Jallikatu (Lijo Jose Pellissery, 2019): India

Reviewed by Ian Overton. Viewed at AFI Film Festival 2019.

Entering the Midnight showing 5 cups of coffee deep and running off of 5 hours of sleep, Jallikatu was just the thing to wake me up. This fast paced, animalistic, testosterone fueled, hunt for a boar hypnotizes the viewer with its various long take tracking shots and parallel editing. Jallikatu, though sometimes ridiculous in it’s hyper-masculinity, excellently delves deep into the id aspect of man.

At the Chinese Theater for the AFI Festival in Hollywood, director Lijo Jose Pellissery (Ee.Ma.Yau) creates a tense and savage atmosphere. The primal acting showcased by actors Antony Varghese (Angamaly Diaries) and Sabumon Abdusamad (Sandesham) thrives in this atmosphere and helps to further the central themes.

The movie opens with a clock ticking, tik-tok tik-tok tik-tok, all the while jumping to the sudden awakening of characters we’ll meet later. Quick editing shows these men running about town, going to the meat market, and arguing with each other. The plot advances at night, when in an attempt to conjure meat for an upcoming wedding, a buffalo escapes and runs rampant throughout the town destroying and pillaging everything in its wake. Falling in line with perennial films and novels such Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola) and Lord of the Flies (William Golding), Jallikattu tackles the subject of man vs. beast and what separates them. The devolution of humanity in the characters can be summed up by this quote “they may move on two legs but they are beasts.” Harkening back to the early days of man, tools serve as a pivotal motif throughout the film. Torches and flashlights scurrying through the dark jungle, swords and spears cutting up meat, and ropes and lassos to tie and pull. This primal imagery along with a battle for macho supremacy in capturing the buffalo characterizes the “protagonists” as no better than the beast itself. 

Gireesh Gangadharan’s (Thanmathra) command of the camera is the main driving force of the film. With incredibly choreographed tracking shots and long takes, Gangadharan’s movements serve to match the intensity of the hunt for the buffalo. The constant movement of the camera and its shaky disposition never leaves the audience a moment to breathe let alone reflect upon the actions of the characters. The camera wants you to feel like an animal yourself. The presence of hundreds of actors on set all yelling, arguing, and running also furthers this theme. One of the various displays of masculinity in the film is the retying of their kilts which is always done in an aggressive and demanding fashion. All the characters are out to prove their manhood in conquering not just the beast, but each other. This quest for who has the “biggest balls” so to speak is present in every set of mannerisms from the way they walk to the way they carry themselves within the film. 

Reminiscent of the Cambodian tribe in Apocalypse Now, this film portrays man as tribal and primitive in its quest for ascension. How through the ancient characteristic of masculinity we can lose our humanity, the one thing separating us from beasts. Much like in Lord of the Flies as well, the hunt both literally and figuratively has the ability to diminute us to a lineage of people long lost. 

Jallikattu explores the depths and horrors of masculinity in comparison to early man and beast. While the caricatures of the macho man can at times be a little much and outright ridiculous, the film through editing, cinematography, and acting, proves to be an epic.