Eko and Kishkindha Kaandam cinematographer-writer Bahul Ramesh on his success with Malayalam mystery thrillers

At the centre of Eko is Mlaathi Chedathi (Biana Momin), an elderly woman living alone atop a hill in Kaattukunnu in Kerala’s Wayanad; her home guarded by a pack of dogs. Her husband, Kuriachan (Saurabh Sachdeva), a dog trainer, has been missing for years. The police have been searching for him. Everyone believes Mlaathi knows something. Kuriachan himself never fully appears but he exists through testimonies and memories refracted through others.
Into this tense ecosystem arrives Peeyoos (Sandeep Pradeep), hired by Mlaathi’s children to look after her. She seems fond of him. But she does not trust him.

A still from Eko.

Bahul explores the central question — what separates safety from captivity — through Mlaathi. Born Soyi in Malaysia, she once lived surrounded by her former husband Yosiah’s trained dogs. They were meant to keep her safe but also ensured she could never leave. Trained to obey one master alone, they turn from guardians to jailers. Kuriachan kills them, “freeing” and subsequently bringing Mlaathi to Kerala, where she again finds herself surrounded by dogs.

The origins of Mlaathi’s character traces back to Bahul encounter, as a child, with a Malaysian woman who spoke fluent Malayalam. “For my young mind, the idea seemed impossible. My father explained that many Malayalis at the time migrated to Malaysia, and that she had married into a Keralite family and learnt to speak the Payyanur slang fluently.” Bahul was fascinated that someone could feel both familiar and yet belong to a faraway land.

Years later, while writing a scene in which a doctor meets an elderly woman, the memory resurfaced. “As I tried to capture the mood of the moment, I began describing her almost instinctively — a woman with narrow eyes, carrying a subtle Southeast Asian resemblance. The details flowed naturally but they also felt meaningful. A Southeast Asian woman who had lived in Kerala for over 40 years,” he said.

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A native of Payyanur in Kerala’s Kannur district, cinema was never background noise in Bahul’s home. “Our family was full of cinephiles.” His father could recite Malayalam film dialogues from memory, which became impromptu lessons for him in dialogue-writing. In class IX, he declared he wanted to write and direct films and his parents never objected. “Growing up in a film-loving family had a profound impact on my career aspirations. The visuals of Malayalam classics such as Adwaitham, Mithunam and Chinthavishtayaya Shyamala captured by cinematographer S Kumar sir took my fascination to another level,” says Bahul, who decided to pursue cinematography in his final year of BSc in Visual Communication at Asan Memorial College.

A Masters in Cinematography from LV Prasad Film & TV Academy, Chennai, followed.“Being a cinematographer helps me convey the contents in the intended pitch or sensibility. The awareness of technical limitations and possibilities of shooting particular sequences influence me to write accordingly,” adds Bahul, who drafts scripts with production logic embedded — minimum coverage for a half-day shoot considered, locations chosen to justify logistics before cameras roll.

On set too, the dual role is an advantage. Because he wrote the emotional peaks, he knows when to move the camera closer. He says, “While working as a cinematographer on my own scripts, I never chase perfect frames or ‘beautiful’ shots. The focus is always on capturing the story in the exact pitch as intended while writing.”

He explains how shooting largely with handheld cameras gives him the flexibility to move around freely, without restricting the movements of the actors. “Sometimes, I used to give them prompts while the shot was rolling, asking them to move or say a line differently. That created a feeling that everything was unfolding in real time… many of the fight sequences were shot that way,” he says.

Eko is Bahul’s third collaboration with director Dinjith Ayyathan after Kakshi: Amminippilla (2019) and Kishkindha Kaandam. “The biggest benefit of working with him is the freedom. He lets others do their job, expecting to get their best contributions,” he says.

For now, Bahul is on a break. He wants to read again, hoping it will refill the well he draws from instinctively.