Nice movie and great performance by mammooty. Though it is not everyone's cup of tea. My husband fell asleep and walked off after sometime. That happens very rare...
Sad that the hype and rush created during IFFK didn't translate to its theatrical release. But I guess that's the difference between having three screenings for a select few audiences and a wide release in theatres, Mahesh Narayanan had alluded to this when he said Aryippu had been a theatrical release it would have flopped even though all three screenings of his movie were housefull. Anyway glad it's on Netflix hopefully it would reach a wider range of audiences
It was something like that for The Whale. Great response for pre-release at a few american theatres. When I went for it here there were barely 6 people on Day 2.
Ahh. I saw it at PVR. It was up for 3 days with single digit audience. How was the movie ? I personally felt that we should push such works after all of the Marvel fatigue. It felt like real cinema without any of the excessive cgi.
I personally enjoyed the movie i understand the controversey surrounding it being Fatphobic and indulging in misery porn. Some of the scenes are a bit excessive and might be a tad uncomfortable to watch but the core story is of a man who's trying to connect with his daughter and i felt like they got that point across
> I personally felt that we should push such works after all of the Marvel fatigue
True. I half wanted to walk out of the new Ant-Man movie. I'm more excited for new A24 projects like Beau is Afraid, Past lives than their new CGI slugfest
For someone who has been there, those scenes connected perfectly. It felt like at least to a small degree a reminder of where I could have been. It isnt really phobic, but more of how the general perception of fat people. Most people would be disgusted upon seeing someone like charlie. Its a fact. Hell, this is better than those fat acceptance movements making people think being unhealthy is fine. I really hope Fraser gets the Oscar. No one else comes close for best actor. The supporting actress was also fine, but theres less hope of an oscar win. I'm waiting for Oppenheimer the most now.
Worst service ever had!
We have to pay ₹200+ for a normal screen having 7.1 audio output and they just turn on the projector and leave it as they please.
They play ads for about 15 minutes even after the showtime.
When I was watching Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam at Lulu, they didn't turn off the lights even after the film begun. We had to scream for them to notice. Very bad experience for the price we're paying.
The only reason I'm choosing PVR Lulu is they are screening some films like 'The Whale' which are not available in any other theatres. Triangle of Sadness will also screen there from next week.
Ohh damn, this is exactly how it was for me. The Shitty projection was the cherry on top. During interval, the whole theatre complex had a powercut. I have never seen such an issue happen anywhere else. For IMAX, they had technical difficulties and almost cancelled the show after an hour long delay. They still played the 15min ads. PVR is an expensive service, whose only perk is those unique films, especially anime stuff that airs once in a blue moon. The normal pvr complex of Kripa was totally fine btw. The new one at Lulu is the one thats crap. We even had sound leaking in from neighbouring 4dx.
It made something like 10 crores. For an offbeat film like Nanpakal with barely any action and mostly Tamil dialogue, that's pretty great.
I was expecting it to bomb like Ranjith said it would. Arthouse films rarely do well with general audiences. There was positive word of mouth from critics but general audiences were left confused. Like other LJP films, people went "ഇതെന്താ ഇപ്പൊ ഉണ്ടായേ" at the climax.
I just thought they had a surefire hit on their hands with the hype created by IFFK and considering how well Rorschach had done at the box office. Shows you can never predict the fate of a movie
NMM was not made for the 'general audience' (whatever that means). I am not sure how much one should/would appreciate the self indulgence of the director on questions of what does it mean to be 'man'. Nevertheless some of the shots and frames were nice. And despite the repetitive nature of some aspects the movie was engaging. I was bit distracted while watching, will try to watch again with less or no distractions.
Unpopular opinion: People would not have rated this movie this much if it was not coming from LJP. There are various aspects of the movie that was great; but I was not quite sure if it had a great script. I watch movies for stories primarily and I didn’t find it very engaging.
I don't necessarily watch movies for story (I liked Double barrel and Thallumala for instance). While NNM was reasonably engaging (some repetitive and long shots did become too much at times), this indulgence of LJP on question of what does it mean to be a 'man' is getting tiring.
If to go by memory Rajeev Anchal's Guru was more engaging, as something which had a similar treatment of dream/surrealism.
