Movie Spotlight: Manthrika Yanthram

The machine in Manthrika Yanthram isn’t a backdrop. It’s where the whole film begins. Writer-director Sen Varghese didn’t start with his characters or their friendships. He started with the device.

Varghese wrote, directed, and produced Manthrika Yanthram through Pankaja Talkies, a Malayalam fantasy adventure following Deepu and a group of close friends who discover a time machine and get pulled through strange and mysterious moments across different periods. The title translates as “magic machine,” and the machine is the film’s engine in every sense.

A year to build the rules

Time travel films often collapse under their own logic. Varghese spent a year making sure that didn’t happen here. He watched time travel films and read books on the subject, assembling the logic of his machine from what he found and adding rules of his own. “I watch several time travel movies there I can get the rules,” he says, “and also make some rules for Manthrika Yanthram.” The internal logic is entirely his, built from a year of research.

Thieves who are also brothers

The group at the center of the film aren’t just friends on an adventure. They’re thieves, and they’re close. That combination is the emotional core. “I try to say friendship is everything, it has no boundaries in any gang,” Varghese says. “Manthrika Yanthram is a group of thief stories, they are close friends.” The machine gives them access to any moment in time. What they do there, they do together.

What the machine lets you see

Varghese is precise about why time travel works as the premise. The appeal isn’t nostalgia or paradox. It’s access. “Time travel is a very interesting subject,” he says. “There the audience can watch what they don’t have to achieve or do in past or future.” Deepu and his friends get to go places ordinary life won’t take them. That’s the point.

The hardest thing to shoot

Making different time periods feel distinct was a production challenge. The hardest part wasn’t period design. It was simultaneity. Several story events in Manthrika Yanthram happen at the same time, which meant shooting them at the same time. “Its much difficult to me,” Varghese says. The constraint shaped the entire production.

What to know before you press play

Varghese’s recommendation is simple: watch the trailer first. Manthrika Yanthram is a Malayalam fantasy adventure about a magic machine, a group of close friends who happen to be thieves, and what becomes possible when you can go anywhere in time. Produced by Pankaja Talkies and starring Hari Sankar and Abin Sukumaran.

Sci-Fi

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Streaming now on Relay.