And in a running gag, the old Tamil movies playing on a blind woman’s T.V. James’s newly bereft wife and Sundaram’s long-bereft one develop an unspoken bond, rooted in an understanding of patriarchy’s universal grasp. The visitors and the villagers fumble through linguistic mix-ups, their tongues similar yet different. Is James pretending, ill, or is there some cosmic magic afoot? “Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam” never fully resolves its mysteries, instead using them as a window into the little things that make us familiar and strange to one another. His troupe, whom he no longer recognizes, chases him in chagrin the villagers watch in amazement as he walks around nonchalantly, fluent in Tamil and in the intimate goings-on of the town. He awakens from a nap, stops the bus and calmly walks into the nearby village, believing he is Sundaram, the long-missing patriarch of a local family. The curmudgeonly James (Mammootty), who hails from the South Indian state of Kerala, is on a pilgrimage through the neighboring state of Tamil Nadu with a large group of relatives and friends when the miracle happens. The new film by Lijo Jose Pellissery - the director of genre-bending gems like “ Angamaly Diaries” and “ Jallikattu” - is a quotidian slice of Kafka: a gentle, keenly observed comedy in which a man wakes up after some slumber not as a different creature, but simply as another man, with another name, family and memories.
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