Tinu Pappachan’s ‘Chaaver’ is a fascinating formal exercise; it takes a murder story and replaces excitement with highly stylised atmosphere

Tinu Pappachan used to assist Lijo Jose Pellissery, and in his films, you get the same sense of a slightly surreal masculine world gone mad. is a routine “crime and punishment” story, but what’s fascinating about the film is its structure. The stylised, ritualistic, karmic narrative unfolds like a performance of Theyyam, a stylised ritualistic dance form performed mostly by men. In , the style the substance. The men in question in this Kannur-based story are Ashokan (Kunchacko Boban), Thomas (Anuroop), Asif (Sajin Gopu), and Musthafa (Manoj KU). They come from different religions, but merge under the umbrella of a Leftist political party. They are puppets manipulated by the System, and we see this in the imagery of these men boxed inside a Tata Sumo for the most part, while being dwarfed by gigantic trees, a gigantic sky, and even a gigantic gate. They have been given orders to kill someone, without any reason / explanation being provided.

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