[May contain spoilers, many of them.]
In the opening sequence of “Jallikattu,” Lijo Jose Pellissery’s allegorical new movie, we hop between close-ups of people opening their eyes and drawing breaths. Set to the beats of an avant-garde score by Prashant Pillai, this spate of quick-cuts culminates in a shot of the sun rising, like life emerging from the dark, like people waking up from the dead. The symbolism, while scarcely subtle, is achieved with the flourish of a veteran. But Pellissery is somewhat of a veteran; “Jallikattu” is his seventh feature, a cinematic experience that is as hard to describe as it is to shake off, as tough to watch as it is difficult to leave. Based on S. Hareesh’s short story “Maoist,” it is a tale told more through sound than images, and one figures after two viewings that it is the only way to tell it.
In a small meat-loving village in Kerala, the local butcher Varkey (played by Chemban Vinod Jose) and his apprentice Antony (played by Anthony Varghese) are celebrities of sorts. People crowd around their little shop for the best cuts, and Varkey even parts with a few scraps for the dogs and a few bones for soup to satisfy his customers. People take the little black meat bags to the church, hanging them outside on the branches of a small tree before stepping into it. Meat, clearly, has this village in its clutch, and so when a buffalo gives its captors the slip seconds before they are to slaughter it and tears through the village, everyone sulks. A small group of men pines for its capture. The buffalo wrecks crops and crashes through shops, leaving local businesses in disarray. The men give chase, but to no avail; the animal is much too powerful, much too angry.
There are other factors at play, too. The men pride themselves on their masculinity: one woman is slapped for serving rice cakes for breakfast, another is molested, and many are haughtily told to go home by men because there is a buffalo on the loose. “Jallikattu” is about these men and their distending egos, and how man and animal are not so different when examined closely. (In fact, man comes off much, much worse.) The buffalo howls, the men scream. It grunts, they screech. At one point, when the buffalo has caused considerable chaos, the village enlists the help of Kuttachan (played by Sabumon Abdusamad), Varkey’s charismatic ex-apprentice who has served time. Kuttachan is Antony’s old foe, and now, with the stakes raised, neither of them wants to simply catch the beast; they want to do it publicly to relish the fact that they beat the other to it. The parallels between man and beast are alluded to several times, and at one point, it is laid out quite prominently. The buffalo gets trapped inside a dry well as men crowd around it, jeering and celebrating in a sickening display of brutishness, throwing their fire torches at the clueless, helpless animal. As she is lassoed using car tires and hauled out, Pellissery embosses the sequence with his signature touch, a motif he visits repeatedly in his work: divine intervention. It starts raining, the men disperse, and the buffalo, now given a new lease of life by the same men who jeered at her a little while ago, escapes. The sequence ends with a fleeting shot of the buffalo’s muddy paw print juxtaposed with a man’s. If it’s the throbbing energy of the filmmaking that leaves us winded, the panache with which it is accomplished answers why Pellissery’s work — more precisely, his recent output — ought to fetch a larger doting audience.
A furious whirl of sound and imagery, “Jallikattu” throws us off and pulls us back in cyclically, never letting us settle down or cling on. Pellissery uses lengthy tracking shots to disrupt the pace, then chucks in a series of quick cuts to brace the narrative. As the fugitive animal starts wearing the group out, more men join in, each laying claim to it. Old rivalries are rekindled and new rivalries formed, and soon enough the village descends into chaos. As the search party moves to the forest (a terrific long shot shows the men clenching fire torches between the foliage, like fireflies buzzing around), the men’s patience wears thin. They begin to turn on each other, as was inevitable, and this natural progression reeks of familiarity. We realise that it never was about capturing a stray buffalo: the risky challenge its capture posed would allow the men a chance to stroke their egos, showcase their virility. Then again, it can be viewed as a resonant political statement, which, I am told (for I have not yet read it), the short story aimed for: it discusses the itch for freedom and the corruption of morals in search for power. There are several ways to look at it, but they, more or less, arrive at the same cynical conclusion.
With its ambitious (and mercifully quiet) parting shot, “Jallikattu” leaves us a lot to chew on. We are no different from the cavemen, it indicates, still belligerently fighting over prey having not yet learned the language of peace. And the prey still is, and quite possibly will be, an innocent.
