We cry, we laugh, we pause but most importantly, we also grieve. But it also evolves into a cathartic movie as this inner confrontation eventually leads to clarity.
It is particularly disturbing in the beginning when we’re forced to battle our own inner demons just like Sunny has to. This quarantine drama took us to a mental space a lot of us found ourselves trapped in at some point during the last years. The climax, with a movie theatre replacing the images we associate with a delivery room, was an absolute delight, making Jude Anthany a surprisingly nuanced feminist filmmaker. This pro-choice drama opened up conversations on a topic most mainstream movies actively avoid, choosing instead to address this with sincerity and maturity. The film could simply have been titled “Sara”, but it needed the apostrophe and the ‘s’ because it’s a film about her choices and her dreams, as much as it is about her. Add to this “Everything Is Cinema” and it’s further proof of how far ahead the industry is when it comes to dealing with Covid as the new reality. But it’s a film that marries form with content in a way that’s as original as it is evocative. This single-shot film dealt with heavy topics in what’s a loaded situation. Perhaps just a first step, but 2021 was the year a larger audience discovered the masterful works of Don Palathara. Guru Somasundaram delivered one of the year’s best performances and Tovino will always remain the first image that comes to mind as a Malayali superhero thanks to a film that has the powers to make every adult feel like a child again. But that was always the plan with Minnal Murali, a film that’s so well written that the superpowers are simply an embellishment for a deeply moving emotional drama. Whoever thought that we would be talking about a love story a week after the release of our first ever superhero movie. Indrans proved yet again how he’s got a direct line to our heartstrings with an ability to make us cry at will. Deep introspective conversations between strangers are commonplace in Madhuram but one can never complain because that’s where these characters are mentally. It’s also a mood piece that needed the sweetness because it is set in the waiting room of a government hospital. Joji’s score is also easily the year’s best.Īmong the year’s sweetest films also brought to us a solid love story between Sabu (Joju George) and Chitra (Shruti Ramachandran), where food is so much more than just flavour. It gave us the year’s most puzzling character in Lady Macbeth (Unnimaya Prasad) and the most clever use of a Covid facemask as a mask for a dangerous mind to hide behind. It replaced the kingdom with a rubber estate in Kottayam but the film is a study in Malayali minimalism, even when it deals with Shakespearean excesses. Jojiĭileesh Pothan and Shyam Pushkaran reinterpreted Macbeth for the millionth time to give us a film that felt like it was one in a million. The fact that the film’s still holding strong despite the entry or exit of several Goliaths, makes Jan E Man the David of 2021. Every viewer became the film’s champion and laughter returned to theatres after years of silence. This LJP-meets-Rafi Mecartin comedy became the kind of organic success story a film like Ramjirao Speaking must have been all those years ago. Jan E ManĪrguably the most important film of this year was also the year’s funniest. In a strange way, it’s the only “message movie” that can actually bring about a quick change in our lives. A credit to this film is how we’ve all become unanimously patient when it comes to dealing with parents’ doubts about a particular feature on WhatsApp or to help them set-up a GPay account. But the year’s most relatable movie gave us images that were right out of our lives and a father in Oliver Twist we’ve all not loved enough. If Sunny presented us with the conflict of facing isolation, Rojin’s new movie, #Home forced us to deal with the opposite kind of demon-family.
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