If you look at movies like Blade Runner, Blade Runner 2049, or something like Elysium, those aren’t movies that try to lure the audience by presenting visuals of the future. The idea is to delve deeply into such a dystopian future and create a drama that feels authentic for that time. Krishand’s new film, his first major theater release, Masthishka Maranam, is a dystopian satire that deals with the idea of memories in a distant future where even the unquantifiable could get commodified. The topic is an extremely complex one that can lead to many moral and ethical debates. But Krishand uses humor as a tool to address it, and what you get is a crazy and funny film that feels genuinely fresh.
So the story happens in 2046, and Kochi is now Neo Kochi. The rise in water level has limited the residential spaces, and the economic divide is very evident. Our main man, Bimal, is dealing with the loss of his daughter. He plays virtual reality games that use the memories of real people to experience a near-death experience. During this struggle to move on from this trauma, Bimal uses a certain memory for pleasure, but instead of pleasure, it takes him to a different space, and what we see here is the repercussions of that decision.
Back in 2024, we saw Gaganachari cracking this cyberpunk genre in Malayalam, and Krishand had served as an executive producer in that movie. If you ask me whether you should watch Masthishka Maranam, I would say if you found Gaganachari exciting or interesting, then this Rajisha starrer would definitely entertain you. If you check Krishand’s interviews and stuff, we can see that he is someone who is very meticulous about the visual design of things. Since the movie is set in the future, there are several minute elements in the visual design that need to be taken care of, and I felt the movie did a remarkable job in that, considering the fact that it is not a tentpole film that flaunts its budget.
I feel the release of this movie has happened at the right time. We are at a phase where traditional companies are crashing due to the AI boom. With Seedance 2.0 delivering ultra-realistic visuals, everyone is kind of uncertain about the future. At this point, we might be only using it to remove stuff from a photo or create an image or video. But the future implications of technologies of this magnitude can be very problematic. Masthishka Maranam is not dealing with ideas that are alien to us in the present. It talks about a scenario where people would clinically remove memories to avoid grief, and it talks about a scenario where the consumption of porn would make life difficult for the person who is being objectified without their consent. In a future where communications could happen largely through VR headsets, the idea of an “eye” witness and their credibility will become a very sensitive topic.
From mental health, media ethics, to legal repercussions, there is a wide variety of topics that are mentioned in the movie. Since all of them have this debatable nature, Krishand isn’t pushing it to the zone of an “issue-based” film. If you look at the way some of the scenes are staged, you can almost call it a Priyadarshan movie set in 2046. There are so many hilarious scenes in the movie that satirically mock the human nature that hasn’t evolved even in 2046. Krishand basically wants to show that everything has a pattern and it will repeat with the help of technological enhancement.
One thing that was impressive about the making of the movie was how they smartly built the backdrop. Most of the sequences happen in interiors where things can be controlled, and whenever they show an exterior, they make these smart tweaks in wide shots to give it authenticity. Like conversation bits would have less depth of field, which would blur the backdrop. There is even a scene where a luxury metro train has the ad of Kudumbasree in a modern font, and such tweaks reminded me of Gaganachari. The movie wants to have an absurd tone to an extent, and the neon-lights-heavy visual style, along with costumes of characters with punchy colors, really help the movie communicate its pitch to the audience.
Varkey’s songs are extremely entertaining, and I loved that scene where Bimal’s housekeeper AI creates a sad version of the Ormakal song from this movie’s album. With several intercuts intended to keep us invested in the fast-paced narrative of the movie, one can see Krishand rewriting the film in the editor’s table. The only area I felt a sense of drop in the energy was towards the end during the trial, where the need to mock the media culture forces the movie to be on the louder side. However, the minimal counter dialogue humor is keeping us entertained, and what happens at the very end is making us look at all this in a different light.
Niranj Maniyanpilla Raju is the one who is playing the role of Bimal in this movie. It is a character that is in his safe zone to a large extent, and it also pushes him occasionally to deliver some emotional bits. Rajisha Vijayan plays the most integral character in the movie, that of a highly objectified actress who has a lot of fans simply because of the way she looks. And that justifies her decision to do that Komala Thamara song in this movie. The way her character Frida Soman switches from being this nice person to the rude one who folds her gown like a dhoti or points a gun at someone is hilarious and impactful. Jagadish, as the police head (GDP), was really funny. Ann Saleem played the part of Bimal’s wife neatly on screen.
Suresh Krishna was a hilarious addition to the cast, and they have used his convincing star label to create some meta humor. Divya Prabha was fine as the clueless advocate of Frida. I loved the arrogant confidence of the lawyer character played by Vishnu Agasthya. Krishand has this way of giving Rahul Rajagopal characters that we will never associate with him because of his obvious physicality. And this time too, Rahul gets one such character, and he pulled it off with ease. Shambhu, as the police officer, was fun to watch. From Sanju Sivram, Sreenath Babu, and Zhinz Shan to a photo of Prashant Alexander, almost everyone we have seen in a Krishand creation is part of this movie in some way.
Masthishka Maranam, in many ways, feels like the most uncomplicated take on the very complicated future where the abundance of technology would redefine the way we look at many things. The treatment of the movie is rooted in humor, and you would find yourself laughing at all those situations through which our characters are going. However, the slightly unsettling, ambiguous ending of the movie would push you to think about the darker side of this plausible future.
