Invoked by children’s singsong, Kumatty enters the scene with the sound of clinking bells, leaving behind a blazing sunset piercing through the clouds. A sly sorcerer Kumatty is an old pied piper who returns to the same village every spring, attracting children and tranforming them into animals. In this poetic work informed by Malayalam folklore and early cinema alike, Aravindan’s synthesizes mythology and documentary, alchemically conjuring a singular kind of magical realism through the glorious accumulation of sensually photographed details and a delightful array of Méliès-esque cinematic sleights of hand.

Govindan Aravindan (1935-1991), also a painter, cartoonist and musician, was a self-taught filmmaker who experimented a great deal with genres, styles and film grammar throughout his career. Thirty years after his death, an editorial in the Times of India remembered him as an iconoclast who changed the trajectory of Malayalam cinema: “However, he is like one of his most famous characters, Esthappan, about whom everyone talks and whom no one has seen: his masterpieces are disappearing like they never existed.” (Cecilia Cenciarelli)