While upon a travel last month, I got an opportunity to watch "Manjummal Boys", which is considered to be the most collected movie in Malayalam film industry. If you have to write about a movie, you should have watched it at least twice. I haven't had the opportunity to do so. However, I felt like making some observations about the viewing experience that the movie left in me. Since I don't live in Kerala and don't have the opportunity to read Malayalam periodicals, I am not sure if anyone has already made comments in this direction. The movie, which was screen-written and directed by Mr. Chidambaram and released in February 2024, is in the genre of a survival thriller. The plot of the film is that ten friends and members of a local arts and sports club from Manjummal in Ernakulam district go on a tour to Tamil Nadu and they all of a sudden decide to go to see the Guna caves. While there, by showcasing their natural youthful daredevilry, they enter even the forbidden area. All of a sudden the ground caves in and one of them sinks into a hell-deep pit, and against all odds the group stays back and rescues him.

The truth is, when watching the film through the eyes of a Christian, I felt that the image of Christ was lying imprinted throughout the film.

There were ten of them. While the competition, quirks, adventures, and dare of the young people are picturously told, the most dominant theme of the film is friendship and the noble love that does not hesitate to go beyond oneself, even taking up risks.

They are all friends from childhood who have helped each other and have saved others in times of danger. Darshana Arts and Sports Club, however, has always lost to the rival Manjummal team, in their tug-of-war competitions. However, when they think of painting the name of their club in Guna Cave precincts they don't just write 'Darshan Club, Manjummal', but an inclusive name - 'Manjummel Boys'. And the idea and decision came from Kuttan, the group leader.

While everyone is climbing the Mount Pazhani, a very important pilgrimage site to the Hindus, Subhash is seen walking away, lacking interest. The driver of their rented vehicle asks him - 'Do you believe in God?'

'What God?' is his retort.

'Light from above' is the driver's explanation. Subhash, on the other hand, has no money, no jacket to put on in the cold, and not even a belt of his own.

Sometime earlier, Subhash have had a precognitive nightmare. In the dream he saw himself falling into a subterranean cave, and having lost all his clothes he saw himself walking naked through the dark underworld cave looking for a way out, looking upward at the peel of light coming in through the gap on the ceiling.

Christianity calls the sin of humankind as "the fall of man." In the fall he seems to have become naked.

Christianity imagines Christ as the savior who, out of love for fallen humankind, even sacrificing his own life, descended into the abyss of humanity and mortality, scooping up the humankind and raising them to new life.

The audience finds humor in the act of the elderly woman who venerates the one who is saved saying, "You are God, who came back to life despite having faced with death", while the one who really descented to lift the fallen one from the abyss of death - from the devil's kitchen - is sitting there unrecognized.

The members of the Darshan Club always tasted failure in the tug-of-war of life. The rope, the means of their failure, itself becomes the means of their most heroic act in life.

Many a visuals and song parts in the movie tries to connect itself with the Christ story.

Due to their decision to keep the truth of the event a secret, in the sight of Subhash's mother and through her that of the society, Kuttan, the Club leader was an irresponsible villain who had left Subhash almost to death. However, the good-news that Kuttan was not a villain, but was really the savior - a hero - in a piece of a torn newspaper at a restaurant in Tamil Nadu (Velankanni?). From there the place it travels directly is to the Manjummal Church!

I'm not at sure whether the screenwriter-cum director Mr. Chidambaram has ever seen things in such a light. However, the 'reading' is the right of the reader! Therefore, my reading is only my exercise of my right.