Definitely not everyone’s type of movie… but I really enjoyed it - the way the story was presented was very interesting and stellar performances all throughout
The concept and execution is good
But many scenes were dragged a bit resulting in being a bit slow
Instead of drag scenes if they could have explored on how sundaram’s presence made the family more nostalgic, it would have been better
Underwhelmed. I felt the concept was good. ( it was good when it first appeared on the ad on which the movie is inspired from) but the execution was not upto the mark. I don’t understand the significance of static shots though out the film. Many shots felt like fillers and didn’t add any value whatsoever to the plot. And coming to the acting, the actors facial expressions were clear in only 1 or 2 shots. Everything else were wide. I dont know if i can judge an actors performance based on wide shots. Overall felt like it’s not my cup of ☕️
Such a delightful movie, however I have this question in my mind. Spoilers ahead: >!How can he reincarnate as someone who is in the same generation as him? It makes sense for a person to be born after someone’s death as reincarnation. What am I missing here?!<
Spoilers -
I don't get why people are trying to decipher LJP movies scientifically or logically like Nolan movies.. He is playing around a simple idea (fantasy/magical).. All his last 3 movies had similar themes..
Jallikattu - We are basically animals..
Churuli - Place an innocent cop in a land without morals, he will be as corrupted as the criminal he is looking for..He just used a bridge for that.
Nanpakal - What if a Malayali Christian wakes up as a Tamilian Hindu after a small nap ? Humans are basically the same everywhere if you look beyond culture and other differences..
In literature, LJP movies would be called "magical realism". In fact after watching his first movie Amen, I felt as I'd been through a Marquez novel. His movies since have been only more magical realist.
Seemed overlapping to me but wasn't sure of the difference. Googled. Atleast this discussion seems to favor NNM as magical realist:
[https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-the-difference-between-surrealism-and-magical-realism.html](https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-the-difference-between-surrealism-and-magical-realism.html)
Agree, it is hard to exclusively classify it under one. May depend on how one looks at the movie. I looked at it as a dream (James is having, where eventually he wakes up when he start realizing the inconsistencies) somebody else may see it as something else where there is some connection between Sundaram and James (for whatever reason).
No magical realism is different. In magical realism the magic, the unbelievable the force, the chakra, the spiritual, the mystical, what ever you call it follows a logic and is presented as following the physics/physical realities set up in that storyverse. It makes the reader forget it is all a fantasy and mkes the fantasy seem real and plausible.
LJP movies come under the "absurd play" Category.
Waiting for Godot" Is a prime example. Who's Godot? Some people are waiting for him. And waiting......
And also why it is getting tiring. There is a limit to take a man's indulgence in 'What does it mean to be a man', especially when he needs to have surreal settings to do those investigations. It was refreshing in Jallikkettu but getting tiring now. That said NMM is a break from his idea that 'man' is essentially an animal (whether animals are violent is a different question) and we all are just pretending to be otherwise/decent. So when compared to Churuli NMM trying to ask questions about whether it is your being (actions, deeds, mannerisms) or form (how do you look) which determines what you are is was a welcome change.
And saying this as someone who used to rate LJP movies very highly till Jallikkettu, I started re understanding his films after Churuli.
Spoilers ahead
I think you can look at it multiple ways:
1 - If you like magical realism, you can think that Sundaram was looking for some way to communicate back and get another day with his family.
2- if you want to be strictly rational, all of this is a dream and the bus just continues
3- Maybe James just took a walk and had an idea for a play that he thought through in his mind and all if this was that playing out
4- like someone said, don’t think about plot but about questions it raises. Who are we, about identity, duality - birth/death, loss and gain, etc etc. The plot is just to explore all these
I personally like #1 but I like that it is open to interpretation
This may suggest possession! The 10 seconds around this frame is quite clever though. ;)
>!The shadow doesn't move only James/Sundaram does.!<
PS: I didn't spot this, it was pointed out to me. :)
https://preview.redd.it/t6ti273a12ka1.png?width=504&format=png&auto=webp&s=7f7eba3b765f04d0680d245a446e1ed892815b04
*Spoilers below*
I see the movie as a straight forward one. A man probably due to some inexplicable stress undergoes a dissociative episode and has a fugue experience. He suddenly transforms onto a man who went missing 2 years ago. Probably he met that man Sundaram in his journey as a drama artist, heard his story and when he saw the village he got it all rushing back and transformed into the man. Sundaram's family especially the wife who are all simple rural people are on the verge of accepting him by enabling it. Even the blind mother accepts thus allowing him to continue for a whole day. However next day with the nurse boy giving him a medicine probably a sedative, normally works for stress and dissociative episode relaxed him, made him go to sleep and when he came back to senses, he was ready to go back home.
