos we see in ‘Jallikattu’ or ‘Churuli’ is amiss. However by means of the interaction of hallucination and trance Lijo’s scriptwriter S Harish infuses into Mammotty’s character, the grasp craftsman pulls the actor and the viewers to a lofty plain of cinematic excellence. We can’t however embrace this irrational reel exuberance.