Lijo Jose Pellissery: Director’s Special

When Lijo Jose Pelliss­ery—the Malayali film director whose latest movie is the Mohanlal-starrer Malaikottai Vaaliban—was in Class 7, he watched the late filmmaker KG George’s Adaminte Variyellu (Adam’s Rib). That was a time when all that Pellissery enjoyed were movies with their unfettered violence, dance num­bers and larger-than-life characters. For instance, Sholay and Shaan were among his favourites. Which explains why he felt “impatient” watching a movie often characterised as an ‘arthouse flick’.

But unlike most other movies he had watched, images from this one haunted him—and it surprised him. “There was something different about it and its memories stayed with me,” says Pellissery about watching serious movies, especially those by the likes of George, a Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) alumnus, who is widely admired for his on-screen clarity.

Pellissery has synthesised such les­sons to his advantage. Oxford University-educated Santhy Balachandran, an actor who played a memorable role in Pellissery’s 2019 movie Jallikattu, looks up to the 45-year-old Kerala director for a variety of his skills, which, she says, includes “presenting chaos in elaborate, beautifully choreographed set pieces.” What struck her the most while working with him, recalls Balachandran, is that there is a method to the madness. “He has immense clarity about what he wants to present on screen, and this is what guides his collaborators across departments, allowing them to experiment and push the envelope,” adds Balachandran, refer­ring to his abilities that critics say mirror KG George’s.

Malaikottai Vaaliban, which released on the eve of Republic Day, follows the fantastical adventure journey of an un­disputed warrior known for his heroics and strength and who is in pursuit of a worthy challenger. Mohanlal plays a dual role and the cast includes Danish Sait, Sonalee Kulkarni, Hareesh Peradi, among others. As is the case with quintessential Pellissery films that celebrate non-linear storytelling, this one too transcends time and geogra­phies and at least a few of its dialogues are likely to become part of film folklore.

Pellissery has over the years earned a name for himself not only in Kerala but beyond, thanks to his pace, passion and experimentalism, including casting untrained actors. He has in the process acquired a reputation, especially in the world of over-the-top (OTT) viewers. He isn’t Rainer Werner Fassbinder yet—the post-war German director known for his breathtaking speed in making movies, often low-budget ones—but Pellissery has left an impact regardless. He shot the 2021 film Churuli in 19 days and Ee. Ma. Yau. (2018) in 20 days. Compared to other big-budget movies, his latest one, Malai­kottai Vaaliban, was completed faster than expected although he received criticism from YouTube film influencers who wield tremendous clout in Kerala—a section of them complained that, unlike in his typical movies, perhaps Pellissery didn’t give enough emphasis to the script this time around, an accusation many others dismiss. Such negative reviews forced people to either cancel tickets or shun the movie, and this was followed by heated exchanges between those who opposed and supported the movie, both online and offline. After remain­ing silent for days, Pellissery said that he regretted that a section of people treated his latest work as avoidable.

As for the use of untrained players in his movies, one of his masterpieces, Angamaly Diaries (2017), stands out. In it, Pellissery cast more than 80 new actors. Even more novices were cast in Jallikattu, although not in major roles. These films brought to the fore his ease with manag­ing crowds, the way some of his heroes had done, among them the late director IV Sasi who had a great knack for han­dling large crowds in films.

Pellissery discloses how he does it, “We (directors) have advantages when it comes to an experienced actor. But then if you approach an actor exclusively as a character, there isn’t much of a differ­ence between the experienced and the inexperienced. I don’t make new actors feel the tension or make them feel they are facing a tough task. I just make them feel this is just another day for them. I try to make them feel comfort­able and that they are included in the setting. That works.”

Clearly, Angamaly Diaries, his 2017 film, is the highpoint on that count. Set in the town of Angamaly, not far from Pellissery’s birthplace, Chalakudy in Ernakulam district, the film centres on the lives of young and aggressive young locals who set up meat businesses and vie with one another. The protagonists strike up a truce, but matters go out of control with the entry of younger ones who feel used by their elders and bay for revenge in the most heinous fashion. Notably, some of these newcomers in this movie, especially the likes of Antony Varghese, went on to secure more film roles and acclaim.

Make no mistake: Pellissery is equally proficient at casting superstars. Besides Mohanlal and other A-listers in the Malayalam film industry, he has also worked with Mammootty. Interest­ingly, it isn’t chaos that you encounter in his remarkable Mammootty-starrer, a bilingual Tamil-Malayalam movie titled Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam (Mid-Day Slumber, 2022). Award-winning film critic and academic CS Venkiteswaran explains that the movie has a lot to do with the director’s post-Covid reflections on life. He considers it a watershed movie thanks to a series of factors, including the careful use of dialogues and music from Tamil movies that resonate with the situation in the film. The main character (played by Mammootty), a Malayali Christian returning to Kerala after visiting the Basilica of Our Lady of Good Health in Velankanni in Tamil Nadu, reaches a Tamil village on the way and behaves like a local named Sundaram who had gone missing years ago, much to the anguish of his family and the Tamil villagers. Venkiteswaran praises the artistry in such horizontal storytelling.

