Ariyippu - Declaration

What a great movie after a long time. Cheers to the simplicity in making the movie. Story of making things right no matter what. Movie portraits how fragile our relations have become that anyone can cause turbulence. Yet if you are true from within you can keep your back straight and chin up. Cheers to the makers of such a fantastic movie. Keep making such movies. The hand held camera throughout the movie, the close-up of tears falling from Rashmi's eyes while performing the medical, emotions of Hareesh, all were to the point. This is a movie with a message. Hope everyone gets the message.

Kindly note that it is an adult movie, a slow movie, movie with strong emotions of anger, betrayal, revenge. Not everyone might like it since it is not a commercial movie but by far a great movie in recent time.

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.)

"ariyippu". Raw, slow and brutal.

This making of this movie is very realistic, very raw as if its shot in a phone, making me think i am in between these characters. The performance by all the actors were amazing. Divya prabha just shines in her role. Especially the scene where she is taken for medical inspection in a hospital, her eyes were communicating the pain and humiliations she has to go through. Kunjako boban was amazing in his role. The writing of some scenes were really good, especially the scene where both kunjako and divya get into a fight or the scene where kunjako forces himself on divya. The opening credits shots were so satisfying and trippy.

The issue i had with this movie is its pacing, the second half felt a bit slow and dragging. There were mainly two issues discussed in this movie, a problem caused by a leaked video and a problem happening in the industry that the characters are working, the two things did not gel properly according to me. I think the writing in the second half could have been made a little more interesting.

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.