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Survival films have come to define Malayalam cinema in recent times with the mega success of Chidambaram’s Manjummel Boys (2024) and the long awaited Prithviraj Sukumaran starrer Aadujeevitham (2024), which is also expected to feature survival themes.
The genre itself is an ode to human frailty and the capacity for redemption, that lies at the centre of stories about people engulfed by their problems and finding out ways to get out, before its too late. Survival movies are cathartic experiences, akin to watching someone being put through the wringer, only to embrace a little part of themselves previously unknown to them at the end of the long, winding tunnel. Here are seven Malayalam films that you can give a shot.
Manjummel Boys has become a pop culture phenomena across industries over the last few weeks with its blockbuster success and unanimous critical acclaim. The survival drama, based on a real-life event that happened in the Guna Caves in the mid-2000s, redefined the way these kind of stories are approached in the mainstream. Chidambaram, in his sophomore directorial outing, crafts an ensemble drama about the efforts of a group of boys to rescue their friend, who has fallen into the infamously termed ‘Devils Kitchen’.
Manjummel Boys finds interesting ways to connect ideas of god, existentialism and the immortal power of certain friendships, within the trappings of a survival story. The film inverts the popular song Kanmani Anbodu from Kamal Haasan’s Guna and re-contextualizes its meaning in a new light, through a series of clever subversions. Majummel Boys uses the tropes of the sub-genre with some innovative touches and personal history that makes all the difference in the way we root for the on screen characters to make things right. By the end, the basic tenets of spirituality and belief systems are upended when an atheist becomes a proxy image of a god-like figure.
Streaming on: Disney +Hotstar
Mahesh Narayan reworks the central premise of Mani Ratnam’s Roja (1992), about a wife's attempts to rescue her husband from a political insurgent group, in a place foreign to her in Take Off. The film is set in Iraq in the height of the ISIS insurgency in the Middle East and follows the life of Sameera (Parvathy Thiruvothu), a pregnant nurse, who has to rescue her husband trapped as a hostage by the ISIS. Take Off upped its stakes by way of the leading pair's backstory. The couple have been going through marital issues due to Sameera’s firstborn son from an earlier marriage, who finds it hard to accept Shaheed (Kunchacko Boban), as his stepfather. This denial of recognition fuels the primary conflict in the story. Men do not get to save the world here but merely support the women in their attempts to break free and trust their instincts at surviving.
The film, based on a real life rescue operation of a group of nurses, spearheaded by an Indian Embassy Ambassador in Iraq at the time, tackled many of the geopolitical aspects of the war in Iraq and its impact on the Indian diaspora stuck there during the time. Take Off does not shy away from portraying the details of ISIS occupation of Mosul and Tikrit. Unlike other survival drama’s of ilk, we do not get chest thumping, moustache twirling terrorist ciphers, but the film is more interested in the machinations of how a terrorist occupation of this scale unfolds and its ideological minutia, leading to the loss of innocent lives. The film steers clear of overtly patronizing jingoism and sermons, and focuses on the human moments of weakness and strength, in the darkest of times.
Streaming on: Disney +Hotstar
No other title in the list has been as abused, by mere repetition and callbacks in popular culture when talking about survival films in general among Malayalees, as much as this Bharathan classic featuring Shamlee, Jayaram and Urvashi in the lead roles. Malootty is still considered as a benchmark in Malayalam cinema, in the way it straddles the horrors of a survival thriller with the emotional charge of a family melodrama. The film deals with the titular character, a five-year-old girl, who accidentally trips into a borewell, while out with her parents on a vacation. The soapy family dynamic of the film’s setup is instrumental as we get to see why the family needed some time away from the demanding grandmother. The dramatic irony in John Paul’s script lies in the way things ultimately pan out for them in their supposed ‘exile for freedom’ elsewhere.
This routine nature of the screenplay suggests yet another conventional drama about a husband trying to win some respect for his wife in the eyes of his unsparing mother, but we can't help but gasp at the way Bharathan upends our expectations the moment when the little girl falls into the borewell — a shocking turn of events considering the film’s narrative ambitions till that point of time. Malootty is revolutionary in the way it never treats the survival aspect of the story as not just a mere plot point, but more as a fulcrum for staging a seething thriller where anything can go wrong at any time. Bharathan and his cinematographer Venu capture the logistical nightmares and the claustrophobia of the little girl. We get to see the narrative take a turn for the worse only in the last forty-five minutes. Malootty stages the survival thriller with a keen eye, way ahead of its time and one cannot help but be captivated by Bharathan’s mastery of tone and formal control.
