During the Mathrubhoomi Kalyan Silks Awards recently, Ashique Abu gave a shoutout to the producer of Salt N Pepper. In a rare gesture which conveyed humility as well as magnanimity, he gifted his cash award to the producer so that the producer can recover his investment. A decade back this statement would not have attracted much attention, but in 2012 it is very important. It showed the attitude of new generation of film makers as well as it pointed out that even a successful movie like Salt N Pepper is struggling to recoup its investment. Over the past few years we have seen a rot in Malayalam cinema and people spent their money watching Tamil movies and wondering why can’t we make movies like that. Now in the past two years we have seen some amazing movies come from new film makers. So what all contributed to this revival?

Before we go there let’s blame a few people. Like the European economy, there was a serial collapse in Malayalam. So let’s blame pretty much everyone including script writers, directors and actors for presenting us with nonsense movies. What was the last best movie written by Srinivasan? Or what was the best movie of Sathyan Anthikkad or Sibi Malayil or Priyadarshan or K Madhu or Fazil in the past few years? Things became so bad that Sibi-Udayan movies looked like classics and Illayaraja’s terrible music became the standard. In a year, out of the 50 odd movies that were released, only half a dozen made money and only one or two were worth remembering.

Malayalam movies were going through a tough transition period. Untimely demise of some of our stalwart writers and directors gave opportunity to a bunch of writers and directors, who made us think that mediocrity is the new standard. Aping out of state movies which had high production standards sans content, infighting among Malayalam movie fraternity, rising super star fees,mindless antics by fans associations took Malayalam movies from the exalted heights to the place where James Cameron went in his new submarine.

At such a period, it would have been easy for any producer to go into other business like starting a resort or betting on real estate. So first we have to thank those producers who invested money in movies like Salt N Pepper, Traffic, Beautiful, Urumi, City of God, Passenger, Chappa Kurishu, Ordinary etc. Those are the people who stand first in our list and we agree with Ashique Abu. They are the brave ones.

Second we have to appreciate the new generation of script writers. Look at Salt N Pepper for example. If it was a Sathyan Anthikkad movie, it would have KPAC Lalitha playing an old woman abandoned by her children and Innocent doing his standard senti act. If it was a Shaji Kailas movie, you could predict next dialogue to be mouthed by the superstar or the next scene to come. All other movies had the hero living in exile in Pollachi. But keeping the melodrama minimal, the script writers [Shyam Pushkaran and Dileesh Nair] kept Salt N Pepper going without having much conflict. It was utterly refreshing.

Third, lets meet the new directors. We mentioned Ashique Abu, but there are folks like Sugeet, Rajesh Pillai, Samir Thahir, Lijo Jose etc. They know the new grammar of movie making. Among these Abu and Sugeet are disciples of Kamal and while their guru is making classics like Pachakuthira, the disciples are entertaining us.

Before mentioning the actors, we applaud Malayali audience for supporting movies which did not have superstars in them. It reminds us of a time when people used to watch movies based on who wrote it (Padmarajan, T Damodaran, MT) or who directed it (Bharathan, I V Sasi, Padmarajan, Hariharan). We have almost reached that state now. Having said that, we find a fearless generation of new actors shaping up. Some of them are new ( Fahad Fazil, Asif Ali,Vineeth Srinivasan), some of them re-invented themselves (Baburaj, Kunchako Boban).

Also look at the new generations of actresses like Remya Nambisan, Swetha Menon, Mythili and Rima Kallingal who are bold enough to portray realistic roles representing evolving womanhood. The goody-goody Kavya Madhavan-Navya Nair-Bhavana type roles no longer appeal to people.

Even though he’s delivering flop after flop of late, Mammotty played an important role in bringing up many new talents into Malayalam cinema. This man has a knack in unearthing talented directors.Lal Jose, Blessy, Ashique Abu, Amal Neerad … It’s a huge list. Even though he did not act in some of these new director’s movies, he supported them and helped launch their careers. It shows that he is one intelligent man who knows that his stardom is doomed if there are no good writers or directors.

If you look at Malayalam cinema, the target audience is limited. We don’t have the reach of Tamil or Telugu or Hindi movies. We made it up by writing innovative scripts and creating a mass appeal. The movies were always low budget. In the recent past only superstar movies were making money and the cost of moving making went over the roof. Then we reached a stage where only super stars where making money and most of their movies ended up as super hit in a channel. Now we are back to the basics again with small movies with good script.

