Malayalam filmmakers aren’t just pushing the boundaries of genre cinema in India, they’ve evolved to a stage where they can confidently toy with tropes. In Aattam a framework of murder mysteries, director Anand Ekarshi made something like a magic by unraveling the expectations that they come attached with. Ekarshi performed clearly an act of cinematic misdirection, making popular that Aattam wasn’t a mystery at all, but a sharp satire of patriarchy. Recently in Rekhachithram, director Jofin T Chacko observes the doctrines of police procedurals, pays due respect to them, and then sends the movie down an altogether unexpected path in the final 30 minutes.
Entire story of Rekhachiyram is a story of survival of inherently exploitative women. Most of the movies in the past projected women as a toy of men but Rekhachitram created a new view into the matter.
