A little village where eating beef is a daily priority, one morning the buffalo which was to be butchered ran away and what follows is 90 minutes of awe-inducing pandemonium. From the visionary director Lijo Jose Pellissery comes a technical masterpiece which has a strong message about the animalistic traits of us humans & also the herd mentality & devolution of human beings. This film is not plot driven, instead it deals with events & an army of characters constanty moving from one place to another. The sound design & cinematography is on another level. Only cons are the acting of some characters & the last scene which is basically a spoonfeeding of the message. It deserves to be our Oscar Entry, hopefully it can campaign well enough to have a chance.

Typical of what we would like Lijo Jose Pallisery to direct. Dont watch it if u have a weak heart...lol

There are so many symbolisms and metophors and inner meaning in this film! The butcher's name is Kalan Varky, In Malayalam, "Kalan" mean's Yamaraj (He is the lord of death and justice, Buffalo is his vehicle), So basically, the people running behind the buffalo symbolises, the men running towards death. In most of the first half (Daylight is prominent through out the scenes), the buffalo tramples things like fire, vegetation, wheeled cart, bank, and even interfere the politics created by humans, in all these we can see the unity of the people. All these sequences can be a reference to man's Evolution as a Social being The Second half (mostly shows night time) represents the spiralling down of man's unity and his path towards his real inner being that is "beast" with all his selfish interests, lust, pride, toxic masculinity, machismo, cheating, fighting (mainly shown by the character called Antony), Even law and orders become useless. All these scenes depicts that, man's basic behaviors haven't changed a bit since the olden times, remember that our ancestors were Hunter gatherers, the males of the tribe would do anything to protect their families and children from wild animals, females used to consider the best males are the one who brings meat/ food to their home, Macho behavior in males, competition between other males to become the Alfa male of the tribe, and much more. And finally when they found the buffalo, they literally turns blind and selfish and tries to claim their part , here due to crowd's mob mentality, they starts to behave like sheeps (or like flies who blindly follows each other towards the light and gets killed ). The final scene where the old man meets the buffalo (Yamaraj's buffalo m), may symbolises that it's time for his death, In the film, rope has an important role! The rope is like a paradox, In life on Earth, the rope represents freedom to the old man and confinement to the Buffalo. But in that scene, they both realize that they were wrong about their notions of freedom while they were living on Earth. Towards the end of the movie, you can hear the breath of the old man's and the buffalo's breath merging into one last breath, showing us that there is no difference between humans and animals, And no matter how we see ourselves as civilized and superior to other animals, we still are the same in front of Nature. The last primitive men scene and the tribal theme sound through out the movie, were the Clues for this message. The director in one interview says that "The line between man and the beast dissolves" throughout the movie. That last primitive men scene turned the whole movie into a completely different perspective and it is that simple scene which explains the whole movie. The animation part showed us how the primitive man, slowly engulfed in flames, the same flames he used to cook other animals,his invention, is now burning his body after his death (as in Hindu funeral) and slowly he disappears back into nothingness! (screen turns into complete black, The End) If you can keep all these in mind and re watch the movie, I bet it's going to be a completely different experience and you may find many more symbolisms which I haven't mentioned here ! This film simultaneously keep you entertained and force us to think, that's what art films like this and Parasite does to you. This is not a normal masala movie that spoon feed you the take away message, that's why most people didn't like this movie. But for critiques and film buffs this movie delivers everything from good cinematography, sound effects, casting, acting, realism, technical aspects to clear public message,which I think is universal!, that's why I think this movie is nothing but a Masterpiece and deserves a shot at the Oscars?