THR India's 25 in 25: 'Angamaly Diaries' and The Pulse of Survival

Lijo Jose Pellissery's action crime drama film, Angamaly Diaries, redefined Malayalam cinema for its raw, realistic portrayal of hyper-local culture and gangster life, breaking away from storytelling norms that had followed certain derivative patterns. It changed the industry for the way it introduced 86 debut actors, and the film’s highlight remains a stunning 11-minute single-take climax sequence (shot by Gireesh Gangadharan and featuring around 1,000 artistes), set right in the centre of a procession, with the intensity increasing with each passing second.

Inarguably, no one’s life has changed after Angamaly Diaries as it has for its breakout star Anthony Pepe. Even his identity today, with ‘Pepe’ suffixed to his real name (Anthony Varghese), is a result of the character he played in the 2017 gangster drama. But when the star looks back at the first day of shooting, he remembers that he couldn’t think beyond all the nervousness. “On one hand, I’m excited because my lifelong dream of acting has finally come true,” he says, searching for words, “and on the other, I’m wondering if I’m even fit for this profession or if I’ll screw up this movie.”

It was also a dream for him to be introduced by a director like Lijo Jose Pellissery, who was just coming off the failure of Double Barrel and in the mood to redeem himself and his brand of filmmaking. With the film marketed around the newcomers it was introducing to cinema, the proof of the film’s quality remains in how almost all of them have now established themselves as an integral part of the Malayalam movie industry.

Anthony Pepe on Making Angamaly Diaries

For Pepe, it was the 15th day of shooting that really had him feeling unsettled “We were simply going with the flow until then. But around the 13th or 15th day, all of us began to make mistakes. It’s at that phase when you finally understand enough to learn how little we know about the filmmaking process and how much money and effort go into each day of the shoot. I still look at that day as the one in which I was taught one of the biggest lessons of filmmaking… patience.”

Unlike some others in his profession, Pepe doesn’t feel squeamish about rewatching his first film all over again. Instead, he finds a level of comfort in that experience: “Something I do when I feel low. I also make it a point to watch it alone. It gives me this energy that nothing else can. There are several other films where I feel awkward watching myself on screen. But strangely, it all feels right when I see myself in Angamaly. That too is entirely because of how specific Lijo chettan [older brother] was with his instructions and his clarity on the metre of my performance.”

As for his most memorable scene, he feels it is the long romantic walk at night between Pepe and Lichi (Anna Rajan, also well-known by her character’s name in this film). “It was a Steadicam shot that was filmed in one go. It was also another long take in which we performed all the dialogues in one flow. But in its final version, it doesn't look like a single take with several cuts that have gone in, but pulling off that scene gave us both a lot of confidence and assurance, and maybe, just maybe, we’re cut out for this in the long run.”