(This piece contains spoilers.)
Who hasn't knitted their brows at a clangorous group of man-children creating ruckus at tourist spots in India? They would be climbing onto things clearly marked not to, they would be painting their initials on rocks and carving it on tree trunks.
In Chidambaram's Manjummel Boys, such a group – mostly comprising young men who do odd jobs to make ends meet – saves up and goes on a trip to Kodaikanal in Tamil Nadu. It is clear from their actions that they have already thrown caution to the wind.
The 11-member group climb and hang from a seemingly hollowed-out tree at the edge of a ravine that is infamously named 'suicide point'. They are seen jumping up and down on rusty grills that are laid to prevent people from falling into the unfathomable pits in between the rocks that form the cave.
One would think this is a cinematic setting that forebodes an eventual disaster that awaits the group, but strangely, this is a mere recreation of what happened to a group of "boys" from Manjummel – a little town near Kerala's Kochi – in 2006, before one of them, Subhash, fell into a deep pit inside the Guna Caves in Kodaikanal.
What unfolded then was a rescue operation wherein Siju David aka Kuttan (played by Soubin Shahir, who is also one of the producers of Manjummel Boys) descends into the cave with the aid of the fire force and brings Subhash (played by Sreenath Bhasi) back.
Siju David was awarded the Jeevan Raksha Padak for bravery in 2008.
In Chidambaram's retelling of the incident, he stays as true as possible to the lived experiences of this gang of men, and by extension, their families too.
An Ode to Friendship
A criticism that can be thrown at the initial portion of the film is that the characters of these men are not established individually but is done rather collectively. The audience fail to form any sort of emotional connect with any of them – the 11 men who make merry at uninvited weddings, pick petty fights over tug-of-war matches, and boisterously jump about across the screen was bordering on annoyance rather than endearment.
The characters would have registered more if they were fewer in number for sure, but on asking director Chidambaram if this is a thought that had crossed his mind, he tells this author:
"Each of them is a hero and has contributed in their own ways to rescue Subhash. They have journeyed with me from the inception of this movie till this moment. What I wanted to show on screen was how they as a group braved the situation. It would definitely have been easier for me to shoot with fewer people, but this is a very difficult life experience each one of them has gone through. So, when I watch the movie with them, no one should feel excluded or left out."
The tone of the film changes when Subhash falls into a seemingly bottomless pit, inside the Guna Caves – the caverns formerly known as the 'Devil's Kitchen', which gets its present name from Kamal Haasan's famous movie Guna set in these caves.
The nonchalance of the protagonists now gives way to fear, grief, and helplessness which has been conveyed to the audience very effectively through Shijin Hutton's sound design and Sushin Shaym's music. The mastery of Shyam lies truly in the restraint with which he has done his job – notably when Subhash falls into the pit.
The gang scatters from here – some running to seek help, some in shock, and some in grief till they realise that Subhash is alive, somewhere deep inside the ravine, hooked by sheer luck. Then, overcoming quite a lot of hurdles, ensues the rescue operation.
The movie has chalked out that these hurdles were all external factors, and even before finding out that Subhash was alive, none of the "boys" had any hesitation internally, to get him back somehow.
They stood their ground in the face of power and the threat that they would not return without their friend.
This is where Manjummel Boys elevates itself from being a survival drama to being an ode to friendship. And to think that this is how the reality panned out in the lives of these men about 15 years ago is indeed chilling and heartening at the same time.
When Technique Triumphs
The landscape of Malayalam cinema is not familiar with well-made survival thrillers, save for Bharatan's Malootty in 1990. But in Manjummel Boys, Shyju Khalid's camera takes us through a myriad of emotions as Kuttan takes on the mission to go into the womb of death to bring his friend back.
The camera has not only taken the audience with it from the polluted town of Manjummel to the serenity of Kodaikanal but has also helped us traverse through the intense mental turmoil of Subhash, who is literally hanging onto his life atop a slippery rock.
The writing has connected the bits and pieces of what we see of the Manjummel boys' everyday life before their holiday, into key pointers in the rescue operation. There are a few flashbacks from their childhood as well, some of which fail to do much on an emotional level.
The most commendable decision that has been taken in the movie would, however, be the use of the classic Ilaiyaraaja song from Guna, 'Kanmani Anbodu', at the pivotal moment when Kuttan emerges from the pit with Subhash. The song's iconic lyrics by Vaali, "Ith manithar kaathal alla.. athayum thaandi punithamaanath..." (Our love isn't for mortals... it transcends into the divine).
The couplet, which was originally aimed at romantic love, has now been re-read as anthem of friendship, and it is safe to say this song is the emotional motherlode of the movie.
The rest of the cast of Manjummel Boys – Balu Varghese, Jean Paul Lal, Ganapathy S Poduval, Deepak Parambol, Abhiram Radhakrishnan, Arun Kurien, Chandu Salimkumar, Vishnu Raghu, and Khalid Rahman – effortlessly slips into the characters and stay true to portrayal and antics of the gang.
Amongst the sound technical crew, the most laudable work is done by production designer Ajayan Chalisshery. From the ominous tree from which the "boys" hang, to the caves, and the deep insides of the bat-infested ravine that he and his team made, looked real enough to give the viewers chills.
With his debut movie Janeman, Chidambaram has proved that he is a writer and director who can steadily tread the rope between humour and morbid tropes such as depression – quite dexterously. However, maybe due to the limitation of saying a real-life story as is, there is a certain nuance that the writing of Manjummel Boys lacks.
The over-dramatisation of Soubin Shahir's Kuttettan at the end felt like a call back to the melodramatic scenes of Sudani From Nigeria as well. At the end, what may have slightly lacked in writing in Manjummel Boys was thoroughly compensated in direction and by employing a sound technical team to elevate experience of this survival drama, with male camaraderie at its core.
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