An ode to Bromance
Long time back, when I was in school, I wanted to gift my best friend (male), the lyrics of “Mellinamae Mellinamae” from ‘Shahjahan’. Those were the days where we didn’t have internet to find the lyrics, it’s all heard through radio. ‘Shahjahan’ especially had songs with great lyrics. “Mellinamae Mellinamae” and “Minnalai Pidithu” were the ones at the top of the list. As we used to discuss the lyrics of both in school during all the periods, I thought of gifting the lyrics of my favorite among the two, “Mellinamae Mellinamae” to my best friend. I then dropped the idea thinking it’d be too gay. But see now, director Chidambaram took an evergreen romance song for a survival thriller with all boys.
‘Manjummel Boys’ is once in a lifetime kind of film. Glad that I could watch it in theatres on the verge of its OTT release. Thank god it survived the duration and ran in theatres till the time I could complete all my assignments. It would have been a serious miss if I had not watched the movie in theatres. If this film could be so much impactful in spite of knowing the storyline and nuances, I can’t help but wonder how it would have been for people who had watched without knowing anything about the film and in a jam packed theatre.
The second and third act of the film was top notch, there is nothing more to say about it but look at the ingenuity of the film in the first act. When they party, play or go through winding roads with a melodious song in the background, how fitting it is. How could Malayalam cinema achieve this so easily. ‘Chennai 600028’ is the only film which I could think to have come close to such a bonding. But ‘Manjummel Boys’ was clinical. It would have induced nostalgia for anyone.
The movie starts with “Kuthanthram” song, which has interesting lyrics. It gave me “Pardesi” vibes from ‘Dev D’. “Karthanthram” could have easily qualified in any of these drug based films but comes in a film which is totally opposite. Generally when writing a disaster film, the writers would write as if all the events are culminating to that one big event. Even if the scenes or situations are different, we still have that main event running at the back of our mind, especially when you watch the film second or third time. But here it’s just another chapter in the life. Just like how the characters wouldn’t be having any clue on what’s going to happen next, we too don’t get that feel. With films like these, the rewatch value is less because it’s just the escape event we’d be focused upon but here, the first act gives a genuine joy. The escape event is just an icing on the cake.
There have been lots of articles about how Subhash (Sreenath Bhasi) who doesn’t believe in god, eventually gets the status of god in the end, how the light from above which the taxi driver friend, Prasad (Khalid Rahman) calls out as god, eventually happens to Subhash also in the form of headlight which Kuttan (Soubin Shahir) wears. The leg injury was being compared to Pamban Swamigal, the characters going through Palani can’t be mere coincidence. The one thing which I noted in addition to these are the horns which Abhilash (Chandu Salimkumar) has when he sits outside being possessed. But even without all these themes and motifs, the film works like a charm.
Thankfully being ignorant helped me experience the movie in best possible way. As soon as the boys held the rope in the pre climax, many guessed the tug of war event in the beginning was done as foreshadowing for the main event but I couldn’t till the point Abhilash goes to the top of the rock to say, “loosu vidra”. After that it was only ecstasy, I could barely sit in my seat. Even while I type the words now, I could barely sit in my seat. Films like these with feels like these come very rarely. I’m happy that I got a chance to experience this ecstasy.
There was a mention in one of the articles asking, where are women in Malayalam cinema. I don’t know about other films but with respect to Manjummel Boys, “sometimes, dear, boys would have all the fun, there is no other choice.”
constantscribbles 