Ariyippu

For some reason, Ariyippu's (Declaration) most striking scenes are that of the assembly line of hand glove factory where the two central characters of the film work. I felt it was a metaphor to something Mahesh Narayanan was trying to convey, yet was overburdened by his main story of that of a Kerala-based couple stuck in Delhi with an ambition to move abroad. More than the conflict in the film, it's the aftermath that is loud here, asking you to think about the politics involved. In several places, I saw shades of Ishq (2019), leaving a bad taste in my mouth. Overall, Ariyippu is a decent film worth watching to know why you shouldn't be careless about what you do.

(Watched its India premiere at the 2022 International Film Festival of India in Goa.)

We're clapping for the cast and crew for a splendid job! They achieved so much with so little, well done😃

-Watching Ariyippu's trailer, we thought it was going to be one of those films about society bashing women. But Mahesh Narayanan used a different and better approach through a heavy inclusion of symbolism

-The film was extremely quiet, the passive atmosphere was due to the story taking place during the pandemic lockdown. The serenity was necessary to analyze and reflect on the narrative.

-The handheld camera was very appreciated to demonstrate the feelings of uneasiness, anxiety, and tension hovering over the characters throughout the story

-So many symbols made the screenplay rich and full of layers, however, we're just going to zoom in on the reason why a glove-making business was at the center of the film as opposed to any other.

We usually use gloves to keep hands free of dirt, fingerprint tracks, contamination, etc. Bottom line is to keep ourselves clean and this was the objective of the factory, Hareesh, and Reshmi.

In the end, they all unknowingly adopted the glove mentality for good and bad reasons

-No need to talk about performance when we had pros on set!

-Ariyippu is a hidden treasure that has so much to offer, a good example of how you can achieve a lot with a simple cast, locations, and production.

#Ariyippu - An intense drama which explores human relationships when life throws unexpected challenges at us - What drives the movie forward are the brilliant performances from the lead actors - DivyaPrabhaa & KunchackoBoban.

The film doesn't have a lot of dramatic moments. All we get is a series of suggestions that paints a crime scene, where the powerful never misses an opportunity to prey on the weak. No blood, fury or horror is visible to our eyes. But, the sufferings of the people who inhabit the lowest strata of society dot every inch of the frame. The pain, the shame and a sense of collective entrapment all hide in plain sight. It's for the audience to unpack the cruelty of poverty

Surely one of the best Malayalam movies of 2022 !

What a fantastic film!!!, A film from the mastercraft man Mahesh Narayanan. Kudos to the whole team for making a brilliant movie within a very small idea during the pandemic Period. Happy to see more films from the crew.

The main key attraction of the film is the performance of protagonists. The idea was really small but the content that they built up from it was really admirable. The cinematography of the film is also really good, because I was somewhat confused it with the arabic and Spanish film's tone and quality. I want to see more and more films from this crew, as because I have seen all of the movies that the film maker has done previously.

ARIYIPPU explored the rifts and difficulties that got created in the form of anger, physical & sort of sexual abuse, shame, mistrust & doubts in a married couples life over a scandal video leak.

It's one of the few and pure slice of life dramas I have ever seen that didn't feel exploitative at all, was very focused on the narrative of it and also didn't have any kind of loud distractions in the form of music, stretching of unwanted sequences or anything else.

The performances felt really raw so kudos to Kunchaks and Divyaprabha for giving a controlled and balanced as well as engaging performances.

The same could be said for the supporting cast too.

The subplots regarding the injustice, murder coverups? And the illegal practices going on in the glove factory were intriguing too.

The climax though felt like lacking in completion and making it open ended didn't feel effective or maybe it was coz I adamantly wanted a close ended climax.

The background scores in this one also has to be Sushin Shyam's tamest scores from the works of his I've seen.

It's a slowburn directed in a style that I have often seen foreign filmmaker's prefer that are popular choices for prestigious critical awards and I mean it in a good way and while I felt it not to be laggy even while being a slowburn I must say that this would not be most people's cup of whatever they'd prefer.