Diksha Sundriyal
Directed by Dinjith Ayyathan, Netflix’s ‘Eko’ follows the stories of a group of characters whose paths cross while chasing a man named Kuriachan. He went missing a while back, and now everyone, from his old friend-turned-foe to the police, is searching for him for their own reasons. While the mystery surrounding his disappearance solidifies, his unusual control over the dogs on his expansive estate comes to everyone’s attention. Whoever tries to find Kuriachan concludes that the dogs are the key to finding out where he is hiding. However, as more details about his past come to light, the answer becomes even more elusive. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Eko Plot Synopsis
The film begins with the arrival of a man named Mohan Pottan, who intends to find Kuriachan, whose whereabouts are unknown to everyone. Kuriachan is a wealthy man whose estate spans acres of forest, and it is believed that he is hiding somewhere in the forest because he is on the run from the law. What makes it difficult to search the land is a horde of dogs that live there. Kuriachan was a dog breeder and trainer and was known for his exceptionally trained dogs, who somehow still seem to be following commands. This leads Mohan to believe that his old friend is still somewhere in the forest, exercising control over his loyal beasts. Meanwhile, Kuriachan’s wife, Mlaathi Chettathi, who is originally from Malaysia, lives at the house in the forest with her caretaker, Peeyoos.
Mlaathi is a recluse who refuses to leave the house, even as her health deteriorates. When her son arrives to take her with him, she refuses to leave her house and her dogs. Peeyoos makes rounds to the nearby village to get supplies for her from time to time. One day, he discovers that a man from the Navy is looking into Kuriachan’s disappearance. While the reason behind his search remains vague, it is clear that he intends to apprehend the missing man for one of the crimes he has committed. The Navy man believes that Mlaathi and Peeyoos might be the key to figuring out where Kuriachan is hiding, believing that the criminal must visit his beloved wife even if he is hiding from the rest of the world. The search for an answer unravels disturbing details from the past, revealing a shocking answer to Kuriachan’s mystery.
Who is Controlling the Dogs?
While Kuriachan remains an absent figure for the entirety of the film, except for the flashbacks, it is through the dogs in his estate that his presence is felt. Everyone believes that the dogs are trained by him and are following his commands. They know that the dogs have been taught to carry stuff back and forth, and it is suspected that Kuriachan might be using them to get food for himself. The fact that the dogs keep a strict guard over the place, preventing anyone from coming too close to the house, is another reason to believe that the animals have been trained to keep the outsiders at bay, lest anyone end up finding Kuriachan’s hiding place. However, this turns out to be a misconception that isn’t cleared up until the final moments of the film, where the Navy man and Peeyoos realise, almost at the same time, that the dogs were never doing Kuriachan’s bidding.
In truth, the dogs were under the command of Kuriachan’s wife, Mlaathi. A hint for this is dropped during Mohan’s conversation with Peeyoos, where he mentions that the female Husky he brought with him is in heat, and yet, none of the male dogs have come sniffing around her. This proves that the dogs are still being controlled by their master, which proves that he must be somewhere near. Mohan’s logic is strong, but he doesn’t stop to consider that Mlaathi is still around, too, and for now, she is the only known person to be inhabiting the territory that the dogs so strongly protect. His misconception is informed by Mlaathi’s past in Malaysia, where he witnessed her first husband’s dogs following his commands so strongly that they refused to let her step out of the house. Mohan believes that Kuriachan has done something similar, turning Mlaathi into a prisoner in her own home.
The truth, however, is that she has been controlling the dogs all along. Back in Malaysia, when her first husband didn’t come back, the dogs refused to listen to her as well. However, in Kerala, even in Kuriachan’s absence, she has complete control over dogs. Even though they bare their teeth at strangers, it takes one signal from her for them to relax and let the strangers enter their territory. Moreover, Peeyoos recalls the incident when he first arrived there in Mlaathi’s absence. The dogs cornered him, forcing him to take refuge in a tree, where he stayed for two days until Mlaathi returned. Had the dogs been following Kuriachan’s commands, Peeyoos would never have been able to get down from the tree. This also shows that Mlaathi is the one who sent the dogs after Mohan, pushing him off the cliff to his death, and she is the one keeping her husband in hiding for so long.
What Happened to Kuriachan? Is He Found?
The major driving force of ‘Eko’ is Kuriachan’s disappearance, and what makes the ending so compelling is that the answer is given to the audience in bits and pieces throughout the film. The truth is that Kuriachan’s fate is revealed several times in the movie, when the characters discuss the story in which Kuriachan is believed to have a hiding place in a cave. This is discussed by Mohan, who comes to the forest with the intention of finding the fabled hiding place. This detail is also addressed by the Navy man and Pappachan, who is helping him solve the case. In the end, this turns out to be true, but there is a twist. As mentioned several times, Kuriachan has never gone into hiding for such a long time. At most, it has been for a few days, following which his movements have always placed him somewhere else.
