It’s a well-known fact that the Malayalam film industry has been consistently churning out some well-made movies and its sublime form continues till date. In the recent past, we have seen an interesting mix of critically acclaimed and commercially successful Malayalam movies such as ‘Bheeshma Parvam’, ‘Hridayam’, ‘Jana Gana Mana’, ‘Pada’, ‘Salute’, ‘Thallumaala’, and most recently ‘Mukundan Unni Associates’, etc.
And this time, a relatively lesser-known bilingual Malayalam Tamil movie has attracted international attention. The film has made an impressive debut on the top 50 international narrative feature films list of 2022 on the Auckland-based movies-centric social platform Letterboxd.
We are talking about ‘Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam’ starring veteran actor Mammootty in the lead role. The film currently holds rank 30 on the coveted Letterboxd top international movies list. And in doing that, the critically admired Indian movie has outranked some fine films such as ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ (Rank 36), ‘Decision to Leave’ (Rak 46), and even the recently added Indian film ‘Mukundan Unni Associates’ (Rank 48), etc.
The said Letterboxd top 50 international films list has been topped by ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ (Rank 1) followed by ‘Kadaisi Vivasayi’ (Rank 2), ‘Aftersun’ (Rank 4), ‘Argentina, 1985’ (Rank 10), ‘RRR’ (Rank 11), ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’ (Rank 13), ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ (Rank 17), ‘TAR’, (Rank 22), and ‘The Fabelmans’ (Rank 18), amongst other globally acclaimed films.
Coming back to ‘Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam’, the film follows the story of a group of Malayali tourists who are on their way back to Kerala via a bus. Amongst the travellers is the film’s protagonist James (played by Mammootty), who stops the bus in a Tamil Nadu village, enters a seemingly random house and mysteriously begins to behave like a native Tamilian. The whole weird incident confuses his fellow travellers. It has been directed by Lijo Jose Pellissery of ‘Angamaly Diaries’ and ‘Jallikattu’ fame.
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