At about the halfway point of Rorschach, Luke Antony (Mammootty), who mostly converses in soliloquies, is pointed towards Dileep's wife Sujatha (portrayed by Asif Ali and Grace Antony, respectively). His predatory eyes slowly take stock of her. As Luke walks towards Sujatha with a calmness he is far from feeling, you can visualise him feverishly plotting in the various compartments of his psychotic brain.
In this psychological revenge drama (dir. Nissam Basheer), Luke is an NRI who comes to a village in Kerala with a well thought out revenge plan that he intends to execute with systematic precision, picking his victims with care. Over the course of the narrative, you are witness to his unravelling — like an onion, a layer at a time; but the layers are confounding, as they swing between madness, eeriness, kindness, ambiguity. For Mammootty, with a filmography that numbers over 400, Luke as a character offers enough to sink his teeth into. At the same time, it isn't that much of a challenge for an actor of Mammootty's stature. So what makes Luke intriguing are the nuances Mammootty brings: the subtle expressions, the impeccable voice control.
Luke doesn't flinch from showing his ugly side. There are various stretches where he is talking to a hallucinatory presence in the room, while parallelly trying to hold a conversation with the real person sitting next to him. Mammootty holds a masterclass there, as his eyes dart back and forth between reality and illusion, while softly and contemptuously teasing the latter with veiled verbal threats.
Unlike Luke, who is partially insane and blinded by vengeance against his wife's killers, Kuttan in Ratheena's Puzhu is a product of extreme bigotry and patriarchy. And it has manifested in all his relations, including his toxic relationship with his son and vicious hatred for his sister who eloped with a man from a lower caste. If Luke's vengeance can be rationalised, Kuttan's blinkered outlook leaves you cold. There are narrative holes in Puzhu, but Mammootty's smooth internalisation of the psyche of this unpleasant, abusive parent and bigot keeps us riveted. Take for instance his face in a scene where it flits between revulsion, regret, and love for his sister just before he smashes her skull.
If Kuttan and Luke are ostensibly grey characters, Michael in Bheeshma Parvam is the proverbial saviour, the messiah who keeps his mansion open for public grievances. When his older brother is deemed weak and incapable of reclaiming his family's honour after their father and eldest brother's untimely death, Michael takes over. He keeps the seething resentment of his nephews and brothers in check, and has his watchful eye on them all.
Michael follows the "eye for an eye" dictum and ruthlessly annihilates anyone, including his own kith and kin, who stands in his way. That he does it all under the guise of a vigilante, makes Michael a kind devil. Through this character, director Amal Neerad sets the stage for the merger of Mammootty the actor, and Mammootty the star. So you get those mass appeal set pieces where the camera eagerly frames his formidable aura and swag, and then you have those deft emotive bits where the actor in Mammootty flexes his craft.
From his non-2022 oeuvre, there's Raghavan in Munnariyippu (2014), jailed for double homicide. For a large part of the film, you can't help but be drawn towards this soft-spoken, sombre convict who drops simple life philosophies underscored with perceptiveness. Mammootty lets us buy into his artlessness with such conviction that his creepy volte-face towards the climax comes as a sucker punch. Again the actor completely dissolves into this unassuming character, perfecting the body language of someone who seemed to have made jail his home for years.
The actor's loudest antagonist dates to 2009, in Paleri Manikyam: Oru Pathirakolapathakathinte Katha in which one of his triple roles, Murikkum Kunnath Ahmed Haji is an irredeemable villain who treats those "below" him with contempt , sees women as sexual objects, and would go to any lengths to safeguard his power and money. Mammootty plays Haji with a deliberate passive-aggressiveness, using his voice tonality with such precision that he makes it easier for us to loathe him.
In sharp contrast, Vidheyan's Bhaskar Patelar is a feudal landlord, a Satan who kills at will, preys on unfortunate women, and has no ounce of humanity left in him. A role that won him his second National Award, Mammootty in this Adoor Gopalakrishnan film essays the villain with such finesse and gravitas that it should be included in every film school as a module for aspiring actors. Be it with his remarkable diction, where he delivers the Canara slang effortlessly, or his descent into a loathsome person blinded by his own senseless greed and desires — Mammootty is stunning.
At the age of 71 and on his 420th-or-so film, Mammootty continues to unveil fresh facets of his craft. There is so much left in his arsenal to delight viewers. What a huge mountain that is to conquer, for the actors who follow in Malayalam cinema.
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