Man comes with her female dog to Kerala-Karnataka border to attract living locally dogs and obtain rare dog breed. After that short prologue, gears of the story switch without resolution.
Somewhere deep into the forests of Western Ghats, old Malay lady—Mlaathi—lives with young man—Peeyoos—who serves as househelp hired by her family. Peeyoos is visited by man who investigates whereabouts of Mlaathi’s fugitive husband. That simply premise is as much as we really know from the first part the movie. The movie relies more on setting the tone and atmosphere than hurrying with the action and the story. Camera lingers on mountainous forests of Western Ghats, slow tempo of regular life activities of Peeyoos and Mlaathi and, significantly, pack of dogs that lives around Mlaathi’s house. That slow story progression and sparcity of the dialogue redirects thoughts to more contemplative mood. Even though in the first act of the movie it seems not a lot is actually happening, some tension constantly creeps and crumbs of intrigue are laid of for later resolution.
In the middle—and at the heart—of the movie we have narrated by Mlaathi’s story of how she has met her husband. It was during Second World War, at the times when India and Malaya had tighter cultural and economical-labour connections, both being parts of wider British empire. Kuriachan travels alongside his friend to Malaya looking for a rare breed of dogs, being breeder himself. He helps young Mlaathi (before she got to be called by that name), with help of his strong determination and breeder skills, when she is trapped in her own house. Her first Malay husband got missing and his dogs started to be aggresive towards her and others.
Afterwards the movie picks out various threads and spins them together in the last act. In this part we get some action and fights. It’s not like typical South Indian movie over the top action. It is visceral, brutal, often quite dirty and awkward. We could say animalistic, atavistic almost, which is reading that impose itself due to the movie’s focus on dogs, breeding and brutality of those particular trained dogs.
Last scene gives us twist that puts into different light what we thought we knew already throughout the last act, but fits well with what we saw. The whole movie seems to be infused with symbolism, but it never gets explicit, so it allows viewers to put their own interpretation. I myself not sure what to take away from the movie. Maybe part of the problem is that intended reading could be better apprehended by someone rooted in Kerala culture, but I have impression that even Malayalis could scratch their head over that. Whatever that is, even literal meaning of the movie can make an impact and stays longer.
It is not a movie for everyone. But if someone doesn’t mind slow pace and wants to see something with focus on dark mood and wilderness, it can good experience.