Lijo Jose Pellissery's 'City of God' used hyperlink cinema like Satyajit Ray's THIS movie

Lijo Jose Pellissery’s crime thriller City of God used a hyperlink cinema format as the narrative structure like Satyajit Ray’s Bengali movie Kanchenjunga released in the year 1962. Kanchenjunga has a linear narrative with no central characters and does not have a straight narrative. On the other hand, City of God has no linear narrative structure. The hyperlink cinema format was first used by Satyajit Ray and received positive comments from the critics.   

Lijo Jose Pellissery's City of God used a hyperlink cinema format

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City of God is a Malayalam crime-thriller which was written by Babu Janardhanan. The story revolves around Tamil migrant workers and a team of land mafia criminals of Cochin in Kerala. The movie features Prithviraj Sukumaran, his brother Indrajith Sukumaran, Rajeev Pillai, Rohini Raghvaran, Parvathy Thiruvothu, Rima Kallingal and Swetha Menon. The music of the movie is taken care of by Prashant Pillai.

The movie was an average box office hit but was one of the first movies among the ‘new generation’ Malayali movies. In the movie, the narrative keeps coming back and forth in order to showcase the point of view of each main character. This also leads to the repetition of various scenes.

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Kanchenjunga is a Bengali movie which is based on an upper-class Bengali family and their getaway to Darjeeling, a popular hill station near Kanchenjunga. The movie is directed, produced and written by Satyajit Ray. It stars Chhabi Biswas, Karuna Bannerjee, Anil Chatterjee, Anubha Gupta, Arun Mukherjee in the pivotal roles.

The movie happens in a linear real-time and the structure of it contrasts a primary plot with a secondary one. Kanchenjunga received positive reviews as it showcased the life of a group of rich Bengalis on vacation in just around 100 minutes. As the depiction of the movie is a real-time event, the clothes of the characters do not change throughout the movie.

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Lijo Jose Pellissery predominantly works in Malayalam industry and is popular for his non-linear storylines, an aestheticization of violence, extended scenes of dialogue and long takes. He has directed numerous movies such as Nayakan, Amen, Ee. Ma. Yau, Jallikattu, Churuli (yet to be released). As an actor, he has appeared in his directorial debut Nayakan, Bombay March 12, Mayaanadhi and Padayottam. Recently, his action movie Jallikattu got selected as the Indian entry at the Oscars.

Image Source: A still from City of God

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