Streaming on: Amazon Prime Video
Malayankunju is the one film in the list, that cashes in on the immense value of a survival story as a metaphorical device, meant to make a bigger point about the character that is put through the ordeal. The film, written by Mahesh Narayanan, follows a selfish, hateful electronics mechanic whose worldview is turned upside down through the whirlwind experience of a landslide that takes away his home, and in effect his older self. The film is a self-contained cautionary tale against deeply-held belief systems and problematic viewpoints that no longer fly in today’s society and the oddly constructive powers of certain disasters, that are powerful enough to change you from inside out.
Sajimon Prabhakar, in his directorial debut, successfully translates the allegorical aspects of the screenplay on the screen, with a single man’s attempt at escaping a near death experience. Fahadh Faasil owns the morally reprehensible actions of the hero in the former half, which adds much meaning to the way things end up for him at the end. Malayankunju, by way of its dramatic premise and tightly wound visual grammar, charts the metaphorical re-birth of the hero figure in the laps of mother nature. The film is held together by Fahadh Faasil’s sympathetic, eclectic performance. AR Rahman’s rousing background score stands in total contrast with the drab subject matter and almost becomes a second character in the film, accompanying Fahadh's Anikuttan in his journey of self-discovery.
Streaming on: Amazon Prime Video
The most self-contained film in the list, this Anna Ben starrer is about parents and children, and how a few unsaid things can come back to haunt you in unexpected ways. Helen is about an ambitious young woman (Anna Ben) who lives with her widowed father and aspires to move to Canada to settle down as a nurse. However, a random bike ride with her boyfriend causes a rift between the father and daughter, following which he stops talking to her. This setup is crucial to this film, which takes its time to lay down the special bond between Helen and her father, that is broken on the day her life gets into jeopardy. What would she do when she is locked inside the refrigerator room of her workspace with no one to turn to?
Helen is made with a sense of calculated sharpness that does not make any moment overstay its welcome. Mathukutty Xavier, in his maiden feature, confidently pulls the carpet from the viewers' feet at regular intervals, by channeling character dynamics through neatly done exposition sequences. The strategies and techniques used by our titular protagonist to battle the cold and risk hyperthermia mirrors the determination of a daughter dying to meet her dad for one last time. Her father's search for her also serves as his penance for not being open to her side of the story. These emotional beats make up for the film’s sometime’s literal minded storytelling.
Streaming on: Sony LIV
Most probably the biggest star cast assembled for a survival thriller, this film based on the real floods that occurred in Kerala in 2018 is a novel achievement in blockbuster storytelling. The film managed to draw out a dark chapter in Kerala history and infuse it with a pulpy, hopeful energy. Tovino Thomas, Kunchako Boban and Asif Ali get well defined characters that are meant to reflect larger than life ideals and hope in the face of crisis, where action foregrounds over personal stakes. Jude Anthony Joseph makes up for its sometimes syrupy worldview with set piece construction that warrants many highs in its runtime. The film is packed with little character moments and revelations that represent the heights of human determination and will power, when surrounded by a bleak reality. 2018 manages to make us root for many characters, going through their own personal demons, trying to do the best thing at that moment of time for a common cause.
Streaming on: Sun NXT
This one is an outlier in terms of effective storytelling meeting a novel story idea. Neerali flounders the innately fascinating concept of a man trying to survive a car accident on the way to meet his wife who goes into labour. But the film is a flimsy excuse for piling up some wild ideas into the genre device of a survival drama. Neerali makes up for its on the nose writing through a committed central performance from Mohanlal who makes the protagonist stuck inside a car on a cliff’s edge an interesting fodder for ideas on mortality and existential dread.
The film, set within a car, makes creative decisions with respect to the way the experience changes the protagonist's life. A hyper active monkey, a dubious affair and ghostly premonitions... all make their way into the mix, but the clumsiness of the filmmaking soars above the ideas on paper. However, Neerali tries to link the concept of death and rebirth in interesting ways with the child that is looking to make its entry into the world, while the father is fighting with death elsewhere. But the inert storytelling makes sure that none of these parallels stick and we are left with a gimmicky survival drama that tries too many things at once.