Overview
Amma Ariyan is a 1986 Malayalam-language experimental film directed by avant-garde filmmaker John Abraham. The story revolves around the incidents following the death of a young Naxalite, upon whose death his friends travel to the village where his mother lives to inform her of the death of her only son.
Amma Ariyan is considered to be a complex movie and was one of the biggest experiments in Indian cinema when funds were raised to make a film without giving the slightest heed to its commercial viability. Since its release in 1986, critics have read several layers of meaning in its story. The film was the only South Indian film to feature on British Film Institute's Top 10 Indian Films list.
Plot
Preparing to leave for Delhi, Purushan bids his mother goodbye, promising to write to her regularly. In the thinly populated forest area of Wayanad in northeast Kerala, the jeep in which he is traveling is stopped by the Police, who take possession of it to carry a dead body found hanging on the wayside tree. The dead man's face looks familiar to Purushan. He becomes restless and is seized with a pathological obsession to find out the identity of the deceased. Against the wishes of his girlfriend, he abandons his trip to Delhi and sets out to seek his friends who may have some clue. Purushan meets journalist friends, doctors, and finally a veteran comrade, fondly addressed as Balettan who identifies the dead as the fellow musician who accompanied Satyajit, the guitarist. Satyajit confirms the deceased is his friend Hari, the tabla player. Together they decide to inform Hari's mother who stays in Cochin. They set out on a long eventful journey from the northern highlands of Wayanad to the Southern port city of Cochin.
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