Meanwhile, artist Riyas Komu, who has closely followed the director states, “There is a deep-rooted conceptual storyteller in Lijo, which allows him to conceive a work at ease with a philoso­phy that there is nothing straight in this world but spiralling. He proves that ‘magic is real.’”

For Venkiteswaran, Pellissery’s movies are different and strikingly beautiful because of his ability to create a milieu instantly in a way he has not seen often in Indian cinema, as observed in Churuli; in finding the right people for his strange, yet real settings; and his dexterity in building a narrative and bringing up in time a crucial incident from where things spiral out of control. That “incident” can be a murder (as in Angamaly Diaries) or a sudden entry into a lawless terrain (as in Churuli).

A few critics describe all this as the ‘LJP’ (short for Lijo Jose Pellissery) touch. About his craft and his unconventional approach to filmmaking, he tells Open, “I see a film director as a designer of his vision. It is inside of you, and you design it in such a way to give expression to your vision. Which means you are completely responsible for that vision. In a sense, it can be compared to how an engineer would make a blueprint for a building.” The director elaborates, “Each and every person in the crew and cast contributes to that goal. But I believe that cinema is a director’s art because the idea of the whole output is designed to come from a single person. For a director, it is important that whoever is part of the team must completely be in sync with his vision for his creation to be fruitful. Too many cooks spoil the broth.”

That doesn’t mean he is rigid. No way, says Pellissery, emphasising that change is an eternal process of his craft. “If an actor gives a good solution to a particular scene, or says that he or she is more comfortable with a particu­lar word, unless and until that word completely changes the context, I will go happily with that suggestion,” says the filmmaker who made his debut in 2010. Jallikattu premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, and in 2020 it was selected as India’s official entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 93rd Academy Awards.

Pellissery’s grandfather was a Tamil­ian who came to Chalakudy in Kerala as a technician for a British bulldozer company. He fell in love with the land and married and settled there. While Pellissery’s grandmother was a great narrator of stories, Pellissery remembers that his grandfather was a lover of films and he would watch films with him.

His departed father Jose Pellissery was a well-known theatre personality and a film actor. “My first memory is of a drama company my father was part of and which was headed by the late veteran Malayali actor Thilakan; the late director AK Lohithadas was a part of it,” he says, adding that as a teen he had travelled with the drama company dur­ing vacations. “It was like living a surreal dream,” he says.

However, his parents did not ap­prove of him taking a plunge into mov­ies after he finished school—which was what the young Pellissery wanted to do. So, he completed his undergraduate studies and a master’s degree in busi­ness administration.

His desire to work in movies grew when he was in Bengaluru where he had access to film clubs and international movies. After finishing his MBA, he wanted to join the film world, but his parents said that is not what MBA gradu­ates do—they join companies in high-paying positions. Such pressures forced him to work with advertising firms.

It was after his father’s premature demise in 2004 that he returned to Kerala and soon after decided to work in movies full time. While slogging as an assistant director, he took part in a direc­tor’s reality show, but he didn’t do well.

Looking back, Pellissery wants to express his deep gratitude to some of his neighbours, especially a Tulu family back home who introduced him to inter­national movies, including The Godfather series. Again, he treats music and art as crucial elements in his life. “For me, they are like food and shelter; it comes at the same level,” he says, adding that it is art that typically makes people compassion­ate and empathetic. “I would say art that makes people hate other people is defi­nitely not great art.”Santhy Balachandran states that Pellissery “has great taste in music and has very cool, eclectic playlists that span several genres”. Interestingly, the Kerala-born director confides that he isn’t overly worried about the sweeping changes in technology that includes ad­vances in generative AI. He says it makes sense to adapt to the changes and tap into the positives. “We played marbles as children. Can we force the kids of today to do the same?” he asks, laughing.

Asked about his future projects, Pellissery says that he has trained himself to keep his movie plans a secret. However, he would one day want to make a movie about his “escape” from home when he was in Class 9. He and a friend ran away, hoping to land in Goa, start a restaurant and then return 20- plus years later in a Mercedes-Benz car. “That was how we visualised it back then,” he recounts. But nothing came of it, and they were finally traced to a home in Thiruvananthapuram. “We realised upon reaching the railway sta­tion that there was only a weekly train to Goa and so we took a train to Thiru­vananthapuram where we stayed for four to five days,” says Pellissery.

“Someday I will make a movie based on that teenage experience,” says this gifted filmmaker who lists iconic American filmmaker Stanley Kubrick among the luminaries who have influ­enced him as an artist.

Angamaly DiariesChurulicinemajallikattuLijo Jose PellisseryMalaikottai VaalibanMalayalam cinema