Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam

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.

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.

Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam is made in a super abstract way with a truly unique atmosphere. A more audience friendly approach could would have worked better. I did not love it. Also, most of it is in Tamil. I might have to rewatch a subtitled version.

It was definitely an interesting and entertaining story. Mammoty was quite good. But I do not know why people are praising the performance to the skies. I did not care much for the treatment either. Static frames that people are raving about took away a lot of the tension from the scenes. Cacophonic songs and conversations from old Tamil movies constantly playing in the village as a part of everyday life was annoying. As expected, S Hareesh fails to turn up as dialog writer. The same was the case with Jallikattu and Churuli. Hareesh simply cannot come up with interesting dialog.

Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam is worth a watch. But wayyy overrated. I might watch it again. It is not a bad film. The problem is that Lijo fails to milk interesting characters, locales and situations to their full potential because he is too busy being arty farty. As I said early in the review, a more commercial approach could have done wonders to the film. Lijo says he has evolved in an interview. Well, he has evolved into a total phoney. Hahahahaha! I long for the Lijo of the Angamaly Diaries and Ee Maa Yau days.

On a return bus trip from a holy Christian shrine, a group of Malayalees doze off to discover midway that the cantankerous group leader has stopped the bus and walked off nonchalantly into a remote Tamil village to assume the life of a simple milkman. The Tamil family into whom he imposes his presence have barely recovered from the mysterious loss of their son and husband two years prior. The villagers are bewildered by this imposter who looks nothing like him but who acts to all intents and purposes like the deceased, a factor which is beguiling and unsettling. The daughter and brother of the deceased are incensed by the arrival of the interloper whilst the aged, blind mother affectionately accepts him without question.

As confusion reigns, it is left to the the father of the deceased to prevail upon the odd circumstances with kindness and empathy whilst marshalling the villagers into caring for the traumatised family of the imposter. The two wives caught up in this drama are linked by a shared trauma, the Malayalee wife dealing with the sudden inexplicable loss of her husband's personality and the deceased man's wife with a closure that has been cruelly disrupted.

Theni Eswar's thoughtful cinematography is a centrepiece of the artful direction of this movie - a homage to the acclaimed Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray with its carefully framed snippets of the chief protagonist's intrusion into the unhurried pace and bucolic lifestyle of a remote village in Tamil Nadu. The dreamlike theme developed by director Lijo Jose Pallissery might well be an allegory of life (waking to consciousness) and death (falling asleep) and how faithfully we hold the roles dictated by family, society and culture on life's ephemeral stage. A rare delight to soak in.

What more to tell about this man. Running out of superlatives to describe what he is upto in NNM. Just makes us go awww while he switched between James & Sundaram

Watch out for that bit where he behaves as Sundaram to Jame's relatives. Out of the world🙏 #NanpakalNerathuMayakkam

#NanpakalNerathuMayakkam What happens when James dozes off & wakes up as Sundaram & travels through his life for a day before he goes back to the world of James.

Something only Lijo can pull off & boy hasn't he done just that. Nothing complex this time. Absolute mastery by LJP🙏

Mammootty , LEGENDARY ACTING 🔥⭐⭐⭐ State Awards - It's not even a question or a discussion

National Awards - Only looking forward to that.