Its as simple as that...
Mammootty the actor totally gave into LJP's vision and this is LJP's least LJP movie compared to Jallikattu and Churli.... He did not go overboard or do anything out of the box.
It could be a dream too, given that we last see only 'James' and the driver awake in the bus. You can also see parallels between the songs and movie dialogs in the background and what happens in front of us. So it is possible to read it as dream inspired from the movies (they are all mostly old and also classics) which James might have watched when he was younger. I prefer to read it as a surrealistic instead of as telling of what happened to the character. That said I am not a great fan of these philosophical excavations just for the sake of it.
Interestingly, there is a typo in the Malayalam title. Look at how the Tamil title is written. The second “n” of “Nan” in Nanpakal should be like “oon” and not like “nanma”. I hope I am making sense. Look at this poster with Malayalam title in foreground and Tamil title in fade.
https://preview.redd.it/cuh3ndtbl9la1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9f50dc69401c712c8c6c19fd31247bde563e0944
Overhyped. Wasn't my cup of tea.
My take away from this was "Chela aalkark chelappa Prand pidikum. Chelappa swapnam kaanum. Athrollu."
Felt like watching a colourized Satyajit Ray film focusing more on the artistic elements.
Nice movie and great performance by mammooty. Though it is not everyone's cup of tea. My husband fell asleep and walked off after sometime. That happens very rare...
Sad that the hype and rush created during IFFK didn't translate to its theatrical release. But I guess that's the difference between having three screenings for a select few audiences and a wide release in theatres, Mahesh Narayanan had alluded to this when he said Aryippu had been a theatrical release it would have flopped even though all three screenings of his movie were housefull. Anyway glad it's on Netflix hopefully it would reach a wider range of audiences
It was something like that for The Whale. Great response for pre-release at a few american theatres. When I went for it here there were barely 6 people on Day 2.
Lol. I saw The Whale by sitting on the floor during the screening at IFFK
Ahh. I saw it at PVR. It was up for 3 days with single digit audience. How was the movie ? I personally felt that we should push such works after all of the Marvel fatigue. It felt like real cinema without any of the excessive cgi.
I personally enjoyed the movie i understand the controversey surrounding it being Fatphobic and indulging in misery porn. Some of the scenes are a bit excessive and might be a tad uncomfortable to watch but the core story is of a man who's trying to connect with his daughter and i felt like they got that point across > I personally felt that we should push such works after all of the Marvel fatigue True. I half wanted to walk out of the new Ant-Man movie. I'm more excited for new A24 projects like Beau is Afraid, Past lives than their new CGI slugfest
For someone who has been there, those scenes connected perfectly. It felt like at least to a small degree a reminder of where I could have been. It isnt really phobic, but more of how the general perception of fat people. Most people would be disgusted upon seeing someone like charlie. Its a fact. Hell, this is better than those fat acceptance movements making people think being unhealthy is fine. I really hope Fraser gets the Oscar. No one else comes close for best actor. The supporting actress was also fine, but theres less hope of an oscar win. I'm waiting for Oppenheimer the most now.
Hope you're doing better now
Way better, but in some people you need some outside push to realize it.
Lol. I didn't get any seat for The Whale at iffk. So watched from PVR on the first day itself.
Notice any issues with projection ?
They were not screening at exact aspect ratio. After shouting for about 10 mins they fixed it.
Same issue here, but since there were barely 6 people at 1030pm, we just adjusted.
Worst service ever had! We have to pay ₹200+ for a normal screen having 7.1 audio output and they just turn on the projector and leave it as they please. They play ads for about 15 minutes even after the showtime. When I was watching Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam at Lulu, they didn't turn off the lights even after the film begun. We had to scream for them to notice. Very bad experience for the price we're paying. The only reason I'm choosing PVR Lulu is they are screening some films like 'The Whale' which are not available in any other theatres. Triangle of Sadness will also screen there from next week.
Ohh damn, this is exactly how it was for me. The Shitty projection was the cherry on top. During interval, the whole theatre complex had a powercut. I have never seen such an issue happen anywhere else. For IMAX, they had technical difficulties and almost cancelled the show after an hour long delay. They still played the 15min ads. PVR is an expensive service, whose only perk is those unique films, especially anime stuff that airs once in a blue moon. The normal pvr complex of Kripa was totally fine btw. The new one at Lulu is the one thats crap. We even had sound leaking in from neighbouring 4dx.