While Mohan mentions that there is a source of fresh water inside the cave, and even though his dogs seem perfectly capable of bringing him food, it seems impossible that Kuriachan would keep hiding in the same place for such a long time. In the end, the Navy man deduces that while Kuriachan may have gone into hiding of his own volition, he is being forced to stay hidden by someone else. After a visit with Mlaathi, he realises that the dogs have been following her commands, not her husband’s. It also comes to light that Mlaathi had become aware of Kuriachan’s deception. Mohan tells her that back in Malaysia, when she was told that her husband died in a bombing by the Japanese, it didn’t really happen. In fact, Kuriachan framed her husband, which led him to get arrested.
Kuriachan used this window to convince Mlaathi, then known as Soyi, that her husband was gone and that, since she had no one else in the world, she should come with her to India. The truth is that he wanted her for himself, so he told her a lie, uprooting her from her life in Malaysia and bringing her to a strange land where he exercised his own form of control over her. This discovery shakes Mlaathi to the core, and she decides to have her revenge on him. When he reveals that he is going into hiding from the law, she knows exactly where he is headed. So, she sends her dogs to keep it that way. People wrongly believe that the dogs are protecting Kuriachan.
In truth, they have been sent by Mlaathi to keep him imprisoned in the cave, just as her first husband had used his dogs to prevent her from leaving the house. Because she wants him to suffer as she did, she is keeping him alive. She sends him enough food to sustain him, so that he can live with the knowledge that his freedom is right outside the cave, but he cannot step out and get it. This torture will continue until either he dies or she does. If she dies, the dogs will continue to keep him from leaving, but since no one knows his location, he will not receive any food and will eventually die of starvation. To give herself the satisfaction of the revenge, she uses binoculars to keep an eye on the cave. Thanks to her loyal dogs, she doesn’t have to leave her house or lift a finger to torture the man who ruined her life.
What is Peeyoos’ Real Identity? Does He Kill Mlaathi?
In trying to find Kuriachan, several parties conclude that the house help, Peeyoos, is the one they should be keeping an eye on. Two undercover police officers, who had been posing as loggers, look into Peeyoos’ background and discover that the real Peeyoos never made it to Kuriachan’s estate. The man who took his place is Manikandan, Kuriachan’s bodyguard and most loyal man. He was found by Kuriachan after his parents died in a bomb blast. He was brought up by Kuriachan, and just as Mlaathi trained her dogs to follow her commands without question and to whatever extent she needed them to, Kuriachan trained Manikandan to do whatever was asked of him, no matter what the task. So, when the master went missing, his right-hand man came looking for him and took the cover of the caretaker, Peeyoos.
Just as Mlaathi’s dogs don’t care who they hurt or kill in the bid to protect her, Manikandan doesn’t care how many people he has to kill to find Kuriachan. Sure enough, he leads a trail of bodies in his wake. When he first comes sniffing around, he finds Mohan. At this point, Mohan and Kuriachan have fallen out because the latter framed Mohan, leading him to spend time in prison for something he didn’t do. Manikandan knows that Mohan is there to kill his master, and for a minute, he thinks about killing the man, but stops when Mohan proposes that they should join forces to find Kuriachan first. Whatever Manikandan had planned goes to waste when Mlaathi’s dogs show up and push him down the cliff to his death.
When the Navy man arrives in town, Manikandan tries to get rid of him by cutting off the brakes of his car, hoping that he will die in a car crash. However, he fails. In the same vein, when the undercover police officers force him to join in their search for Kuriachan, he takes them through a path that leads them so far away from civilisation that their dead bodies are never found. Manikandan’s main goal had always been to find Kuriachan, and becoming Mlaathi’s caretaker was just a way to achieve that goal. He never really cared about the old woman, and if killing her had served his purpose, he would have done it. In the end, he realises that she is the one controlling the dogs and keeping his master imprisoned in a cave. For a moment, he thinks about killing her, but then he realizes that he is surrounded by her dogs, who will kill him as soon as he attacks her.
The fact that his master’s life is also connected to Mlaathi’s is not lost on him. As she looks towards the hills with her binoculars, he realises that she is the only one who knows exactly where Kuriachan is. So, if she dies, so will his master, and this isn’t something he can allow to happen. This puts him in a dilemma, because even if he hates Mlaathi, he cannot kill her. He can only hope that one day, she will open up to him and tell him where Kuriachan is. However, given Mlaathi’s desire for revenge and her hatred for Kuriachan, it seems unlikely that she will ever disclose the location to Manikandan. Even if she tells him, her dogs are trained to follow her command even after her death, which means that Manikandan will have quite a challenge at his hands, one that neither he nor his master might survive.
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