Having said this, I think Mammootty as Ahmed Haji was great. And he truly deserved the best actor award. Recent films of his like Paleri M, Loudspeaker and P.Raja have proved that he is one of India’s best. Even Sweta Menon acted beautifully in PM. The flashback scenes were all good. What I didn’t enjoy at all was the presentation of how Mammootty as Haridas tried to solve the mystery that was haunting him.

Sara, Agree with most of what you are saying, particularly about the acting.

I agree that there should be more movies that accept the sexual reality of life. But I don’t think ‘sensuality’ is a very real life entity to merit an urgent place in movies.

And I didn’t carry a notepad. I was a little disappointed with the movie, probably because I had high expectations (was expecting something on the scale of Pavithran’s Utharam). At the time I saw the film, practically all of the reports on the net were gloating it up like a 10/10 flick. So I thought I would vocalise my disappointment too. Though not very good, Palery certainly is better than most of the films that graced Kerala screens since then, including MNIK.

I had to put in the details, because I didn’t want to look like bashing a well liked movie blindly. I think I wasn’t nitpicking because if I were I would have highlighted things like the fact that most of the men in March – April of 1957 were seen wearing shirts outdoors etc.. Just said about a few things which looked rather obvious and uncomfortable.

When I read the movie was based on a real incident,I am curious to know how much of reality is presented in the movie? And what are the writer’s/director’s add ons?

I understand the fact that Haridas(Mammooty)was Ahmed Haaji’s son,so wouldn’t it have been more believable,if he just came back to Paleri to find out if his father was still living? And later get intrigued by Manikyam’s murder, coz he is sure to hear about it from the people.It led me to wonder if this was narrated by Haridas in the Novel too,if so how it was done.

Have to applaud the movie makers for adding some extra ordinary new actors.

Even though I hated the climax,I can let go of the fact that Mammooty plays both Ahmed Haaji and Khalid ,but Haridas too (and none of the people who knew Haaji seem to have a problem with it!!!)Was it Mammoty’s desperate effort to balance out the negative character of Ahmed Haaji ? Is he scared to play a villain?

Sarayu,was a character that had so much potential if handled well. She was never there even while she was in the frame often.Her relationship with Haridas had to be much more intense than that.And there is no way she would have gone back with just a call from her husband.Why was she smoking?

Loved Swetha Menon(Cheeru),she was just amazing!!!The director gets points for choosing a bold topic,when most of his contemporaries are trying to play it safe.

Sensuality is beautiful if portrayed well like a poem .I guess now is the right time to make more movies which depict sex and sensuality.Don’t you think its high time our society gets educated? How many more suicides will it take to realize the need to loose our hypocrisy?

I liked Palery Manikkam a lot, but what you have said in your last post, makes a whole lot of sense to me. It has come to a point when it is difficult to criticize a Superstar film without irking some fan. Using common sense might perhaps be asking for too much on their part, but I wish they had the ability to exhibit some restraint at least.