The sheer horror of Malayalam movies

Using elements of the plot, writer-director Jay K cleverly opts for the biggest-ever release outside Kerala with Ezra: Malayalam horror mov (i) es to Ukraine

First there was Yakshi, the femme fatale of Indian folklore. In a blue-tone moonlit scene, at the stroke of midnight, a beautiful long-haired woman in white lurks under an Ezhilampala devil tree, her long sari pallu flying in the air. Silhouetted palmyra palm trees sway and whistle in the breeze. A haunting background score adds an air of eeriness. Expectations of the woman transmorphing into a blood-sucking fiend freeze you with horror. Cut.

That was in the pre-70s. The genre of horror in Indian cinema was at a nascent stage while Hollywood frightened us with a slew of movies like Tobe Hooper’s unforgettable Poltergeist. In the 1980s, technological advances, especially in the field of visual effects, breathed a new energy into the genre. Consequently, world cinema thrived on supernatural plots, with Hollywood alone churning out more than 400 horror films in that decade that I would call the Spring of Horror.

In India, though Hindi and Tamil moviemakers successfully toyed with various sub-genres of horror, the Malayalam movie industry mostly shied away after a few popular films like Bhargawai Nilayam (1964), Yakshi (1968) and Lisa (1978). But director Fazil’s bold experiment in 1993 to fuse parapsychology and tantric treatment in a single plot resulted in Manichitrathazhu, which turned out to be one of the alltime best of Indian cinema.

Debutant writer-director Jay K’s Ezra, which marked the biggest ever release for a Malayalam movie outside Kerala, is a fresh attempt at recapturing the malevolent magic of horror with technical and artistic excellence. Despite minor flaws in the script, which leaves some commonsensical questions unanswered, the supernatural thriller starring Prithviraj Sukumaran and Priya Anand is more than a superficial experience. In essence, the movie that spans across several decades since the 1940s is an amalgam of Jewish mythology, cultural diversity, forbidden inter-religious love, modern day liberalism and nuclear fears.

The makers of Ezra have scripted history by releasing the first Malayalam movie ever in Ukraine, where thousands of Indian students are enrolled for higher studies. Hoping that the depiction of a supernatural story in an authentic Jewish milieu, which is the movie’s USP, would also draw a wider international audience, the movie has opened at Kino Multiplex in Kharkiv, the second largest Ukrainian city.

In the movie, a young couple relocates from Mumbai, after husband Ranjan Mathew (Prithviraj Sukumaran), an executive of a company that processes nuclear waste, gets transferred to Kochi. They rent an imposing vintage villa that his wife Priya (Priya Anand) decks out with antiques after a shopping spree.

Events are set in motion when the last living Jew in Kerala passes away and Priya picks up a box from his antique collection brought over by a shop. The box, known as ‘dybbuk’ in Jewish mythology, is known to contain the spirit of Abraham Ezra, a 1941-born Jew who loved a Christian girl against the wishes of their families and communities. “Wine and water don’t mix. We Jews are the ones who would rule over the world one day,” his father warns as he rejects the alliance. Ezra’s pregnant lover commits suicide.

Priya unwittingly opens the box and lets out the spirit which then wreaks havoc in the couple’s life. According to the legend, the dybbuk seeks to take revenge by destroying the world. The story progresses with a Jewish clergyman’s attempts to get rid of the spirit. In a gripping final scene Ezra’s spirit returns to the box which is quickly closed and discarded in the waters where Ezra’s mortal remains lie.

The movie, however, ends up somewhere in the continuum between pessimism and optimism. Just as we think the movie has ended on a positive note, the ‘dybbuk’ box is again picked up by some vagrants on a far shore.

With a sparing use of clichés such as heavy footsteps in the attic, a spook in the mirror and cracking glasses — with supporting sound and fury — the film offers a fair scare-fest in the first half. At the same time, it’s unfair to call the movie “an old genie in a new bottle” as the latter half focuses on a captivating love story of yesteryears and the unravelling of a murder mystery.

It’s no secret that a number of Malayalam blockbusters had been conveniently ‘inspired’ by Hollywood productions. Ezra seems to be no exception. The 2012 horror film, The Possession, directed by Ole Bornedal, also revolves around a dybbuk. As was the case of such adopted plots, Jay’s success lies in localising the story brilliantly. Malayalis are good at it. The proof lies in a satirical one-liner from the movie itself: “Malayalis are more radioactive than Uranium.”

Ezra is a movie where photography stands a notch taller than the craft of direction. Probably the most significant aspect of the movie is its monsoonal gray and sepia tone instead of Kerala’s trademark vibrant hues. Cinematographer Sujith Vaassudev’s use of muted shades throughout the movie, whether indoors or outdoors, have added an extra layer of eeriness to the narrative.

Prithviraj’s stellar performance, especially in the climax, reinforces one’s impression that he is a class apart. Everything he says and touches these days turns to gold. Industry sources are confident the movie will end up as the biggest ever hit in Prithviraj’s career. Amid the recent social media furore over the kidnapping and molestation of an actress in a moving car, Prithviraj’s tribute to the “marvel called woman” and a pledge to never mouth sexist comments in his films have raised his popularity to the skies.

“As a man who has to share the responsibility of a society that bears this shame, I hang my head!” he wrote on FB after the incident. After making the 2002 movie

Nandanam which launched Prithviraj, director Ranjith wanted a break, so he joined us for a few days of non-stop bingeing and cooking. At one point, discussions turned to Prithviraj’s media interviews about his debut. “I’ve told him to be a man of few words for the time being,” Ranjith said. That was before social media existed. In the end, Prithviraj seems to have worked wonders by doing the opposite.