Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam

Long awaited combo LJP and Mamooty was definitely worth the wait.

The unexpected twist not only confused the character in the story but also the viewers.

Totally different style of making followed by LJP adds on to uniquifing the film.

The story blended in well the cultural values of societies which made me like the film more.

Even though every character had got a defined role, the character done by Mamooty excels in all the aspects of protrayal.

Short and well written script along with nicely blended in music and sound design.

As in all LJP's movies certain questions are unanswered and completely left to the viewers for further interpretation.

Unbelievable is the first word comes to my mind for what is achieved through this masterpiece. I am a non Malayali or Tamil speaking person and watched it in hindi. I loved the way the director unfolds this perfect movie.

This has an Oscar deserving Direction and sound design at the display. Something that you might have never experienced even if you are a Hitchcock or Kurosawa fan.

The metaphor of sleep as rebirth is apt. The acting is nearly perfect and the chaos is masterful. Its a drama par excellence reaching to the level of meditative experience.

Story: 9/10 The layered story with perfect execution. One star deducted for relying on the background sounds for understanding the context.

Screenplay: 10/10 It's as perfect as it is humanly possible.

Direction: 10/10 This is the first movie I watched from this masterful director and I am going to watch all of his work.

Sound: 10/10 So much to take in, the use of TV sounds and movie's context for an North indian is a great initiation to malyali and tamil cinema.

Art Direction:10/10 It's perfect, perfect and perfect.

Acting: 10/10.

Mammotty achieved something unimaginable for all other great actor of our time. At the age of 70 years this is art at its best. He deserves all accolades.

Do yourself a favor and watch this masterpiece and you will forget that bollywood garbage forever.

A poetic exploration of human identity and belonging, which also serves as a critique to the unfortunate tendency of society and its naive, ignorant members to undervalue these aspects, prioritizing physical appearances over somebody's personality and intellect.

The cinematography captivated me, as it conveyed unuttered, insinuated context beautifully through skillfully arranged frames, enriching each pivotal scene with depth and meaning.

Performances were another standout aspect, particularly that of Mammootty, who once again showed his remarkable ability to embody any character with apparent ease and effortlessness!

That being said, I wish the writing had elaborated on the peculiar occurrence and provided additional context, as this would have enlightened the narrative.

Nonetheless, I do appreciate the story's ambiguity, which raises some intriguing questions about whether the event was merely a vivid dream, a distant memory, or something beyond comprehension that transcends boundaries of our tangible reality?

Each and every movies of LJP stands different from one and another here the film moves at a slow pace but still kept me hooked till the end and all the frames of the movie were a wide and static similarly the sound design was really so good and it was a different expirience. The movie interprets into a way in which the audience can decide what happened to James or whatever happened really did happen !. The movie starts from a conflict while sleeping and finds a solution after a sleep. I really enjoyed the movie it's pace, sound design, performances, frames and i think everyone should watch it.

Director Lijo Jose Pellissery is always searching for a variety of plots and themes for his next ventures. All of his films differ from each other in that path. His latest one, Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam was screened in the 2022 IFFK and receives wonderful acclamations. Now the film is out in theatres and is wrapped with positive responses. Veteran actor Mammootty's production banner's first production venture was Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam. But the film that came out for the first time through Mammootty Kampany in theaters was Rorschach. Likewise, the title of the film talks about the nap. The nap of a theatre artist named James and the routine of a local Tamilian named Sundaram was the element in the film. The structure of the script lies in the category of Magical realism. We had seen that kind of writing pattern in his previous film, Churuli. We can tie this film into the perspective of a character dimension contrast. While James taking a nap and awake as Sundaram and Sundaram taking a nap and awake back to James was the exact idea behind the film. The period between those two naps was the subject of the film. When we examine the film in detail we find that kind of confusing and somehow ambiguous underlying plot which is like a dream or a thing that is going to happen. There lies the open-end description of the film. The frames are like wallpaper because the shots are static which smoothly allows James to incarnate Sundaram. The ambient sounds like old film dialogues, devotional songs from the temple, radio songs, etc played a wonderful job to enhance the movie. All actors justified their characters the most. Lijo spends a lot of effort to find new faces for his characters and here also we can find strange faces. But it's quite unbelievable that a familiar face doing strange things throughout the film and that was Mammootty, who portrays both James and Sundaram. Yet another Lijo magic that feels like a nap done by James and others which fell us into a deep sleep encircled with a beautiful dream. And that dream is Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam.