Athiran (2019)

In the 1970s a government psychiatrist, Dr. M. K. Nair, travels to a lonely mental asylum deep in the hills to investigate complaints about how it is run. The doctor in charge is evasive, the staff are odd, and among the patients is Nithya, a young woman who does not speak but who moves with startling skill in kalaripayattu. Nair becomes obsessed with her story and with what really goes on in the old house, and the deeper he digs the less certain he is of anything around him. Athiran was the debut of director Vivek and was praised for its misty, unsettling atmosphere and for Sai Pallavi's nearly wordless performance, for which she trained in kalaripayattu. Fahadh Faasil plays the outsider at its centre.