Another good thing is the advent of multiplexes. The multiplexes era has opened up niche markets. This would be a boon for small movies as well as there is no need to please entire cine-going crowd. This should draw family audiences who are scared to visit big theatres. We had covered this in detail at Varnachitram few months back.

There are reactions to this. Mohanlal who had kept a distance from Ranjith now met him and patched up things. Mammootty after a string of flops must be going back to the drawing board. It will be better if Suresh Gopi actually joined Kerala Police. One of the consequences of this revival of small movies is that there will be less producers investing in Super Star movies. This is a good thing because we want to see M&M in fewer but better movies. To make their quota of 6 movies a year, they end up acting in Cassanova and Venicile Vyapari. Instead of that we want a Pranayam or a Pranchiyettan. Another positive thing about this revival is the sidelining of the “talents”  of mimicry brigade like Suraj Venjarammoodu and Salim Kumar.

What can go wrong with this revival? There is always the customary infighting with the banning of actors and actresses. Sibi and Udayan, S N Swamy, as well as directors like Shaji Kailas are still in business. These new age directors and writers whom we praised earlier could get sucked up into big budget movies and lose focus on the craft. Or the new directors/writers not able to live up to the hype created by thier initial movies: For example look at the difference between Passenger and Arjunan Sakshi or James Albert’s creations after Classmates. Another huge problem is piracy, which is affecting every movie. As soon as a movie is released, torrents follow and soon it is uploaded on YouTube. For good movies to happen, movie makers have to make money.

Even though all these movies are interesting, it is important to add one historical perspective. We had fallen to such a rut that pretty much any non-template movie looks interesting and refreshing. With that perspective, we have to ask one question. How many of the movies we listed will stand the test of time and be looked on as a classic. Our answer is not a single movie qualifies in that matter.

Few years back when we were busy covering AMMA-MACTA fights at Varnachitram , we never thought this kind of turnaround would happen. We are really charged by this.

Trivia:
Question: What is common in Chappa Kurish, Traffic, Salt n Pepper, 22FK, Ee adutha Kalathu,Second Show, Cocktail
Answer: They don’t have Dappan Koothu
Question: How many Salt N Peppers can be produced with the money wasted on Casanovva
Answer: 16
Question: How many Chappa Kurish can be produced with the money wasted on Casanovva
Answer: 32

Thanks to Kishor Kumar for inputs.

I don’t know. I think the vehement attacks started happening much after that. This, I think, has started in the last two months and it seems well organised. I have nothing to say to them. It is very tempting to go and pursue a film career in another language.I am an actor but also a human being. At the end of the day, I live my life, I have my family and my privacy. It wouldn’t have affected me if I had actually done something wrong — at least I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong.

Eleven years in films is a long time. You start thinking that if this is what your 11 years have come to, it’s not worth it. But then, had this so-called character assassination been for professional reasons then Indian Rupee would not have done well.

So why is there such organized hatred of Prithviraj? Is it because he is opinionated? Or it is because of the insecurity of physically challenged Charlie Chaplins of Malayalam industry? Or is it simply the Jagathi Sreekumar mentality of Malayalis?

Leave a comment. If it has some substance to it, we will approve it.

[coauthored with Nikhi Menon]

In the finale of Munch Star Singer Junior Mr. Jagathi Sreekumar made a speech in which he came out against the anchor Ranjini Haridas. Mimicking her style of speaking, which is Malayalam with an English accent, he said that the anchor should just do anchoring and should not have any opinion on the singing. You can see the video to realize the scorn he has for this anchor.

We have watched many finale episodes of Idea Star Singer and Munch Star Singer and never have seen a guest speak like this. Usually people come and say a few mild words of encouragement, show some stardom and go away. Jagathi instead gave a speech in which he went on and on and defined how people should behave. He praised Sujatha and Venugopal and ranted on Renjini who was standing next to him. In her own words:

Just the other day I was the victim of an individual who took advantage of his right to freedom of speech to publicly embarrass and ridicule me. Moreover, all this happened on national television! The man in question, who from now I shall refer to as Mr Moon, clearly overstepped the limits of what to say when and where, and to my agravation, had no regard or respect for the event at hand or the people concerned

Now you may like or dislike Renjini’s style of compering or her way of talking or having her own opinions. She is a very competent compere very able to handle any situation thrown at her. When some singers stop singing or have trouble, she very ably handles it. She is very opinionated and if you have watched her retorts at Sharath and ‘Sree Kuttan’, you will know she can handle herself quite well. It this personality that makes her a memorable compere compared to others who just utter what is told or do the bare minimum as Jagathi wants.

