Moothon (The Elder One) serves its purpose in the Indian society and beyond like no other. 10 minutes into this movie you start worrying about this little kid, and two hours later you realize it hasn't let up one bit in intensity. This is a complete nightmare, a tough chore to put into words. It's one of the bets films of the year along with Peranbu, 2019 is really is shaping up to be the great for cine-goers. But on the other hand, Indian cinema produced some good titles coming from experimental filmmakers like Prantik Basu, Aditya Vikram Sengupta, Amit Dutta, Achal Mishra, Ronny Sen, Arun Karthick and many more with their own style and ethos. While Malayalam cinema has been flourishing with good experiments and filmmakers taking up many sensitive issues like LGBTQIA, feminism, radical or leftist themes etc. Ligy J. Pullappally's Sancharram to mediocre films like My Life Partner (2014), Jayan K. Cherian's mediocre Ka Bodyscapes (2016). With mainstream actors like Jayasurya doing Njan Marykutty (2018), Prithviraj Sukumaran in Mumbai Police (2013) and Manju Warrier's recent Aami (2018), a really bad film, should've never been made. I loved Don Palathara's Shavam (2015) and Lijo Jose Pellissery's Ee. Ma. Yau. For the record, Jis Joy's Bicycle Thieves (2013), Sanal Kumar Sasidharan's Sexy Durga is one the worst films i saw recently, it rivals with Vipin Vijay's Chitrasutram, a disaster with loads of pretentious in every frame. I really wish they take these cockroach films, and dispose it into the nearest cesspool. Regardless, the graph of Malayalam cinema has it's share of everything bad to mediocre and the good ones.
Here we have, Geethu Mohandas directing Nivin Pauly who falls for a speech-impaired gay. The film opens with a beautiful shot, establishing the mood and the setting, it did come across as a surprise after it suddenly changes its tone. We have a gender-nonconforming kid who leaves home in search of his elder brother with life, childhood & innocence at stake. From then on, the film travels to the slums of Bombay with the kid and we meet Akbar (Nivin Pauly) whose intro is treated with the template of a mass superstar but with a melancholic score. He is a meth addict and has no humanity left in him but it slumbers somewhere deep inside in the past. He even tell the kid to get into a fight and forces him to slaughter a lamb. Then the big reveal and what follows is loss of humanity, love, horror, siblinghood in its rawest without melodrama as the camera exposes horrors in claustrophobic slums of Bombay populated by demented low lives. We get a flashback of Akbar's past and his homosexual relationship in the second half. Director Geethu takes advantage of the location that resonates with the tone and sensitively handles this topic so intelligently. Even the climax, the most riveting sequence being the last few moments of Akbar (Nivin Pauly) who is broken and deliverance is nowhere in sight with a bittersweet last shot that will haunt you, terrify you but will make you smile. Excellent job, Geetu Mohandas, and every single actor and technician who contributed to this deserves all the accolades and awards. There's a real humanitarian cause behind this project, depicting scenes with a raw matter-of-factness. I can tell a lot more about 'Moothon', but why? Go see this and decide it.
Here we have, Geethu Mohandas directing Nivin Pauly who falls for a speech-impaired gay. The film opens with a beautiful shot, establishing the mood and the setting, it did come across as a surprise after it suddenly changes its tone. We have a gender-nonconforming kid who leaves home in search of his elder brother with life, childhood & innocence at stake. From then on, the film travels to the slums of Bombay with the kid and we meet Akbar (Nivin Pauly) whose intro is treated with the template of a mass superstar but with a melancholic score. He is a meth addict and has no humanity left in him but it slumbers somewhere deep inside in the past. He even tell the kid to get into a fight and forces him to slaughter a lamb. Then the big reveal and what follows is loss of humanity, love, horror, siblinghood in its rawest without melodrama as the camera exposes horrors in claustrophobic slums of Bombay populated by demented low lives. We get a flashback of Akbar's past and his homosexual relationship in the second half. Director Geethu takes advantage of the location that resonates with the tone and sensitively handles this topic so intelligently. Even the climax, the most riveting sequence being the last few moments of Akbar (Nivin Pauly) who is broken and deliverance is nowhere in sight with a bittersweet last shot that will haunt you, terrify you but will make you smile. Excellent job, Geetu Mohandas, and every single actor and technician who contributed to this deserves all the accolades and awards. There's a real humanitarian cause behind this project, depicting scenes with a raw matter-of-factness. I can tell a lot more about 'Moothon', but why? Go see this and decide it.