At about the halfway point of
Rorschach, Luke Antony (Mammootty),
who mostly converses in soliloquies, is
pointed towards Dileep’s wife Sujatha
(portrayed by Asif Ali and Grace Antony,
respectively). His predatory eyes slowly
take stock of her. As Luke walks towards
Sujatha with a calmness he is far from
feeling, you can visualise him feverishly
plotting in the various compartments of his
psychotic brain.
In this psychological revenge drama (dir.
Nissam Basheer), Luke is an NRI who comes to
a village in Kerala with a well thought out
revenge plan that he intends to execute with
systematic precision, picking his victims
with care. Over the course of the narrative,
you are witness to his unravelling — like an
onion, a layer at a time; but the layers are
confounding, as they swing between madness,
eeriness, kindness, ambiguity. For
Mammootty, with a filmography that numbers
over 400, Luke as a character offers enough
to sink his teeth into. At the same time, it
isn’t that much of a challenge for
an actor of Mammootty’s stature. So what
makes Luke intriguing are the nuances
Mammootty brings: the subtle expressions,
the impeccable voice control.
Luke doesn’t flinch from showing his ugly
side. There are various stretches where he
is talking to a hallucinatory presence in
the room, while parallelly trying to hold a
conversation with the real person sitting
next to him. Mammootty holds a masterclass
there, as his eyes dart back and forth
between reality and illusion, while softly
and contemptuously teasing the latter with
veiled verbal threats.
Unlike Luke, who is partially insane and
blinded by vengeance against his wife’s
killers, Kuttan in Ratheena’s Puzhu
is a product of extreme bigotry and
patriarchy. And it has manifested in all his
relations, including his toxic relationship
with his son and vicious hatred for his
sister who eloped with a man from a lower
caste. If Luke’s vengeance can be
rationalised, Kuttan’s blinkered outlook
leaves you cold. There are narrative holes
in Puzhu, but Mammootty’s smooth
internalisation of the psyche of this
unpleasant, abusive parent and bigot keeps
us riveted. Take for instance his face in a
scene where it flits between revulsion,
regret, and love for his sister just before
he smashes her skull.
If Kuttan and Luke are ostensibly grey
characters, Michael in Bheeshma
Parvam is the proverbial saviour,
the messiah who keeps his mansion open for
public grievances. When his older brother is
deemed weak and incapable of reclaiming his
family’s honour after their father and
eldest brother’s untimely death, Michael
takes over. He keeps the seething resentment
of his nephews and brothers in check, and
has his watchful eye on them all.
Michael follows the “eye for an eye” dictum
and ruthlessly annihilates anyone, including
his own kith and kin, who stands in his way.
That he does it all under the guise of a
vigilante, makes Michael a kind devil.
Through this character, director Amal Neerad
sets the stage for the merger of Mammootty
the actor, and Mammootty the star. So you
get those mass appeal set pieces where the
camera eagerly frames his formidable aura
and swag, and then you have those deft
emotive bits where the actor in Mammootty
flexes his craft.
From his non-2022 oeuvre, there’s Raghavan
in Munnariyippu (2014), jailed for
double homicide. For a large part of the
film, you can’t help but be drawn towards
this soft-spoken, sombre convict who drops
simple life philosophies underscored with
perceptiveness. Mammootty lets us buy into
his artlessness with such conviction that
his creepy volte-face towards the climax
comes as a sucker punch. Again the actor
completely dissolves into this unassuming
character, perfecting the body language of
someone who seemed to have made jail his
home for years.
The actor’s loudest antagonist dates to
2009, in Paleri Manikyam: Oru
Pathirakolapathakathinte Katha in
which one of his triple roles, Murikkum
Kunnath Ahmed Haji is an irredeemable
villain who treats those “below” him with
contempt , sees women as sexual objects, and
would go to any lengths to safeguard his
power and money. Mammootty plays Haji with a
deliberate passive-aggressiveness, using his
voice tonality with such precision that he
makes it easier for us to loathe him.
In sharp contrast, Vidheyan’s
Bhaskar Patelar is a feudal landlord, a
Satan who kills at will, preys on
unfortunate women, and has no ounce of
humanity left in him. A role that won him
his second National Award, Mammootty in this
Adoor Gopalakrishnan film essays the villain
with such finesse and gravitas that it
should be included in every film school as a
module for aspiring actors. Be it with his
remarkable diction, where he delivers the
Canara slang effortlessly, or his descent
into a loathsome person blinded by his own
senseless greed and desires — Mammootty is
stunning.
At the age of 71 and on his 420th-or-so
film, Mammootty continues to unveil fresh
facets of his craft. There is so much left
in his arsenal to delight viewers. What a
huge mountain that is to conquer, for the
actors who follow in Malayalam cinema.
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