Critic’s Rating: 3.5/5
Review: Ajayante Randam Moshanam is a visual spectacle, through and through. Amidst this, the Tovino vehicle – where he plays the central character in different eras – keeps audiences engaged with myth, fantasy, nostalgia and, not to miss, caste politics.
The film is split into three time periods, starting with 1900, and linked by an vilakku (idol with lamps), made by the Edakkal king with a ‘celestial stone’. Tovino, in his first avatar as kalari master Kunjikelu, saves the king’s land from a foreign invasion, and in return for his help, he asks for the vilakku, which presents to his village.
The vilakku, established in a shrine at the spot where the stone originally fell, becomes the pride and treasure of Cheyothikavu village. But before he dies suddenly from smallpox, Kunjikelu learns a bitter secret.
The story then moves between the 1950s and 1990s, from Maniyan, a fearsome and fearless thief hated by the village, and in the later period to his grandson, Ajayan, who lives in the shadow of this ancestor’s bad reputation. Ajayan, an electrician, faces taunts from the villagers for his lineage and for a small theft he committed as a child, but continues a secret, childhood romance with Lakshmi, daughter of a village elder. Interestingly, Ajayan also has the kalari expertise of his ancestor Kunjikelu.
When Sudev Varma, from the Edakkal royalty, comes to Cheyothikavu to film the temple festivities and see the Cheyothikavu Vilakku when the shrine doors are open once annually, we realise he is up to something. He traps Ajayan, already under suspicion by villagers for robberies around Cheyothikavu, and ropes him in to get him the vilakku which Sudev wants to sell to foreign bidders.
We are going to allude only vaguely to the story so as to not to give away spoilers: Maniyan had once stolen the vilakku and Sudev feels Ajayan can retrace his grandfather’s steps. In the hope of saving his reputation, Ajayan starts his search for the vilakku, aided by the stories of Maniyan he heard from his grandmother while growing up.
The script, by Sujith Nambiar, is interesting enough and translated well onto a broad canvas by debut director Jithin Laal. The various time periods are well captured, with special credit to the art directors. Maniyan is definitely the most interesting of the three central characters, perhaps because the characters, like Maniyan’s wife (Surabhi Lakshmi) and a blacksmith (Jagadeesh) and emotions around him are etched well.
Tovino is definitely most striking in this role; he looks wild, but handsome and plays the role with charisma. In fact, though he carries off all the three very different looks very well, he falls short as Ajayan, an emotional and sensitive man of the 90s. The romance with Lakshmi (Krithi Shetty) seems to have been more focused on caste issues, which is done in an interesting manner, but the emotions of a young couple’s forbidden love feels a bit cliched.
Dhibu Ninan Thomas’s music amps up the mood of the story, particularly in its several exciting parts, but feels overwhelming at some points. Jomon T John’s camera captures the rustic beauty of old northern Kerala and the magic moments beautifully.
At some points in the latter bits of the second half, it feels like the script could have been tightened and the film would have benefited enormously from that. Ajayante Randam Moshanam could be like another one of those impressive films that have come out of the Malayalam industry – which is currently ailing from several issues driven by the Hema Committee report – but does it have that emotional hook to pull in audiences is a question that we will have to wait and watch out for.