Jallikattu (2019 film)

Jallikattu
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Lijo Jose Pellissery
Written by	S. Hareesh R. Jayakumar
Based on	Maoist by S. Hareesh
Produced by	O. Thomas Panicker
Starring	Antony Varghese Chemban Vinod Jose Sabumon Abdusamad
Cinematography	Girish Gangadharan
Edited by	Deepu Joseph
Music by	Prashant Pillai
Production company	Opus Penta
Distributed by	Friday Film House (India) XYZ Films (North America)
Release date	6 September 2019 (2019-09-06) (Toronto) 4 October 2019 (2019-10-04)
Language	Malayalam

Jallikattu is a 2019 Indian Malayalam-language independent action film directed by Lijo Jose Pellissery with a screenplay by S. Hareesh and R. Jayakumar, based on the short story Maoist by Hareesh.^[1] The film stars Antony Varghese, Chemban Vinod Jose, Sabumon Abdusamad and Santhy Balachandran. The plot follows a bull that escapes from a slaughterhouse in a hilly remote village and the entire village men gathering to hunt down the animal.^[2][3]

Jallikattu was premiered on 6 September 2019 at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival and received widespread critical acclaim.^[4][5] The film was showcased at the 24th Busan International Film Festival under the section 'A Window on Asian Cinema'.^[6] It was released in the home state Kerala on 4 October 2019.^[7][8] Lijo Jose Pellissery received the Best Director trophy at the 50th International Film Festival of India.^[9] It was selected as the Indian entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 93rd Academy Awards, but it was not nominated.^[10][11] It was third Malayalam film after Guru and Adaminte Makan Abu to be chosen as India's official entry to the Oscars.^[12] It was included in The Hindu's top 25 Malayalam films of the decade and is widely regarded as one of the defining movies of the New Wave Movement.^[13]

Plot[]

Kalan Varkey is the only butcher in a small, rural Kerala village. He and his assistant, Antony, meet before dawn each day to slaughter a buffalo and prepare its meat for sale in the market. However, one morning a buffalo slips its bindings before Varkey can kill it, escaping into the hilly jungle. Soon after, a large haystack is set ablaze, and the entire village wakes up to put out the fire. The men of the village, hearing of the buffalo's escape and believing that it was responsible, begin an urgent hunt for the animal.

As the day progresses, the villagers repeatedly try and fail to corner the buffalo and kill it. Crops at the rubber plantation are trampled, a drinks vendor's cart is smashed, and the village's bank and convenience store are both destroyed. The villagers begin to turn on Varkey, blaming him for the chaos. Meanwhile, the police turn up but refuse to help, as killing cattle is illegal - instead, they focus on merely warning people to stay inside until the buffalo is caught. The frustrated villagers instead call Kuttachan, a renowned local poacher with his own hunting rifle, for help. Antony is unhappy to see Kuttachan back in the village; in a flashback it is revealed that, before Antony married his wife Sophie, the two men had been rivals over her. Antony had won by informing the police that Kuttachan was stealing sandalwood from the local church, leading to his arrest. As Kuttachan prepares for the hunt by chopping up a metal bucket handle into pieces of buckshot, they start a mass argument among the villagers over which man deserves to land the killing blow on the buffalo.

Elsewhere in the village, the disruption - both from the buffalo's rampage and the hunt - spreads further, causing other personal issues to come to the surface. Law and order begins to break down, with some of the men setting off fireworks and committing random acts of vandalism. Kuriachan, a wealthy man who had been planning an elaborate feast of different buffalo dishes for his daughter's wedding party, ventures out to try and find some chicken instead; a group of workers seize him, stripping him to his underwear, and bring him to the hunt as a trophy. His daughter, meanwhile, tries to avoid the arranged marriage by running away - but a neighbour catches and punishes her. Several of the men, angry and frustrated, beat their wives or drink heavily, while some women find men openly leering at them through windows as they sleep.