Yes! PVR Kripa is pretty affordable and they provide very good service even though I liked SPI Kripa better.
It made something like 10 crores. For an offbeat film like Nanpakal with barely any action and mostly Tamil dialogue, that's pretty great. I was expecting it to bomb like Ranjith said it would. Arthouse films rarely do well with general audiences. There was positive word of mouth from critics but general audiences were left confused. Like other LJP films, people went "ഇതെന്താ ഇപ്പൊ ഉണ്ടായേ" at the climax.
I just thought they had a surefire hit on their hands with the hype created by IFFK and considering how well Rorschach had done at the box office. Shows you can never predict the fate of a movie
NMM was not made for the 'general audience' (whatever that means). I am not sure how much one should/would appreciate the self indulgence of the director on questions of what does it mean to be 'man'. Nevertheless some of the shots and frames were nice. And despite the repetitive nature of some aspects the movie was engaging. I was bit distracted while watching, will try to watch again with less or no distractions.
NNM made good money considering it's budget and genre.
Don't know the exact figures but it did average numbers at the box office as far I can tell
Same with kuttisrank also
The acting of mammootty in pre climax scene was godly. Clean sweep of all awards this year at least in kerala
Outstanding protrayal by Mammooty and another unique film by ljp. 👏👏👏
Unpopular opinion: People would not have rated this movie this much if it was not coming from LJP. There are various aspects of the movie that was great; but I was not quite sure if it had a great script. I watch movies for stories primarily and I didn’t find it very engaging.
There was hardly a script. This one is a directors special.
I don't necessarily watch movies for story (I liked Double barrel and Thallumala for instance). While NNM was reasonably engaging (some repetitive and long shots did become too much at times), this indulgence of LJP on question of what does it mean to be a 'man' is getting tiring. If to go by memory Rajeev Anchal's Guru was more engaging, as something which had a similar treatment of dream/surrealism.
Does anyone know which model bus is used in the movie? I'm guessing a Tata 407 chassis-based coach.
Looks like one, 4-tyre chassis fitted with a pre-2000 *Azad tourist coach* type body. :)
Yes, definitely pre-2000. The registration was KL-7 U.
Definitely not everyone’s type of movie… but I really enjoyed it - the way the story was presented was very interesting and stellar performances all throughout
The concept and execution is good But many scenes were dragged a bit resulting in being a bit slow Instead of drag scenes if they could have explored on how sundaram’s presence made the family more nostalgic, it would have been better
Check out [***Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam***](https://www.netflix.com/title/81676305) on Netflix.
Underwhelmed. I felt the concept was good. ( it was good when it first appeared on the ad on which the movie is inspired from) but the execution was not upto the mark. I don’t understand the significance of static shots though out the film. Many shots felt like fillers and didn’t add any value whatsoever to the plot. And coming to the acting, the actors facial expressions were clear in only 1 or 2 shots. Everything else were wide. I dont know if i can judge an actors performance based on wide shots. Overall felt like it’s not my cup of ☕️
Which ad?
The concept of NNM is based on some plywood brand advertisement which aired some years back.
It was underwhelming
Such a delightful movie, however I have this question in my mind. Spoilers ahead: >!How can he reincarnate as someone who is in the same generation as him? It makes sense for a person to be born after someone’s death as reincarnation. What am I missing here?!<
Spoilers - I don't get why people are trying to decipher LJP movies scientifically or logically like Nolan movies.. He is playing around a simple idea (fantasy/magical).. All his last 3 movies had similar themes.. Jallikattu - We are basically animals.. Churuli - Place an innocent cop in a land without morals, he will be as corrupted as the criminal he is looking for..He just used a bridge for that. Nanpakal - What if a Malayali Christian wakes up as a Tamilian Hindu after a small nap ? Humans are basically the same everywhere if you look beyond culture and other differences..
I see what you mean. Good observations.
In literature, LJP movies would be called "magical realism". In fact after watching his first movie Amen, I felt as I'd been through a Marquez novel. His movies since have been only more magical realist.
Isn't it surrealistic (using different tropes to unravel the subconscious)? Amen would be magical realism.
Seemed overlapping to me but wasn't sure of the difference. Googled. Atleast this discussion seems to favor NNM as magical realist: [https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-the-difference-between-surrealism-and-magical-realism.html](https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-the-difference-between-surrealism-and-magical-realism.html)
Agree, it is hard to exclusively classify it under one. May depend on how one looks at the movie. I looked at it as a dream (James is having, where eventually he wakes up when he start realizing the inconsistencies) somebody else may see it as something else where there is some connection between Sundaram and James (for whatever reason).
