MORE NIGHTMARE THAN DREAM

Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam is a strange movie. Reminiscent of the style of films like Elippathayam (1982), it is deliberately slow to the point of ennui. There are cinematic devices strewn around in the narrative ostensibly to evoke a “how clever” from the audience, but they make for insipid storytelling.

James, the protagonist, is returning to Kerala from a pilgrimage to Velankanni in Tamil Nadu, traveling with his wife and son in a mini bus, accompanied by his group of theatre artists. On the way, everyone dozes off. When James wakes up, he suddenly asks the driver to stop the bus in a strange place, alights, and makes off through some fields into a strange village where he goes into a house and starts to behave as if he is a resident.

What follows is a continuously confusing sequence of events — for the rest of the characters (and the audience!) — where James is now inexplicably a man named Sundaram, who went missing from the village a couple of years ago. Sundaram acts, talks and behaves in stark contrast to James, to add to everyone’s confusion.

Halfway through the movie I was expecting to see a rehash of Sommersby (1993) which, by itself, happens to be a rehash of The Return of Martin Guerre (1982 again!) where a man mysteriously returns to his village after years of being presumed dead. Thankfully or not, this one wasn’t.

Without giving away anything further from the plot, the story fizzles out into a superficial exploration of the blurred lines between what is real and imagined, and is at best an experiment at creating surreal art. Some portions after the 1-hour mark I actually watched in fast-forward. Mammootty does his job without much flourish and with an unconvincing Tamil accent. My favourite character was played by Asokan, who was a breath of fresh air in an ensemble of mostly flat performances.

In summary, the movie takes an hour and 44 minutes to say what could’ve been told in 30 minutes or so. The rest of it is just cinematic indulgence; not of the best kind.

Not recommended except for academic purposes.

More information here: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15477504/