Spirals of Myth and Madness: An Anthropological Reading of Mythemes in Lijo Jose Pellissery’s Churuli

Abstract

Lijo Jose Pellissery’s Churuli (2021) stands as one of the most enigmatic works in contemporary Malayalam cinema. This research explores the film through an anthropological lens, focusing on its mythemes — the minimal units of myth — that construct its narrative structure. Drawing from Claude Lévi-Strauss’s theory of structural anthropology and Roland Barthes’s semiological interpretations, the paper argues that Churuli functions as a cyclical myth about deception, transgression, and the loss of moral order. The parallel narratives — that of the monk and that of the policemen — represent an eternal return of human folly and spiritual blindness. Through motifs of the forest, the bridge, disguise, and the spiral, the film transforms local folklore into a cosmic allegory of moral entropy. The anthropological method here interprets Churuli as not merely a narrative about two policemen but a ritualistic descent into chaos, mirroring the mythic process of inversion and rebirth.