On January 25th, I saw Malaikottai Vaaliban. A Malayalam movie directed by Lijo Jose Pellissery. I don't speak, read or understand Malayalam. I went to the theatres depending entirely on subtitles, because I saw another movie of LJP, called Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam (2022), on Netflix(IN). It was a fascinating movie. I was mesmerized by the detail, the cinematography, the acting, and the story. Everything was so good and felt very rewarding. That was my introduction to LJP. Then, I saw Malaikottai Vaaliban's trailer and was very hyped for the release. I got my roommates to join me and we booked the tickets and sat down to watch the movie. I was enjoying the movie but then it switched on me. Broke my expectations (I know it was wrong of me to take my expectations to the movie instead of watching and trying to accept what's presented. I realize it adulterates the experience but I couldn't help it.) and broke them in a great way. Took me a while to take it all in but when I did, it felt great. I loved the film and want to watch it again.

What I actually want to talk about is the music of the film. The music of this film was extremely, unbelievably, minimalistic. For almost all the songs, if an instrument was used in the film, it could've been in the scene on some level. That to me was fascinating. Let me dive into a few of the songs in detail and what fascinated me about them.

Ezhimala Kottayile

The setting of this song is a stage performance. Rangapattinam Rangarani (played by the brilliant Sonalee Kulkarni) is dancing on the stage in a lavani dance performance and Vaaliban (played by Mohanlal) is watching from the audience. Since the song is part of a Lavani dance performance, it has the instruments that would be on the stage in such a scenario. Like a tabla and a harmonium. I thought I heard something string instrument-ish but not sure. That is all the instruments! Even the mixing of the song was fascinating to me.

The mix felt like the listener was assigned the position of an audience member in the crowd watching that performance. There is a reverb in the vocals. A reverb I would expect when watching a stage performance. The background vocals of other performances on the stage, when they came in, weren't upfront with the lead vocals but weren't as back in the mix as usual either. The performers doing the background vocals would come a little front during the chorus, so their vocals are appropriately mixed. Or appropriately distanced from the lead vocals. The instruments too, don't take the usual amount of space. They too, are appropriately distanced from the lead vocals, but present. The vocals were understood to be the priority in almost all the songs. Everything else was a bit distanced. By distancing the instruments and putting the vocals upfront, the listener is distanced from the stage in the scene setting. And by distancing the audience from the stage, the song pulls you into the movie. Truly fascinating.

Raakk

This too is a fascinating song. This song exclusively contains percussion, which alone is mind-blowing. To blow me away further, almost 95% of that percussion is hamboning. Which the characters in the movie do during that song. Hamboning is a part of the song video. The idea of making an entire song with this less instruments, not worried about filling the audio and probably only caring about the accuracy of the scene and how that would make the audience feel, is very freeing for me. I have not got much to say about this song. In my eyes, its just an excellent and daring feat, executed perfectly and succeeded in taking me into the movie. I feel that way because I care a lot about filling the sound and try to add a lot of elements in until I am satisfied. I guess I could unlock this freedom if I too told a story. I should try that. Note to self, I guess.

Punnaara Kattile Poovanatthil

In this song, there is a harmonium throughout and a few bells in the beginning. THAT IS ALL. The entire song is carried out with one instrument and vocals. I have been listening to this song on loop since I saw the movie. It is my hello tune now. I don't understand all of the lyrics, but it's just so beautiful and dreamy to listen to and look at! I LOVE IT! The thought of using one or two instruments and still managing to make it filling is just fascinating to me. I've probably said that multiple times, but that's not enough. Whatever I write is not appreciation enough for what I have experienced and that makes me a bit sad.

Madhabhara Mizhiyoram

This and Punnaara Kattile Poovanatthil are the only songs that don't limit their instruments to their situations. Probably because they take place between couples, are dreamy and take place in their heads. The characters are just looking at each other in both situations and not singing. Whereas in the other songs, the song is being sung by the characters in the scene. Even though these songs are not limiting the instruments they use, there aren't many. They still are very minimalistic. I was able to feel the less is more thingy listening to this album. Less is absolutely more and it is fantastic to listen to. This song is very soft sounding on a whole and sinks into the night backdrop of the situation it plays in. I'm trying and I can't really think of replacement words for "fascinating". So yeah, this song too, is fascinating to me.

Shabnami

This song is just... fun! Even though the situation is a bit gloomy, the audience know that its going to be over. So it feels like we are given a break to have fun for 3 minutes. This song lifts all the limitations the previous songs have and the sound changes too. This song too is a performance so the mix is done appropriately again. But we are not in the audience, far from the stage this time. It feels like we are in the center of the performance because the character is in the center of the performance. We experience this song in perspective. Not the first time it's done in general, but probably the first time for a song. Either first time, or done very rarely. To me, it's great either way!

I am moved by how much thought probably went into each decision behind the music of this film. Truly amazes me. New found respect towards Lijo Jose Pellissery, Prashant Pillai, P. S. Rafeeque and everyone else involved. Thank you for making this movie, and a bigger thank you for making it the way you did. Hope to catch it on the big screen once again.