JALLIKATTU; EVOLUTION GOING BACKWARDS? (JALLIKATTU REVIEW AND ANALYSIS)

Image Courtesy : The Tribune India

If you love watching dark, symbolic and suspenseful movies, this Malayalam-language movie Jallikattu, directed by Lijo Jose Pelliserry is the perfect one for you. Keep in mind that you might have a hard time understanding the analogy. The movie will leave you to think how different events of the movies are related and what it is trying to tell. That is exactly what excites a cinephile, right? This is definitely not a movie where the message is directly fed to you at the end like a prasad from a Mandir. Also this is why you need to read this blog. 

You can watch the movie in Amazon Prime.

'Jallikattu' is basically a sport in South India celebrated during a festival where the bull is released to a crowd of people and they try to stop it from escaping by grabbing its horn. The movie revolves around a village in Kerala. In the movie, the buffalo escapes from the invasion of the village butcher, Kalan Varkey, (Kalan meaning Yamraj in Malayalam). In order to stop the buffalo, entire village men run after it symbolizing people running after death. 

Firstly, lets bring in the evolution. Men in the beginning of civilization went out for hunting. Why? To find food. Then, men started living in a family and protecting them became another motive. Slowly men developed other needs like wealth and power. One village member, Kuriachan prepares a grand feast with varieties of buffalo meat for his daughter's weeding (food and wealth). After finding out the buffalo has escaped, all the men of the village unite with to stop the buffalo from vandalizing village properties and harming their families (protection). Just like the civilization growing up and people realizing different needs, story progresses to show these needs turning men greedy and fighting to be the one to kill the buffalo (power).

The climax of Jallikattu depicts the two major things one being crowd mentality (bheda swabhav in Nepali) and the other being wild nature of humans. When Anthony captures the buffalo in the mud and kills it, the more he stabs the more powerful he feels. Following him some other men jump into the scene and do the same. Then all the men gather to make a pile and turn violent to kill the buffalo and everyone else around blindly, highlighting the fact that men have become as wild as animals.

In the beginning of the Jallikattu, you hear breathings of different people. Then you hear the buffalo breathing. At the end, even when the buffalo is killed you see it from the window of the old man. If you watch it carefully, you will find the breathing sound of the old man getting merged into that of the buffalo showing that there has no difference remained between humans and animals. The last scene of the movie shows men living in caves clearly depicting that the greed, herd mentality and battle for power has taken the evolution backward. Then slowly the screen turns dark taking life back to zero or nothingness.

After getting to know these facts and analyses, you would want to watch the movie or watch the movie again and the experience will definitely not be the same. 

Here is something that will keep you engaged with opinions and theories:

One of the beginning scene of the movie shows smallest creatures and the last scene shows cave men. How do you build a link?

You might also want to read: 11 BEST POPULAR MALAYALAM MOVIES TO WATCH (WITH IMDB RATING)