The first Malayalam film which was premiered in the competition section of the prestigious Locarno Film Festival. An Indian film that premiered there after 17 years. These are the acclamation for the new film of Mahesh Narayanan's Ariyippu - Declaration. The film was also seen at the International Film Festival of Kerala in the competition section and received great appreciation. The film is now streaming on Netflix and let's talk about the movie. Malayalam Cinema got a new dimension through Mahesh's first directorial movie Take Off. Mahesh begins his career as an editor and when he wore the shirt of a director we get class films like Take Off, C U Soon, Malik, etc. Mahesh is the writer, director, co-producer, and co-editor of this film. Kunchako Boban and Divya Prabha are the lead actors. Ariyippu is not everyone's cup of tea. The film goes at a very slow pace and it details everything so profoundly. Mahesh shifts the camera to a gloves factory in Noida and he just portrays the lives revolving there. The office, Hareesh (Boban) - Reshmi (Divya) house, and the outskirts of Noida were the main locations. Hareesh and Divya are a couple and they are working in that gloves factory. They are about to leave for the Middle East for better job opportunities so they are doing their temporary job there. They are waiting for their Visa. At that moment the film got its deviation when some kind of a problem beheads Hareesh and Divya. From then on the audience get into a lot of assumptions and conclusions along with Hareesh. When all the problems get solved there remains something that is ambiguous for us. Mahesh builds the character arc of Hareesh and Divya so deeply. We can find different dimensions in each character. Reshmi is a normal, simple woman who gave predominant consideration to human values and emotions on the other side Hareesh is some sort of selfish and has a misogynistic approach internally. Both of them look forward to their issue in two different ways. Their divergent visions are the basic element of values and politics that the movie urges. Migration is an important theme in many of Mahesh's works. We find that in his debut movie, Take Off. We can see the intensity of that theme in Ariyippu too. Along with the life of Hareesh and Reshmi, the film also gives consideration to the things (corruption) that happen in the gloves factory. That portion of the film gives a documentary type that looks so real in the context. The cinematography in the movie is like a brilliant kind of work because it stood along with the actual path of the movie. We can't find colorful visuals, or beautiful frames rather the ordinary lives of people were roughly captured in that intensity throughout the film. Hats off to Sanu John Varghese, the cinematographer. We can find the top-notch performance of director brilliance when some areas seem to be more dramatic but look so ordinary when it comes to execution. Kunchako Boban, who consequently looks for different roles so fits into the character of Hareesh. Divya Prabha, we had seen her as a supporting actress but delivered an exceptional piece of acting through Reshmi and I think there are more Reshmis left in her acting career. The film also declares Malayalam films are far away better than other industries because of the wonderful content.
