Malai kottai vaalivan

 

Malaikottai Vaaliban, a wandering wrestler who challenges the prominent fighters in the places he visits, is our central character. He lives with his master and master’s son. The lone soul has not even tried to find a companion as he considers himself unworthy of all that. What we see in the movie Malaikottai Vaaliban is one fight challenge Vaaliban takes up to free some people enslaved by foreigners and the repercussions of that.

Post Double Barrel, every film that Lijo Jose Pellissery had made had this raw tone to their credit, even when subjects like Churuli and Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam, etc., had a fantasy layer. In all these movies, there is something in the narrative that keeps the audience engaged, and none of the subplots or the backstories in those movies felt easily replaceable. When it comes to Malaikottai Vaaliban, I felt that there was too much improvisation to make the story happen in a slightly absurd-ish setting. You get to see the two leading ladies dancing on top of a lot of nails while Vaaliban is tied to a pillar; pretty much a tribute to Sholay. In another scene, Vaaliban says, “Konjam ange paaru”. The issue is that, while all these are happening, you, as an audience, are not observing the events with curiosity. And it is more like a set piece that was included just for the sake of grandeur.

The real core of the story, which has to do with Vaaliban’s emotional trauma of being accused of something he hasn’t done is a version of Othello. PS Rafeeq and Lijo have created characters that sort of enhance the Shakespearian attire of the movie. And there is a festival sequence in the film where I really loved the mask-filled staging of the pivotal event. But how the movie enters that space isn’t that organic. And frankly, most of the events that happen before all this to establish the character felt either inconsequential or unnecessarily stretched.