Watching Lijo Jose Pellissery’s Ee Ma Yau (R.I.P.), I was reminded of Raam Reddy’s Thithi. The narrative motors of both films are kicked into high gear by the death of an eccentric old villager, whose son, then, becomes the story’s lynchpin. And both films are about organising a funeral, when there’s very little money to go around. But there’s a more tenuous connection: Francis Ford Coppola. The director of The Godfather movies called Thithi “a joyous view on life in a village in India with unforgettable characters.” Lijo, I’m betting, would be thrilled if Coppola paid him a similar compliment — for he looks up to the great filmmaker. The memorable single-take climax of Lijo’s previous film, Angamaly Diaries, was reminiscent of The Godfather: Part II, in the way it fused a religious procession with an attempted assassination. The opening stretch of Ee Ma Yau harks back to the Sicilian funeral from Part II, and it’s a stunning piece of cinema. As though to show there’s more to him than jaw-dropping unbroken takes, Lijo goes to the other extreme. He opens Ee Ma Yau with a static camera. A funeral procession enters from one end of the screen, exits through the other. The characters move; the frame stays fixed.