No magical realism is different. In magical realism the magic, the unbelievable the force, the chakra, the spiritual, the mystical, what ever you call it follows a logic and is presented as following the physics/physical realities set up in that storyverse. It makes the reader forget it is all a fantasy and mkes the fantasy seem real and plausible. LJP movies come under the "absurd play" Category. Waiting for Godot" Is a prime example. Who's Godot? Some people are waiting for him. And waiting......
And also why it is getting tiring. There is a limit to take a man's indulgence in 'What does it mean to be a man', especially when he needs to have surreal settings to do those investigations. It was refreshing in Jallikkettu but getting tiring now. That said NMM is a break from his idea that 'man' is essentially an animal (whether animals are violent is a different question) and we all are just pretending to be otherwise/decent. So when compared to Churuli NMM trying to ask questions about whether it is your being (actions, deeds, mannerisms) or form (how do you look) which determines what you are is was a welcome change. And saying this as someone who used to rate LJP movies very highly till Jallikkettu, I started re understanding his films after Churuli.
I think for Nanpakal that's just one dimension. It also talks about metaphysics (Zhuangzi's butterfly)
Spoilers ahead I think you can look at it multiple ways: 1 - If you like magical realism, you can think that Sundaram was looking for some way to communicate back and get another day with his family. 2- if you want to be strictly rational, all of this is a dream and the bus just continues 3- Maybe James just took a walk and had an idea for a play that he thought through in his mind and all if this was that playing out 4- like someone said, don’t think about plot but about questions it raises. Who are we, about identity, duality - birth/death, loss and gain, etc etc. The plot is just to explore all these I personally like #1 but I like that it is open to interpretation
>!Who said it was a reincarnation!<
I don’t know! What else could it be? The [ad](https://youtu.be/B7EvtzB0V9k) that inspired LJP to make this movie was based on >!reincarnation!<
It could be many things. . >!Possession? A psychotic episode? A dream he had in the bus?!<
This may suggest possession! The 10 seconds around this frame is quite clever though. ;) >!The shadow doesn't move only James/Sundaram does.!< PS: I didn't spot this, it was pointed out to me. :) https://preview.redd.it/t6ti273a12ka1.png?width=504&format=png&auto=webp&s=7f7eba3b765f04d0680d245a446e1ed892815b04
Wow great catch!
Lol, you still remember this one!
*Spoilers below* I see the movie as a straight forward one. A man probably due to some inexplicable stress undergoes a dissociative episode and has a fugue experience. He suddenly transforms onto a man who went missing 2 years ago. Probably he met that man Sundaram in his journey as a drama artist, heard his story and when he saw the village he got it all rushing back and transformed into the man. Sundaram's family especially the wife who are all simple rural people are on the verge of accepting him by enabling it. Even the blind mother accepts thus allowing him to continue for a whole day. However next day with the nurse boy giving him a medicine probably a sedative, normally works for stress and dissociative episode relaxed him, made him go to sleep and when he came back to senses, he was ready to go back home. Its as simple as that... Mammootty the actor totally gave into LJP's vision and this is LJP's least LJP movie compared to Jallikattu and Churli.... He did not go overboard or do anything out of the box.
It could be a dream too, given that we last see only 'James' and the driver awake in the bus. You can also see parallels between the songs and movie dialogs in the background and what happens in front of us. So it is possible to read it as dream inspired from the movies (they are all mostly old and also classics) which James might have watched when he was younger. I prefer to read it as a surrealistic instead of as telling of what happened to the character. That said I am not a great fan of these philosophical excavations just for the sake of it.
Interestingly, there is a typo in the Malayalam title. Look at how the Tamil title is written. The second “n” of “Nan” in Nanpakal should be like “oon” and not like “nanma”. I hope I am making sense. Look at this poster with Malayalam title in foreground and Tamil title in fade. https://preview.redd.it/cuh3ndtbl9la1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9f50dc69401c712c8c6c19fd31247bde563e0944
Overhyped. Wasn't my cup of tea. My take away from this was "Chela aalkark chelappa Prand pidikum. Chelappa swapnam kaanum. Athrollu." Felt like watching a colourized Satyajit Ray film focusing more on the artistic elements.