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Exclusive| Behind The Anatomy Of Mammootty’s Viral “Evil” Expression In 'Kalamkaval'
Jithin K Jose, the first-time director of Mammootty’s new serial killer thriller, decodes the notes that went into creating the shot that became instantly iconic.
As Jithin K Jose, the director of Kalamkaval and the co-writer of Kurup, sees it, there aren’t many films of Mammootty that a Malayali like him hasn’t watched over a 45-year career span. There are also a few characters that the star hasn’t yet portrayed on screen. And when someone with his filmography and calibre can break all those notions and still come up with something totally fresh, it's magic, the filmmaker says. “It's something even hardcore Mammukka fans haven’t yet seen,” Jithin tells The Hollywood Reporter India in an exclusive interview. That’s what took place on the day of filming the shot used in the teaser. Kalamkaval will hit the screens on November 27.
Set aside the ingenuity of Mammootty’s expression in this shot, but the idea to introduce the film with this one single image was genius. It went on to convey everything they wanted to do about their film. The number of interpretations this "look" and shot has created on social media is a result of the wit with which the film has handled its promotions. “Of course, we had written that scene very clearly on paper,” says Jithin, who was in the thick of finishing the last few hours of work on the film’s final sound mix during this interview. “We had worked a lot on his [Mammootty's] look as well. But on that day, as we narrated the entire sequence and mood of the scene, we still had no idea what Mammukka would give us in terms of an expression. We feel we’ve seen this man do it all before, and then he surprises you with a look that is so perfect for the shot that you couldn't have imagined it.”
He recalls the joy he felt when he saw the scene come alive in front of his eyes. “It was like he had lifted what we had written on paper into a much higher place,” he says. “But he would do this so often with so many scenes that we couldn’t believe what we were witnessing. My only wish is for the audience to experience the same shock and surprise we felt when he performed all those tricky scenes.”
It’s Mammukka’s obsession with reinvention that has continued to keep him at the top, believes Jithin. For shots, scenes and his character’s look, the megastar comes with so many ideas that one is bound to achieve something totally new. This works even better when he’s rumoured to be playing the character of the notorious serial killer Cyanide Mohan, a first for him. Mohan, who operated on the Kerala-Karnataka State border, is infamous for having murdered around 20 women in a period spanning 2003 to 2009. The criminal is still alive, serving a term in prison since 2009. “But it’s not true to say that our entire script is based on this one man and his set of crimes. We have borrowed from several real-life events and crimes, and the film is an amalgamation of several true crime stories,” adds Jithin, who had written Dulquer Salmaan’s hit Kurup based on the life of Sukumara Kurup, another most wanted in Kerala.
What makes this film special is how it comes right on the heels of two great Mammootty performances in negative shades, Bramayugam (2024), for which he won the Kerala State Award for Best Actor and the equally successful Puzhu (2022). “Like his fans, I too love this phase of his career,” he says, noting how difficult it may have been to cast a superstar of his calibre in a role like this if Jithin belonged to any other Indian movie industry.
As for now, Jithin is as excited as anyone to see Mammootty on screen after a break of seven months from the screen. “I began my career working on his film Mamangam (2019) back when it was being directed by Sajeev Pillai [Jithin assisted Pillai for the film]. It’s been seven years since then, but it’s still unbelievable that I got to make a movie with him.”