What Jagathi wants is not her to stop such things, but to stop passing judgement on the songs. He says only judges can pass judgement. Why? As someone who does not know to sing and is not musically trained, she is just like us. She is the common man. Her opinion is from that side and so far we have not found it ‘arochakam’. It never felt odd to us. So why this outburst? Is there another story we are missing here?

Now if she wanted to retort, Renjini could have said that Jagathi should stop acting in all those semi-porn movies, but she did not. She in fact wrote a weak piece in Deccan Chronicle. It is not for her to suggest what Jagathi should do, but such basic courtesy was not extended to her. This is a new low for Jagathi in the past year. We saw this is a new low because this is a man who wallows in the depths of civil behavior. To give another example, last year he was on television talking about his marriage to Mallika Sukumaran. At some point they divorced and he explained that the divorce ‘may’ have been due to their caste.

So the anchor asked once more if she ever mentioned anything like that and he said she did not. So in reality, he still has no idea why she left, but by throwing a caste issue into the mix he muddied the water. You can say, he did a Thilakan at that moment.

So we have few options for analysis. We can do the whole ‘savarna-avarna’ thing. Or we can notice that Jagathi rants mostly against strong women and dump some anti-feminism on him. But then this would be like trying to write a review of ‘Pokkiri Raja’ or ‘Sagar Alias Jackie’ when in fact there is a simpler explanation.

Nelbin raises an interesting point:

It was absolutely a scandalous behaviour from Jagadhi to say scathing comments about Ms.Haridas and the program she is hosting at such a big ceremony watched all over the world .Jagdhi managed to pull in great crowd support for his outrageous remarks on Ms.Hardis as they booed and jeered at her with the every word he uttered. Sadly Jagathi and those guys represent the last generation of malayalees with parochial attitude who take pleasure in taunting others in public

Yes, Jagathi does have the right to express his views and no one can blame him if he believes that Renjini and co are abusing our mother tongue with her ‘manglish’ but is this the way to show his disapproval? Shouldn’t he had shown the courtesy to tell her his views in person?

At this point, let’s look how Ms Renjini reacted to this insult. She could have easily retorted to him in the same manner or could have even did a ‘Sreesanth’(remember the bhajji-slap-incident?) but the brave girl that she is,maintained her calm and carried on with the show as if nothing had happened..!(C’mmon,thats’ what we call dignity,isn’t it?.)Mr. Jagathy instead of blessing and enlightening the ‘junior star singer’ winners about the potential film offers that could come their way(whom in all probabilities will be forgotten by every one,including jagathy by the next season of the show) chose to play it to the galleries and win himself some cheap publicity by dissing Ms Haridas in national television.

Jagathi is one of the greatest actors of Malayalam cinema on par with Nedumudi Venu, Thilakan, Mohanlal and Mammotty. But that does not make him a great human being. During the time of Prem Nazir, Jayan and Sathyan we did not have this much media coverage and we did not know how they were in real life. Now thanks to the 24 hour media and due to the willingness of these stars to throw up whatever comes to their mind on TV, we know what kind of scumbags they really are.

• “Pranchiyettan and the Saint” is, I believe, director Ranjit giving the finger to those who had labeled him a “Hinduvta” director after a series of movies such as Devasuram, Ravanaprabhu, Nandanam, Prajapathy etc.
• There have been several movies based on the Kottayam Christian milieu; however movies set in Thrissur are rare. Other than Padmarajan’s Thoovanathumbikal, I can remember no other movie that has used the town and its slang as an important facet in the movie.
• It is refreshing that the movie has no “villains”. Siddhique is portrayed as Pranchi’s main rival, but Ranjit has resisted the temptation of having either the hero or villain import a dozen ruffians from several different places, and indulge in an outlandish fight sequence.
• The whole bit about hints around the hypocritical lives lead by Siddhique and Khushboo was uncalled for – a cheap shot, really. Could Pranchi not find his happiness even as his childhood sweetheart and her husband lived happily too?
• The whole speech sequence was awesome. It reminded me a bit of the iconic “balatkaar” sequence from “3 Idiots”; but the one in “Pranchiyettan…” was more about the fear of public speaking.
• The whole concept of “Padmashree-chasing” was a riot. Ranjit clearly has a ball here, with digs at all and sundry.
• Jagathy could have been avoided. He added absolutely nothing to the movie, and did nothing new (other than demonstrate a few Yoga poses) either.
• Finally, what does one say of Mammootty? This amazing performance is most un-Mammootty-like; in fact it is almost Mohanlal-esque, except for the spotless Thrissur slang (which I think Mohanlal could not have quite managed). We all know that Mammootty excels in statuesque roles, but to see him excel as the self-deprecating Pranchi reminds us that the veteran still has unexplored depths. More innovative scripts please!

