‘Such confidence, impossible storytelling’: Anurag Kashyap lauds Manjummel Boys

Actor-director Anurag Kashyap is all praise for Malayalam cinema and its latest blockbuster Manjummel Boys, a survival thriller directed by Chidambaram S Poduval. Leaving a review for the film on the film diary app Letterboxd, he wrote, “Simply extraordinary piece of confident mainstream filmmaking. So much better than all the big-budget filmmaking in India. Such confidence, such impossible storytelling.” In a second review, he went on to praise the camerawork, editing, performances, and “conviction of the filmmakers.”

Tamil filmmaker Venkat Prabhu had also recently praised Manjummel Boys, sharing his pride that the film became a huge hit at the Tamil Nadu box office. The film resonated strongly with the Tamil audience, especially its use of the song ‘Kanmani anbodu’ from the Kamal Haasan film Gunaa (1991). “It makes me proud that we are celebrating Manjummel Boys. These days films mostly stick to routine hero-heroine stories. But today, a film centered around a group of boys and doesn’t even have a heroine is running more successfully than our Tamil films. It proves that language is not a barrier for Tamil audiences to appreciate good stories,” he said.

Anurag also lauded the Malayalam film industry for encouraging different ideas and consecutively delivering three “brilliant” films. “I was wondering how does one even sell this idea (of Manjummel Boys) to a producer. In Hindi they can only do remakes of such ideas. Hindi cinema is so far left behind with three back to back brilliant Malayalam films,” the Gangs of Wasseypur director wrote on Letterboxd.

Three Malayalam films of starkly different genres are having a dream run in theatres of Kerala and beyond, receiving critical acclaim and audience appreciation alike. Besides Manjummel Boys, Rahul Sadasivan’s horror thriller Bramayugam and Girish AD’s romantic comedy Premalu are being credited for “bringing audiences back to theatres,” having been released just a week apart in February. While Bramayugam features veteran Malayalam actor Mammootty in the lead, Premalu stars young actors Naslen and Mamitha Baiju. Manjummel Boys features an ensemble cast of Soubin Shahir, Sreenath Bhasi, Jean Paul Lal, Ganapathi, and director Khalid Rahman among others.