‘KishKindha Kaandam’ movie review: A flawless screenplay drives this intriguing mystery drama

‘Layered’ is a term we throw around lazily to describe any screenplay that has just a little more depth than meets the eye. But where does one start, when describing a screenplay which gives of the impression of peeling an onion, layer by layer, only for us to end up with an orange? Do we start off with the sheer joy of marvelling at the ingenuity of the writing or about the pains of its three principal characters that slowly seep into us, and stay with us long after?

KishKindha Kaandam, directed by Dinjith Ayyathan, is marked by a steady flow of events, almost none of which take the familiar route. It all begins from a routine government order ahead of elections for firearms licence holders to deposit their weapons at the nearest police station. From a missing gun to a missing person to changing hues of relationships and intriguing revelations about its characters, the film slips seamlessly between genre boundaries, escaping any easy classification.

A quiet serenity marks the happenings when Ajayan (Asif Ali) begins life with his newly wed wife Aparna (Aparna Balamurali) at an old mansion bordering a forest, serenaded constantly by a gentle breeze and inhabited by monkeys. Ajayan’s father Appu Pillai (Vijayaraghavan), a retired army man, is the other occupant of the house, where every activity seems to be adjusted to the rhythms of the grumpy old man. Aparna gels into this situation unobtrusively, almost like a fly on the wall, but equally curious like us viewers about that which lies beneath the calm and the peculiar habits of the old man.

A still from ‘KishKindha Kaandam’ | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

In contemporary Malayalam cinema, we have had fascinating set ups, only for the screenplay to squander all efforts in the third act (like Asif’s Kooman). Here, screenwriter Bahul Ramesh achieves a near flawless pay off, worthy of the painfully created set up. Hardly any red herrings are thrown at us to mislead, but every other sequence is meant to add to our understanding of the characters or to give us something more to dwell upon. He also doubles up as the cinematographer, thus having the luxury of visually translating all that he imagined on the page, while editor Sooraj E.S. masters the smooth transitions. Mujeeb Majeed’s background score hits all the right moods.

Elevating the hard work in almost all the other departments are the heartfelt performances from the three central characters and some of the side characters, like those played by Jagadish and Ashokan. Vijayaraghavan internalises a character who is caught between the false pride of his heydays and the frailties of old age, while also burdened by secrets that are too much for any one person to carry. Asif Ali has got an interesting character arc that requires him to draw deep from his reserve of emotions, and he manages it exceedingly well. Aparna Balamurali pulls off a convincing act as a woman slowly blending into a situation which many might consider running away from.

In the end one is left wondering whether what we were witnessing was a struggle of memory against forgetting or that of forgetting against memory. The true sign of any timeless work of art is that hard-to-achieve space of uncertainty, which KishKindha Kaandam masterfully occupies. It would easily find a place among one of the best mystery-dramas Malayalam cinema has ever produced.

KishKindha Kaandam is currently running in theatres

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