Bramayugam (The Age of Madness), from the director of that brilliant indie-horror Bhoothakaalam, Rahul Sadasivan, is a masterful work of folk horror with some excellent performances. Shot entirely in monochrome black and white, it is another example of the creativity and storytelling prowess that Malayalam cinema is capable of on much smaller budgets than many other industries in the country. It is a horror fable which draws on the rich history of folklore that is endemic to the region and time the story is set in.

That time and region is sometime in the seventeenth century somewhere in South Travancore. Two lower caste men have escaped from the horrors of a slave market after upheaval in their kingdom and find themselves lost in thick forests with the impending terror of a yakshi in tow. Out of the horror of the night, Thevan (Arjun Asokan), finds himself in the compound of an old ancestral mana. He believes he has found sanctuary under the auspices of a suspiciously forward-thinking higher caste Kodumon Potty (Mammootty), when Potty takes a shine towards his singing and offers shelter, food and even allows him access to the front steps of the house, something unheard of in his time. For Thevan is a Paanan, a lower caste singer forced to ply his trade for the frivolous entertainment of his higher caste overlords, and for him this overlord seems too good a gift from God. Which proves to be prophetic. As the perpetually disgruntled and caustic cook (Siddharth Bharathan), knows all too well, Potty and the mana have a convoluted and gruesome history and Thevan may have just walked into an even worse nightmare than the one he escaped from. As a game of dice takes ominous importance and as the rain pounds unceasingly on whim outside, Thevan has to team up with the perhaps unreliable cook to figure out the secret to Potty’s power and bring him down if he has any hope of making his way across the river and home to a mother waiting for him.

In a nutshell, that is what the story is about. But the filming of this is done with such flair and depth that it becomes many things more. At times an intense mood piece, like the director’s smaller previous film Bhoothakaalam, it comes alive in the technical departments. The black and white photography is a brave and striking visual choice that pays off handsomely. The house itself is a character with the sounds, walls and pillars all coming alive, especially in Thevan’s fevered wanderings. The special effects for the supernatural elements when they come are convincingly done and the claustrophobia of both the mana as well as the forest outside is captured remarkably well. There is a social and political commentary underpinning the narrative of course, with the power equation between the higher caste Potty and the lower caste Paanan and the cook laying bare the sheer helplessness such a system imposes on the downtrodden, a theme which could still resonate unfortunately in today’s times.

As for the actors, almost the entire movie is centred on three characters. Arjun Asokan is basically the protagonist through who we watch the horror unfolding and he is an able performer, growing more with each film of his and coming into his own in a kind of power packed character he may have not done before. If I didn’t already know that Siddharth Bharathan was in the movie beforehand, I would have had trouble recognising him early on; such is the transformation in the actor, and even if we can attribute most of the shock effectiveness to great makeup or styling, the fact is that his performance too left the desired impact. Haunting, haunted, keeping his cards close to his chest, he is an unknowable entity for most of the film. I wish Amalda Liz as the yakshi was more in the film. In the brief sequences she sashays onto screen, she exudes a seductive power, grisly beauty and a truly fearful presence. But of course, it is the central performance of Mammootty that has everyone raving, and for good reason. The veteran superstar is brilliant, his visage twisting and scheming in a fierce performance of simmering evil, one that sets another benchmark in a career brimming with them. This is pure mastery from a thespian who never stops trying.

I believe that Bhoothakaalam is still the more haunting and purely scarier film, made even more majestic by the limited settings and budget. But this too is a film of grandeur that manages to shock and thrill us with its prowess and one that no film aficionado should miss.