Churuli 2021

In a quiet forest tale, a monk travels through the trees to track down Perumadan, an evil spirit that misleads travelers. The forest seems to acknowledge him, with creatures winkingly familiar as he passes. Along the way he discovers a rolled-up pangolin, and, thinking it is merely a ball, he pockets it to give to his children. But the pangolin suddenly speaks and urges him to choose a different path. He listens, wanders deeper, and eventually gets hopelessly lost. It’s only later revealed that the monk never truly escapes the woods—the pangolin was Perumadan in disguise, and he remains trapped by his own ignorance of the ruse.

Cut to the present: two police officers set out on a covert mission to capture Joy, a criminal hiding in the village of Churuli. They go incognito, adopting the names of Anthony and Shajivan. Their briefing is headed by the idea of working for a man named Thankan. They board a jeep bound for Churuli, but the jeep driver—Jeep driver—lets them know Thankan isn’t in town and that they should bide their time in the village. As they travel, the atmosphere shifts: the cheerful passengers and driver suddenly descend into crassness, as if a mask has slipped and a different reality has taken over.

In Churuli, the undercover pair checks into a tavern run by the village’s Toddy Shop Manager and bides his time while waiting for Thankan’s return. Anthony quickly adapts to the village’s odd rhythms, indulging in the local fare of game meat and drink, while Shajivan struggles to fit in and begins dreaming of strange lights and two alien-like figures. The contrast between the two men grows sharper as days pass.

Shajivan’s search for Thankan’s dwelling leads him to an encounter with an old woman who seems to sense something about him. She pursues him with an axe, forcing a frantic escape back to the tavern. The mystery deepens as the duo realizes many villagers share aliases and a murky past, suggesting a web of concealed loyalties rather than straightforward criminality.

As the days unfold, the tavern’s owner arranges for a makeshift church for his daughters’ first communion. During the ceremony, Shajivan again crosses paths with the old woman, who closes her eyes in a bizarre, unsettling way at his appearance. With Thankan absent, the officers begin to suspect that Thankan is Joy’s alias, weaving another layer into the tangled tale.

Anthony ventures into the surrounding hills with a local hunter and vanishes for several days. When Shajivan investigates a cassava supplier’s house, he notices strange gears and lights spinning in a nearby window, hinting at forces beyond ordinary explanation. The missing pair returns empty-handed, and the Kodagu man watching the village grows wary of the two cops, sensing they are not who they claim to be.

The narrative escalates at a village mela where Shajivan is humiliated in a slap-boxing game. Each slap triggers vivid visions, pulling him deeper into a shared delirium with the village’s hidden world. That night, thunder roars and Anthony wakes to find Shajivan missing. The hunter disappears too, and a corpse surfaces along the riverbank, heightening the sense that something sinister threads the village.

On another hunt, Shajivan takes the lead and spots two of the otherworldly creatures from his dreams. He fires, hitting the wrong target, while Anthony injures his ankle in the pursuit. The hunter eventually abandons the team, taking the meat with him, leaving Shajivan to carry an injured Anthony back toward the village. They seek aid from a healer who lives with a boy; the healer’s hut bears a striking resemblance to the visions Shajivan has been seeing. After a ritual, Anthony appears cured and flirts with the healer, though she later accuses Shajivan of abusing the boy. Anthony pays to settle the matter, and Shajivan denies the accusation.

Meanwhile, Thankan returns from town, and the villagers—armed with fear and rage—press for the duo’s punishment. With their cover blown, Shajivan fires a warning shot and captures Thankan. Under questioning, Thankan reveals that he is not Joy; the real Joy lives in his home. He leads the officers to Joy’s location, and the villagers trail behind.

They find Joy paralyzed in a state of helplessness, and Thankan and his wife beg for mercy. Shajivan refuses to grant it, setting the stage for a tense confrontation as the locals close in. A desperate firefight ensues, wounding two villagers, including Philip, who nonetheless laugh it off. Joy calls for Philip to help him surrender and escape the village, and the police duo bind Joy to take him away in the Jeep.

On the road, Joy begins to tell a reimagined version of the monk’s story, this time casting two policemen in place of the monk and Joy as Perumadan. The landscape around them seems to dissolve as the wooden bridge they crossed disappears, replaced by a spiraling forest path that leads nowhere. Joy reveals that the process is cyclical, looping back on itself with every move they make.

The tale reaches a surreal turn when Joy miraculously cures his paralysis and frees himself from restraint. Anthony halts the Jeep, drawn to eerie orbs of light that drift across the night air and coalesce into a glowing moon hanging above the woods. In a final, uncanny twist, Shajivan closes his eyes and seemingly switches places with Joy—leaving the trio seemingly calm, as the moon expands and draws closer. They cling to the vehicle as it begins to float toward the moon, and, in a breathtaking fusion, the three of them merge with the lunar landscape, dissolving into the night’s dreamlike horizon.