After night falls, the buffalo is found at the bottom of a well; Antony immediately takes the credit, claiming that chasing the buffalo down into the well had been his plan all along. Kuttachan wants to shoot it there and then, but Antony demands that they bring it back to the surface first so he and Varkey can still butcher it properly and sell the meat. Varkey, by contrast, is indifferent, and he takes a nap under a nearby tree as the other men argue and plan. The men construct a scaffold, and lower Antony down so he can attach ropes around the buffalo's legs and neck. However, it begins raining heavily; the ropes slip off as soon as the buffalo reaches the top, and as it thrashes around one of the villagers is thrown down the well and killed. The buffalo escapes again into the jungle. Kuttachan and the other villagers blame Antony for the man's death. Meanwhile, another group of men, furious that a police officer is still refusing to help, set his car on fire.

By this point the villagers are desperate and frantic. In-fighting leads to them splintering into smaller groups, each with its own plan - and with each man desperate to be the one to finally kill the beast. As the men string up ropes, chains, and nets around the perimeter of the village, forcing the buffalo into a smaller and smaller area, the situation becomes increasingly chaotic and confused. Antony and Kuttachan stumble across each other in a clearing in the dark jungle, and begin fighting; Kuttachan is about to kill Antony, but the buffalo suddenly emerges from the undergrowth and disrupts the fight. Kuttachan catches the buffalo by its horns and asks Antony to hold its legs. But Antony uses this opportunity to stab Kuttachan multiple times and fatally wounds him. The buffalo escapes. Antony and the villagers chase the buffalo towards the river and across a bridge, where the animal becomes stuck in deep mud.

Antony stabs the buffalo, and screams that he was the one who deserves the credit for killing it. This kicks off a desperate pile-on, as dozens of men, holding lit torches and bearing crude weapons, jump on top of each other, stabbing both the animal and each other as they form a huge, writhing mass of human bodies. The final shot is of a group of prehistoric men, wearing loincloths and carrying spears, racing each other through the dark while hunting a buffalo.

Cast[]

• Antony Varghese as Antony
• Chemban Vinod Jose as Kalan Varkey
• Sabumon Abdusamad as Kuttachan
• Jaffar Idukki as Kuriachan
• Santhy Balachandran as Sophie
• Tinu Pappachan as Sub Inspector of Police
• Thomman Kunju as Planter Patrose
• Rajkumar as Bangladeshi Bhai
• Prasanth as Sunny
• Soniya as Omana

Production[]

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Music[]

The film score was produced by Prashant Pillai.

Release[]

Theatrical[]

The official trailer of the film was unveiled by Friday Film House on 28 September 2019.^[14] Jallikattu was premiered at Toronto International Film Festival 2019.^[15][16][17] It was theatrically released on 4 October 2019 in Kerala.^[7]

Home media[]

Jallikattu was released on streaming service Amazon Prime Video on 4 February 2020.^[18] A Telugu dubbed version with same title was released on Aha.^[19]

Reception[]

Critical response[]

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On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rating of 96% based on 24 reviews, with an average rating of 7.42/10.The website's critical consensus reads: "Jallikattu uses a violent conflict between man and animal to set the stage for a story that's as visually haunting as it is rich in subtext".^[20] Reviewing the movie for Onmanorama, Sajesh Mohan wrote: "After Ee. Ma. Yau, Lijo Jose Pellissery has again opted to saunter through the innate nature of humans in an off-kilter manner." According to the reviewer, 'the movie's technical brilliance is something that Mollywood can flaunt for a long time to come.'^[21]

Baradwaj Rangan of Film Companion South wrote "In other words, Jallikattu wants to transform local colour and local history into something universal and primal — and even if the bigger point becomes repetitive after a while, the film is always rewarding. The screenplay is essentially a series of vignettes, and some of them are screamingly funny".^[22]

Box office[]

The film grossed ₹7.3 crores in its first week run in Kerala and became commercial success.^[23]

Awards and nominations[]

See also[]

• List of submissions to the 93rd Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film
• List of Indian submissions for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film

References[]

External links[]

• Jallikattu at IMDb