The Mise-en-scène you missed

WHAT if your chair could tell a story?

- DIYA MARIA GEORGE

About the memory it holds and the changes that it predicts to happen.Cinema's best production designers know that every interior element is a silent narrator. Last year, they built rooms that don't just house characters but also the story. Vinesh Banglan, the production designer behind Lokah: Chapter 1, understands the balance between beauty and purpose. Working with an urban city's neon-soaked nights and reflective surfaces, he faced a tempting trap to the huge spectacle's overwhelming story. "When the light falls on the frame, it gives a beautiful look to the film," he says. "But instead of going for the beauty of the film, we should focus on the story narration and the performance. The glow we get from it should be there in the background." That discipline runs through every film in this collection. These interiors switch between performance and holding space. From south India's grounded domesticity to Gothic restraint, here are spaces created onscreen from 2025 that we can take inspiration from.

Odum Kuthira Chadum Kuthira

The house borrows from Kerala's modern residential vocabulary with brick-and-plaster textures, open sit-outs that offer a porous relationship between inside and outside. Muted earth tones, soft yellows and greens, and diffused lighting adorn the interiors. Furniture is functional-wooden dining tables, cane seating, low beds, and open shelves that prioritise use over display. The patches of mirrors placed behind the dining area in one of the introduction scenes multiply space, and can be a lesson to add depth. The bougainvillea arch outside and the whole house lit in warm lights add a subtle festive look.

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