Jallikattu Review

Lio has done and creates chaotic situations earlier in his films like Ee.Ma.Yau. and made some unconventional films having a wild & freaky storyline.

It is hauntingly scary, how human turns into an animal for the flesh, for their desires and beliefs, for pride to disown others.

There were two main characters in the film, the Buffalo and the Crowd. The storyline was way simple and dense as it needed to be. The slaughter Kalan Varkey, whom the entire village relies on for the fresh meat, kill buffalo by hitting the hammer on its head and slit it down to death, gone haywire one day, when they're ready to kill it but somehow manages to escape unhurt and runs amok.

There an announcement making by authorities to be aware, be safe and alert of amok Buffalo.

All the villagers of various communities try to catch the Buffalo. The number of people chasing was really something new and surprisingly outrageous.

How people are thirsty for blood, a helpless buffalo running away to save its life, wants to kill and eat it's flesh ..

The direction and camera movements were feral and Shackingly raw.

I never experienced something like this before. As a vegetarian, it's hard for me to watch the scenes where they slit every part of the buffalo and pack in polythene and sell it like there's no guilt of killing an innocent inarticulate creature just for food and taste. 

Some extra liver for you ..

And it was necessary to show how wild was the work is and the people who did it.
At the climax, it goes wilder and even harder. People try to kill each other barely or with whatever tools they have to eat or get Buffalo's flesh. They make a mountain of humans killed and slitting each other to get the flesh. It's radge and heinous. 

Lijo wants us to convey that we live in a chaotic world and inhumane is the thing we all have and one day it came out of us (unintentionally) which shows the future - Human Cannibalism.

They shot it extremely which reminiscence the Brazilian crime film which also shot this ferociously with igniting cinematography was the City of God. 

It's brutally engaging and always in a chaotic mode, running and hunting the amok Buffalo but I would say not amok Buffalo but an amok and crazy people behind an innocent, forlorn Buffalo. One thing for sure it keeps you hooked throughout the film. By the end, I was praying for the Buffalo to remain unhurt but what turns out was atrocious.

The major highlight of the film is DOP (by Girish Gangadharan) & it's horrendous background scores (by Prashant Pillai) which continuously Hauntingly complimenting the scenes to enrich the visual experience of the inhumane behavior or how wild and barbaric human can be. Every sound they put from small beating sounds or grunts of Buffalo, to chanting slogans provides a frenzied experience.

There were too many long shots, running behind the crowd, chasing the bull or can say cameraman hounds the people chasing Buffalo. It looks distinctively clear how the camera moves behind them then behind the Buffalo and then revolves again towards crowd. Too many chasing shots where Buffalo tries to find a way.

It's a shame I didn't watch his previous work but Ee.Ma.Yau. and Angamal Dairies are on my watchlist now.