Purusha Pretham movie review: Aavasavyuham director Krishand is back to amaze us once more

Set in 2017, before the pandemic outbreak and even before the devastating floods of 2018, the film opens with a scene showing civil police officer Dileep (Jagadish) enjoying a couple of drinks in a bar. He is chatting about various crooks with the bartenders. But, the conversation suddenly shifts to Chelanallur sub-inspector Sebastian, aka “Super” Sebastian (Prasanth Alexander). He is a “ruthless”, “righteous” cop whom the criminals “fear”.

The viewers, however, soon get to know the truth behind these tales and realise that, despite how he would like to be seen, he is not precisely like Bharathchandran IPS. Most of the anecdotes about him are his own (exaggerated) recountings of the actual occurrences, which reminds one of the running jokes on Army men that begin with “When I was in Dehradun…”

Purusha Pretham quickly switches its focus to the main plot as soon as a group of people spot a man’s corpse floating in a river and the onus of conducting an investigation falls on Chelanallur cops. They are shortly obliged to bury the body due to a shortage of space in the hospital mortuary. Meanwhile, a woman, Susanna (Darshana Rajendran), approaches the Chelanallur station expressing suspicion that the body might be of her missing husband. Because of all the difficulties involved with exhumation, SI Sebastian “confidently” informs Susanna that the body was not her husband’s. In a short while, the police realise that the body has “gone missing” and is no longer at the location where it was buried, making way for the beginning of a comedy of errors and a war between Susanna and Sebastian.

An absolute dark comedy roller coaster that will have the viewers in stitches, Purusha Pretham examines a wide range of topics and, at certain times, fuses genres, leaving the audiences in amazement. It frequently switches from being a procedural cop drama to an investigation thriller, a horror story, and a dark comedy, and the film keeps doing so without letting the transitions seem out of place. The movie also includes in the middle a love story between Sebastian and Sujatha (Devaki Rajendran), who becomes crucial to the plot at the end.

One of the major topics the film discusses is the staggering number of bodies that the police discover, which go unidentified in the end, and how those with vested interests attempt to pounce and stake claim on these bodies. Although the makers attest that it is a work of fiction, the superb way that director Krishand and editor Suhail Backer spliced in news articles that corroborate the topics the movie covers emphasises how grounded in reality Purusha Pretham is.

While the movie also focuses on how ostensibly heroic police officers really are and how they deftly avoid situations that might give them even the tiniest additional responsibilities, it also, in an indirect manner, depicts the appalling conditions in which police personnel work, including weeks or even months of slogging on a case.

On the other hand, the movie deftly addresses a number of sociopolitical issues, such as the attempts made by those in authority to dictate what people should eat and how some believe that only “certain” people should perform “works” like cleaning toilets and shouldering bodies, with the help of just one shot or a dialogue. It also mocks how someone may suddenly become “anonymous” if they lost their identification documents, particularly their Aadhar card.

The first appearance of Susanna occurs much over 44 minutes into the film’s total duration. Darshana here receives a tremendous star-like intro accompanied by a potent background score, in contrast to the intros women typically receive in Malayalam movies. The movie’s downside, however, is that despite its lengthy running duration of more than 150 minutes, Susanna’s character is not fully explored. As she has only little to do since the focus is almost entirely on SI Sebastian, Susanna turns out half-baked. Darshana nevertheless gives a solid performance with whatever she has.

Despite this, one of the movie’s main draws is the way the makers present scenes that evoke goosebumps. Purusha Pretham emphasises that “makers create ‘mass’ and not performers,” whilst many people associate the word ‘mass’ with actors, especially men.

The actors, including Prasanth Alexander, Darshana Rajendran, Jagadish, and Devaki Rajendran, as well as others who played supporting roles, take Ajith Haridas’ solid script based on Manu Thodupuzha’s profoundly thought-provoking story to a new level. And the excellent cinematography by director Krishand is like the icing on top.

The film gives off the impression that it is also a docufiction as it includes expert interviews at the end, in which they discuss the procedures that must be followed after discovering a corpse, how the lack of suitable land makes it difficult to bury these bodies, and how many unidentified bodies, unfortunately, belong to migrant workers.

Having said all of that, it must be emphasised how much more work streaming platforms and makers should put into making subtitles, particularly now that Malayalam movies are finally gaining large-scale global attention. The subtitles in Purusha Pretham detract from the viewing experience because it seems as though they were placed just for decorative purposes.