Kilippattu

aka Song of the Parrot 1985 121’ col Malayalam d/sc Raghavan pc Revathy Chitra st/dial/lyr K.M. Raghavan Nambiar c Vipin Das m M.B. Srinivasan lp Nedumudi Venu, Sukumaran, K.P. Ummar, Sabitha Anand, Balan K. Nair, Adoor Bhasi, Chandran Nair, Philomina, Manavalan Joseph

The prolific actor Raghavan’s directorial debut is set at festival time in a North Kerala village. The corpse of a young woman, presumed to be the temple-keeper’s daughter, is found in a well. A trade union activist is arrested and dies in police custody, after which the templekeeper’s daughter turns up alive to everyone’s embarrassment. However, she is later killed and her body found in the well during the next festival. In an ending reminiscent of Nirmalayam (1973), the distraught templekeeper frenziedly strikes himself with a sacred sword during the performance of his ritual duties.

Film