[Not For Reproduction]
In the opening sequence of “Jallikattu,” Lijo Jose Pellissery’s allegorical new movie, we hop between close-ups of people opening their eyes and drawing breaths. Set to the beats of an avant-garde score by Prashant Pillai, this spate of quick-cuts culminates in a shot of the sun rising, like life emerging from the dark, like people waking up from the dead. The symbolism, while scarcely subtle, is achieved with the flourish of a veteran. But Pellissery is somewhat of a veteran; “Jallikattu” is his seventh feature, a cinematic experience that is as hard to describe as it is to shake off, as tough to watch as it is difficult to leave. Based on S. Hareesh’s short story “Maoist,” it is a tale told more through sound than images, and one figures after two viewings that it is the only way to tell it.
In a small meat-loving village in Kerala, the local butcher Varkey (played by Chemban Vinod Jose) and his apprentice Antony (played by Anthony Varghese) are celebrities of sorts. People crowd around their little shop for the best cuts, and Varkey even parts with a few scraps for the dogs and a few bones for soup to satisfy his customers. People take the little black meat bags to the church, hanging them outside on the branches of a small tree before stepping into it. Meat, clearly, has this village in its clutch, and so when a buffalo gives its captors the slip seconds before they are to slaughter it and tears through the village, everyone sulks. A small group of men pines for its capture. The buffalo wrecks crops and crashes through shops, leaving local businesses in disarray. The men give chase, but to no avail; the animal is much too powerful, much too angry.
There are other factors at play, too. The men pride themselves on their masculinity: one woman is slapped for serving rice cakes for breakfast, another is molested, and many are haughtily told to go home by men because there is a buffalo on the loose. “Jallikattu” is about these men and their distending egos, and how man and animal are not so different when examined closely. (In fact, man comes off much, much worse.) The buffalo howls, the men scream. It grunts, they screech. At one point, when the buffalo has caused considerable chaos, the village enlists the help of Kuttachan (played by Sabumon Abdusamad), Varkey’s charismatic ex-apprentice who has served time. Kuttachan is Antony’s old foe, and now, with the stakes raised, neither of them wants to simply catch the beast; they want to do it publicly to relish the fact that they beat the other to it. The parallels between man and beast are alluded to several times, and at one point, it is laid out quite prominently. The buffalo gets trapped inside a dry well as men crowd around it, jeering and celebrating in a sickening display of brutishness, throwing their fire torches at the clueless, helpless animal. As she is lassoed using car tires and hauled out, Pellissery embosses the sequence with his signature touch, a motif he visits repeatedly in his work: divine intervention. It starts raining, the men disperse, and the buffalo, now given a new lease of life by the same men who jeered at her a little while ago, escapes. The sequence ends with a fleeting shot of the buffalo’s muddy paw print juxtaposed with a man’s. If it’s the throbbing energy of the filmmaking that leaves us winded, the panache with which it is accomplished answers why Pellissery’s work — more precisely, his recent output — ought to fetch a larger doting audience.
A furious whirl of sound and imagery, “Jallikattu” throws us off and pulls us back in cyclically, never letting us settle down or cling on. Pellissery uses lengthy tracking shots to disrupt the pace, then chucks in a series of quick cuts to brace the narrative. As the fugitive animal starts wearing the group out, more men join in, each laying claim to it. Old rivalries are rekindled and new rivalries formed, and soon enough the village descends into chaos. As the search party moves to the forest (a terrific long shot shows the men clenching fire torches between the foliage, like fireflies buzzing around), the men’s patience wears thin. They begin to turn on each other, as was inevitable, and this natural progression reeks of familiarity. We realise that it never was about capturing a stray buffalo: the risky challenge its capture posed would allow the men a chance to stroke their egos, showcase their virility. Then again, it can be viewed as a resonant political statement, which, I am told (for I have not yet read it), the short story aimed for: it discusses the itch for freedom and the corruption of morals in search for power. There are several ways to look at it, but they, more or less, arrive at the same cynical conclusion.
With its ambitious (and mercifully quiet) parting shot, “Jallikattu” leaves us a lot to chew on. We are no different from the cavemen, it indicates, still belligerently fighting over prey having not yet learned the language of peace. And the prey still is, and quite possibly will be, an innocent.
[Not For Reproduction]
