Official Trailer:
I was impressed by the uniqueness of the sound design that accompanied the visuals when I watched the trailer. I loved Lijo Jose Pelllissery’s earlier movies Angamaly Diaries and Ee.Ma.Yau. So, naturally I was looking forward to Jallikattu. This director has a special talent with directing crowds. If you have watched Angamaly Diaries and Ee.Ma.Yau, you know what I am talking about. Even with so many characters, and chaos that happens on the screen, there is no actor out of sync and it flows. Recollect the club scene from Angamaly where the action moves from the club to the streets or the single shot climax where the action moves in and out of houses and streets. In Jallikattu, he has taken it multiple notches higher. What he has done is remarkable and we get an entertaining and enthralling ride. Last time I had this feel was with Mad Max: Fury Road.
Story is set in a remote Kerala village where a buffalo escapes slaughter from two butchers and goes berserk, starts a fire, runs through plantations, and fields. This irks the community and men start chasing the buffalo. As the men fail to catch the buffalo, more men join the chase, a hunter is called, and group from nearby village also joins. As the chase progresses it descents in to bedlam. The difference between man and the animal disappears, and before we realize, men have turned in to beasts. Director is focused on this behavior of men than the destiny of the buffalo (no surprise there). Movie doesn’t spend time on individual characters, there are few shown with little detail, rivalry between two men for a girl, inspector slapping his wife, father trying to arrange beef for daughter’s marriage, a naturalist, etc. Rather director goes after mob mentality, how group and individual rivalries, hatred, and testosterone takes over. As the feeding frenzy escalates, language disappears and gives way to screams and growl. Driven by primitive instincts, we see the masculinity in full display with all its ugliness, noxiousness, and self-destruction.
What is so great about the movie is the imagery and visual spectacle director and his team has created. Like the busy butcher shop as the day breaks, bird’s eye view of the mob running through the forest with flash lights and torches dazzling through the dark, top view of group splitting in to 3 and moving in 3 directions. There are few images which will remain in my head forever. One where a man is lowered in to the well with men holding flash lights from the top. Second where the mob keeps piling on each other forming a human pyramid, not sure that is the right word to describe it, it is more of human flesh mountain. Third one where we see hunters after a buffalo kill towards the closing credits. Sound design felt odd to me in the beginning, but towards the end I had only sense of appreciation for the whole team, the sounds along with visuals put you in the midst of a primitive society.
It goes without saying buffalo is just a metaphor, a symbol to show how men have devolved over times. It is a commentary on our society and politics, with various ideologies and isms driving people to behave in self-destructive manner to gain domination. Similar to how ideology slowly creeps in and corrupts the minds, in the movie we get to see only glimpses of buffalo till interval, by the time we see it in full men have lost their heads. Are we so fragile that it doesn’t take much for us to degrade from civilized behavior to giving in to primitive impulses?