'Kalamkaval' Movie Review: Mammootty Like Never Before In This Genre-Defining Thriller

There’s a 20-minute stretch in Kalamkaval’s first hour which could easily be termed the most elegant stretch of cinema in all of Malayalam this year. One is unsure if one can call it a sequence or a montage, but in no recent movie has the lines between a screenplay and editing felt this invisible. It’s a sequence that traces the modus operandi of a brutal serial killer; a habitual offender whose list of victims exceed the population of a small village. But as we switch from one victim to another, all playing out within the timeline of Stanley’s (Mammootty) murdering process, his aliases are tossed around like clothes, churches dissolve to become temples, and the story of one hapless woman becomes interchangeable with another.

The film may repurpose beat sheets from classics within the serial killer sub-genre, but the seamlessness with which scenes flow into the next and the control with which the director Jithin K Jose holds us with a death grip, makes Kalamkaval a genre-definer for Malayalam cinema. This includes something as precise as how the film chooses to cut away from and then cut back to a phone call with a forensic officer. It’s the sequence in which Stanley learns a new method to trap his victims, and as we switch between timelines and victims to understand what he’s been doing, we fail to realise how many different elements of cinema had to merge for us to feel the full grasp of that one moment.

It works so well only because the film takes its time to plant seeds early on in its screenplay. This could be something expected like the tune of an old Tamil movie song playing at the most sinister moments. This includes the way even cigarettes get a character arc; the kind heroines do not get in our films. And this is also why smoke rings create more impact in this film than superstar cameos do in other movies.

Another reason why the film feels this intricate is because it works just as well as a character study as it does when you think of it a cat-and-mouse game between two highly intelligent people. In a striking similarity, we’re led to believe that the obsessive officer capable of capturing someone as wicked as Stanley, needs to be a variation of the same personality type. So when metaphors like that of a python capturing a rat or that of an owl waiting for its prey for several nights gets tossed around, the intention is not to simply create mystique for these complex characters. They also push us into a deeper understanding of people like Stanley and Jayakrishnan (Vinayakan), and how they are not too unlike each other.

Their exchanges work even better because the investigation itself is set between the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border. As they crisscross between state boundaries to capture their victims, both characters show signs of possessing a complex dual personality. With one glance, we see the toxic urge of a serial killer, taking over the mind of a mild-mannered married man and in the next second, we see the man take control of his urges, only so he can plan his next move.

Kalamkaval is also a film that does not work overtime to justify the mindset of the serial killer. Unlike films like Anjaam Paathira, Abraham Ozler or Ratchasan in Tamil, the film isn’t desperate to make you sympathise with the killer and give you a logical reason from his childhood to explain why he is or who he is. Instead, as Jayakrishan narrates an episode from his childhood, we glance through Stanley’s childhood home and the photos from his youth that defined the killer he is today.

The music by Mujeeb Majeed, and the cinematography by Faisal Ali is simply pitch perfect, as seedy lodges and the interiors of a car take the shape and form of a labyrinth that’s impossible to escape. The sound design, featuring the eerie sound of burning paper, often leads to multiple interpretations and feelings as with every new victim in the film. The symbiosis between art-forms is so streamlined that even the sight of the vintage maroon-coloured Honda Accord gets under your skin.

Vinayakan is surely the film’s driving force, holding together the many strains of a film that could easily have become too complex to grasp. And yet, after a lifetime of watching his movies, it is Mammootty who shows us a side to him we haven’t yet witnessed before. In a striking scene, curiosity transforms into a sick smile when he learns about a new weapon and how he can source it. He is a brutal beast in this film, the kind that does come with the liberty of approaching it with a heightened mannerism. He is real as a serial killer can be, embodying as much as a debonair as villainy as a murderer. Whoever thought it was possible for us to make us love him even more, by playing a character that deserves all the hate in the world.