DharmaKuthanur

Author’s note: This essay about a movie is filled with spoilers. My rationale for this is the following: first, this movie was released a couple of years back; second, this is not a movie driven by a plot or storyline. Revealing the story doesn’t take much away from what it has to offer the viewer.

“Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam” (meaning an afternoon nap) is a 2022 Malayali film starring Mammootty and directed by Lijo Jose Pelissery, a director who never ceases to surprise and amaze. While nominally categorized as a Malayalam movie, about half of the movie features dialogues in Tamil. Mammootty plays James, the leader of a Kerala Christian tour group on a pilgrimage to Velankanni in Tamil Nadu. The group includes James’ family (wife and son) along with a motley crew of extended family and friends from the same town in Kerala.

The group travels in a vintage 80s tour bus with a small TV and video player playing old movies and film songs. The early scenes establish James as an irascible middle-aged man prone to outbursts of anger and irritation but also a devoted husband and father. He has no time for the idle chatter and alcohol-fueled camaraderie of his fellow male pilgrims. And he drips with barely disguised contempt for all things Tamilian – the people, movies, music and food. He can’t wait to get back to his home in Kerala.

On the way back, when the rest of the tour group is enjoying a post-lunch siesta, James asks the driver to stop by the side of a village. He gets out, starts walking into and through the sleepy village as if he has lived there his whole life, walks into a small home, changes into a lungi and t-shirt, hangs his clothes on the clothes line, goes into the kitchen, starts feeding himself with what’s there, while complaining to the woman of the house about the food – and all of this in fluent Tamil. Besides the woman, there is an old man in the house and an old woman, who is blind but fully immersed “watching” old Tamil movies on the TV.  

Now, this is when you would expect the members of the household to erupt in anger and horror to drive the intruder out of their home. But that doesn’t happen. They just watch and absorb the scene in stunned silence. Why? The reason for this is slowly revealed over the next few scenes. We learn that the man of the house, named Sundaram, left the house a couple of years back and never returned. No one knows what happened to him and whether he is even alive or dead. The members of the household are in this state of perpetual mourning. And into this scene walks James now behaving and talking like he is Sundaram. It’s almost like he has transformed into being Sundaram after his afternoon nap.

The fellow travelers including James’ wife and son soon wake up and make their way into the village in search of James. And as they walk in, they make condescending remarks about the village folk and how these Tamilian villagers can’t be trusted. Slowly they track down James and the house he has barged into. But James does not recognize them and wonders who these people are. Over the course of the rest of the day and the following morning, James (now Sundaram) goes about with the daily activities that Sundaram used to do before he disappeared – going to the market, stopping at the local tea shop, milking the cow, delivering milk (which he is forced to throw away since no one is ready to accept milk from this stranger), getting a shave from the local barber, etc. James gets an inkling of something not being quite right since no one seems to recognize him and he encounters puzzling gaps in his memory (like not knowing that the old barber had passed away a few months back). After these strange encounters, he comes home feeling tired and a little exhausted and sits down for lunch with the old man. He then takes a nap and wakes up and magically he is back to being James. He nods to his wife who is waiting in the next house, tormented and shaken by this episode, and starts walking back to the bus with his family and friends as if nothing happened.

What I glossed over in this quick retelling is the drama and emotions of the people surrounding James/Sundaram and how they react to this strange turn of events. The more educated and urban Christian pilgrims are full of condescension and contempt for the villagers and are in a hurry to get out of there. On the contrary, the simple village folk don’t rush to judgement and react with grace to this strange intruder in their midst – the members of the family who let James eat and sleep in their house, the village headman who urges calm and patience and to give James time to snap out of this strange transformation, Sundaram’s wife who sends across some food to the pilgrims resting in a neighbor’s house. In the middle of all this turmoil, Sundaram’s wife is curious about James’ wife and son, displaying an empathy that only a woman who suddenly lost her husband can show to another in the same plight. And in the center of all of this is James who makes an impassioned, dramatic speech about his attachment to the land when someone accuses him of being a stranger.

There are a couple of notable exceptions to how James is treated in his new avatar as Sundaram. The blind old woman (Sundaram’s mother) seems to completely accept him as Sundaram and behaves as if he just got back home from another day of work out and about in the village. The other one is Sundaram’s dog. Perhaps we are to infer that the blind old lady and the dog are able to see past physical appearances and recognize Sundaram’s spirit that mysteriously seems to have ensconced itself within James.

As James wakes up from his afternoon nap and goes back to being James, the drama concludes with powerful and poignant but understated emotion. The old lady, “watching” an old movie on the TV as always, weeps silently. Is she crying because she is losing her son Sundaram again or is she reacting to a scene in the movie? Sundaram’s wife nods silently to James’ wife who brings her arms together in gratitude. No words are spoken but so much is said in that glance between the two women – one who is still mourning for her missing husband, the other who lost her husband fleetingly and is now getting him back. And Sundaram’s dog is sad to lose his master yet again and chases after the pilgrims’ bus as it leaves the village.

Besides all the aforementioned human drama, what makes this movie special? For starters, the standout direction and cinematography delivering beautiful visuals capturing life in the village, scenes that are like still life renaissance paintings. The brilliant acting of Mammootty (continuing to explore new frontiers at the age of 72) and the supporting cast. The unusual and innovative background soundtrack which mostly features dialogues and music from old Tamil movies (including some memorable lines from Sivaji’s “Gauravam”). The subtle way in which it subverts preconceived, class-based notions of people and communities. The way it provides a meditative study on how people react to unexpected situations.

No explanation is offered for what transpired with James. Nor is one needed. In spite of that, or perhaps because of that, it leaves the viewer with a lot to think about and savor from the experience. And watching this movie is truly an experience in every sense of the word. At the start of the movie when James stops to get something from a little shop, we see this quote from the Tamil classic “Thirukkural” which means “Death is sinking into slumbers deep, birth again is waking out of sleep”. Every awakening is a new birth, every birth is a new awakening. I guess that’s the closest the director comes to offering a hint of an explanation.