Mysskin | Building a World | Video Essay Script | Moving Images

Hi, my name is Kishor and this is MOVING IMAGES. Cinema is more than a story-telling medium. Every film is a reflection of the way the film-maker understands and sees the world around him. It is an exploration of what the film-maker feels as life’s most imperative questions and what he deems as a moral act. Cinema could also be an impression of real-life. An impression that makes reality and all its nuances make sense to the audience. But the best way to wield cinema is to use stories with personal drama and present them as a reflection of the reality. A fusion between the personal with the universal, and this is the perfect definition of Mysskin’s cinema.

The best thing that can be said about Mysskin’s works is that they leave a haunting impression with the audience. His films are a skewed, larger-than-life representation of our world, while simultaneously displaying the rawness of the human condition. Though his films are rife with motifs and tropes he is all too famous for, he uses the motifs to do something not many film-makers would dare to do, build a world.

The motifs in Mysskin’s cinema are a signature of his and are so unique that it essentially builds a world in only which his stories could happen. This world of his spawn stories of chilling proportion but still maintains an intimacy with the audience. In this episode, we are going to explore Mysskin’s world through what I consider his best work, Onnayum Aatukuttyum.

The Lore

What Mysskin tried to do in his previous films, and perfected in Onnayum, is build a surreal world. This kind of world-building is seen in most fantasy stories where the rules, characters, and lore are explained as the story moves forward, and from this perspective, Onnayum Aatukuttyum is indeed a fantasy fable. A dark, cynical fable that unfolds as a narration to a child and deals with Mysskins signature motif of morals and redemption. The fable is filled with characters that are exaggerated representations. We saw this in Anjathey with a kuruvi flapping its wings like a sparrow, and in Onnayum we see a wolf with a tail. The other characters get their traits from the respective animals they represent. Though this metaphor is a spelt out to the audience rather than being a subtle reference, it makes for an interesting and engaging narrative.

The Suspense

Mysskin’s cinema maintains the intimacy in this stylized narrative by demanding an investment from the audience through techniques that emphasize suspense. Mysskin regulates the information given to the audience through his framing, guiding the audiences’ eyes to where he wants us to see. Onnayum starts with a man running away from something, falling down and getting up to limp again, we then cut closer to see that he left behind a gun and a pool of blood. Mysskin immediately has us immersed in his world from the first scene. The story happens in a cynical and bleak world that has its own twisted dark humor. The atmosphere of Mysskin’s work stands from the suspense and its dark themes. One way Mysskin maintains this is by introducing a constant sense of dread. The wolves hunt and the innocent goats are never safe. This constant sense of dread is also seen in the cinematography where the scene builds on the anticipation. The audience is rarely given a closure and are only given pieces of information as the scene progresses. Mysskin’s scenes have a methodical camerawork with wide shots. The camera rarely moves, but when it does, it does so with a purpose that feels like the camera knows what is about to happen and is withholding that information from us. This kind of ominous camerawork keeps the audience seated even through long scenes. The wide shot and the length of the scene manages to leave a lasting impression in our minds while the suspense keeps us questioning the motives of the characters. Mysskin also controls the information by cutting away from a scene just before the action begins. The lack of knowledge forces the audience to fill the gaps with their imagination, which can be even more terrifying than reality. His unique framing, shot composition, and the way he blocks the characters are excellent tool he utilizes to tell a suspenseful story.

The Ending

Mysskin’s cinema is a journey into his mind, an exploration of a surreal world that questions our perspectives, keeps us in suspense, and even questions our vision of what is black and white, but the story has an ending rooted in a strong sense of morality. This ending may not reflect reality but it is what the audience needs to believe in. Maybe this is the most unrealistic and far-fetched trait of his world, but a trait that helps us explore ourselves too and keep us coming back for more. Until next time, this is Kishor signing off saying…