THE first thing that struck me about Santosh Sivan’s  Urumi is its simplicity.  Okay, so it reportedly cost around Rs 20 crore to make.  Sure,the frames are rich, the sets lavish and the canvas grand.  But Urumi is ,at its core, a simple tale of valor.   It speaks of wronged men and womenwho were desirous of revenge and justice and refused to go quietly though pitted against a powerful adversary (Vasco Da Gama, shown as a ruthless, mercenary invader as opposed to the celebrated explorer).  The dialogue is sharp and unabashedly patriotic: Aa kuttikalude kannukalil Vasco kandu…mola pottunna oru shathruvine…abhimaanam adiyaravu vekkatha orujanata ye (In the eyes of those children, Vasco saw a budding enemy, apeople unwilling to grovel).  There is no inessential glorification of the protagonist, Kelu Nayanar (Prithviraj). He is portrayed as a bold warrior out to avenge his father’s death, reacting to his circumstances and mobilising his people.

The characters are introduced quickly, without ceremony.  And before you know it, you’re drawn into the narrative.  I meant to watch the first 15 minutes or so before I stepped out for a coke. It was a full 50minutes before I reluctantly left my seat.  That said, the makers have over done the whole disclaimer bit at the very onset:  That this is ‘only a movie’ is repeated once too often.  Now, wouldn’t you rather be led to believe you’re *not *watching a film but seeing a slice of life unfold onscreen?  Oh well.  Can’t really blame them for wanting to avoid lawsuits.

Deepak Dev’s compositions are above average. Watch out for Prabhu Deva’s dance scene with the soulful Thelu thele playing in the background. It has a serene, trance-like quality.  Full marks to the creators for not allowing the viewer to think, “Oh, just because he’s a dancing sensation anda reputed choreographer!”

Then there are the beautiful women. Nithya Menon looks bewitching in Chimmi Chimmi.  Genelia D’Souza is aptly cast as the fiesty Arrackal Ayesha, who can wield the urumi as effectively as the warrior hero. Tabu makes aspecial appearance (song) while Vidya Balan has a blink-and-miss part.

Prithviraj proves yet again that he can carry off roles that his contemporaries in Malayalam cinema would be laughed at in.  Amol Gupte is arevelation as the gullible,  good-at-heart but ill-advised king.  Not even ina single scene do you feel he’s out of place in a Malayalam mileau. Such talent!  A superb Jagathy Sreekumar (as the canny, conniving, polyglot minister, Cheni Cheri Kurup) gives a whole new definition to the epiphet veteran actor and there is a refreshing turn by Prabhu Deva (as the immensely likeable Vavvaali: Caring, witty, naive, ever mindful of  being righteous).

Never mind the historical inaccuracies,  they’re bound to be there! Those who whine cannot conclusively prove or disprove their theories. What are they going to do, go back in time?  And as Robert the Bruce narrates in Braveheart: “Historians will tell you I’m a liar. But history is written by those who have hanged heroes.”  The beautiful visuals, well-executed fight scenes and the vibrant performances make  Urumi a compelling watch. Two thumbs-up.

PS:  I don’t care much for the English title, though. The Coiled Sword has a nice ring to it, no?

Christian Brothers is the most awesomest movie we have ever seen this year. The primary goal of the script writers was not to tax the brain of Malayali viewer and provide VFM (Value for Money). It is filmed in exactly the same house as Twenty-Twenty, with most people of that movie playing exactly the same role. Usually in such movies, the villain is not revealed in the beginning. But here it is revealed in the beginning itself. This helps the brain. It also helps if you have Alzheimer’s.

Various factors add to the coolness of the movie. It has people who wear cooling glass inside the house. Then it uses sophisticated “computer” technology and prints “Tracking Signal” on top of Google Maps when Mohanlal’s henchmen try to track phone calls. It has a song with lyrics “moham kondal innu ethu pennum oru poochaye pole”. It has henchmen standing around the same swimming pool in which Prithviraj and Jayasurya swam in Robinhood discussing life-problems, like should we kill him ourselves or should we get pavanai? It has Babu Antony with a black towel tied around his head (hint: he is a commando).

The awesomeness comes in installments.  Mohanlal plays a Christie, an underworld connected Malayali from Mumbai who has come to help Kerala Police and the Home Minister. If this does not bring goose bumps, we don’t know what will. Also, as we all know anyone who ends up in Mumbai becomes an underworld don. It is called Newton’s fourth law. One day you are simply walking along Juhu Beach and boom, you become a Don. Then police is after you and every unshaven youth calls you “Bhai”. It happened to Mohanlal two decades in Abhimanyu. It happened once again now. You would think he would have learned by now.

The next peak comes with the arrival of Suresh Gopi as goonda. It kind of breaks the rhythm. You are so used to seeing him police uniform, you suddenly feel as if the world has started spinning in the opposite direction. Before we sink into despair, the gooda turns out to be an IPS officer – you know the Mussorie kind. He also has a name like Antony Punnokadan or Joseph Vadakkan or something of that sort. Once he arrives, he confronts Mohanlal and they throw dialogue at each other like those arrows from Ramayana serial. Awesomeness oozes so much that we need some buckets to collect it.

Christie saves the home minister’s daughter (Kavya Madhavan) from the always destined to fail henchmen-rape, but he ends up in jail due to a family mess up. You know son innocent, father does not believe it, some bad apples in family theme. By 90 minutes, the number of people who want to kill or eliminate Christie looks like a Malayali queue in front of the liquor store – Sharath Kumar, Biju Menon, Joseph Vadakkan, Sai Kumar.

Once someone is in jail, there is a Newton’s law which immediately applies.  As Newton wrote in Principia Mathematica, every jailed person shall be presented in court and every opposing force will try to prevent this from happening. This movies too has one such scene where all the alpha males get to show their alpha maleness. Imagine Sharath Kumar, Suresh Gopi, Mohanlal, Babu Antony all with guns. It is 20 minutes of pure testosterone. Then there is also the scene when the son is not invited to his sister’s marriage, but he shows up anyway fooling the entire police force. Finally, guess what, everything was based on a misunderstanding. These silly people.

Then Suresh Gopi gets to dump dialogue let and right. At men, women, ministers, and Salim Kumar. Only children are spared. But once his “Ammachi” calls, he becomes such a docile creature that if you pour some milk in a saucer he will stand on all fours and drunk it and wipe his lips with his tongue. He also blushes when his mom talks of marriage. Maybe it is because he is violating some marriage laws, but it is cho-chweet.

But we are not trashing the movie because it is a pure commercial film and we don’t get it. There is one classic scene where Mohanlal is holding Kavya Madhavan and Co as hostage. She wants to make a phone call to Dileep, but Mohanlal the hostage taker does not allow it. So she rants, saying he does not know what love is. This is a big mistake for if anyone knows what love is it has to be the Mumbai based underworld connected Malayali. Mohanlal switches to flashback and thinks of his love Laxmi Rai in saree drenched by the Kerala monsoon. At the end of this scene, he hands over the phone to Kavya Madhavan. So touching.

There is another scene where Mohanlal shows up with a gun during Kavya Madhavan’s engagement ceremony. The number of Malayali actors/sq ft is quite high in the scene and still he manages to get his way. The dialogue that got thrown around in that scene would have killed most people, but the alpha males survive for the climax scene. In the final climax, where everyone is beating up everyone else and furniture is being abused without mercy and bullets are flying around like mosquitoes in a typical evening, you really don’t care if Sharath Kumar is speaking Hebrew. All you want to know is only one thing. Will the three heroes shoot the villain together or will Christie alone shoot him with the two guns in either hand. We won’t tell you what happened. You should pay decent money and watch it yourself.

You may ask, other than classy lines like “Pakistanil kayari Bible vayikkaruthu” is there something worthwhile in this movie. It is a fun movie and it is fast paced. Before you start guessing which previous movie of Sibi K Thomas and Udaykrishna had this scene, the editor moves to the next scene. It repeats again. Then only a person of Joshiey’s calibre could have pulled this ensemble cast movie with sufficient dignity. Think how this movie would have been if Sandhya Mohan or Bhadran had directed this. Or think if Joshi had directed this instead of Joshiey. We also admire the talents of Mohanlal, Dileep and Suresh Gopi for who can make any scene look interesting. Yes, we have seen them do the same thing a zillion times, but still.