The Malayalam director is also pleased about the fact that he beat off competition from none other than film legend Adoor Gopalakrishnan, also from Kerala, who won his seventh National Award, the Best Director nod for his film Naalu Penungal. “Adoor is a legend and the fact that I will receive an award in the same ceremony itself is a thrilling thing. And to top it off I also beat him as a competitor, What could be better,” says Priyadarshan who said that the awards came as a surprise. [This award proves all the naysayers wrong: Priyadarshan]

Next, Ousepachan. Finally he won his first national award, apparently after missing it narrowly for Unnikale Oru Katha Parayam and Freaky Chakra. The uniqueness of the music for Ore Kadal was:

that are all composed in one raga – Shuba Panthuvarali. The evocative, poignant numbers sung by singers like Bombay Jayashri, flautist Naveen Nair, Sujatha, G. Venugopal and youngsters Vineeth Sreenivasan and Swetha, and the composer himself, had enhanced the mood of the film and the theme.

The music composer is all praise for the director of the film, Shyamaprasad, who suggested that he compose all the songs in one raga to retain and accentuate the mood of the theme. To ensure that the songs did not sound monotonous, he “decided to vary the shruti and tempo” of the songs.

“It was a challenge for me. It is not a difficult task to compose songs in certain ragas like Mohanam or Kalyani but Shuba Panthuvarali is a difficult raga and so the director wondered if it would prove to be a difficult task. But, surprisingly, I took only three minutes each to compose four of the songs. It was the title track sung by Naveen that I had to work on,” recalls Ouseppachan. [The Hindu : Friday Review Thiruvananthapuram / Interview : Scoring a winner]

For the same film, Shyama Prasad won the third national award for the best film in Malayalam

“It has been an evolution that has seen me grow as a director and as a filmmaker,” says Shyamaprasad. He adds that although he was disappointed when his film was passed over by the State film awards jury last year, he has no complaints “as awards are elusive and each jury differs and these things happen. However, I did feel bad for Ouseppachan when he did not win an award for his work then. His songs and background score were exceptional and conveyed the story so well. It was an organic part of the film. It was his spontaneity that impressed me.”[The Hindu : Friday Review Thiruvananthapuram : Waves of applause]

Adoor too won the National Award, but that is like saying – the sun rises in the east. Naalu pennungal also won the award for the best editing.

It is a very good feeling [laughs]. I make a film after a long gap. So, every time I make a film, I forget what had happened before. It is a new experience for me every time. So, when I win an award, it makes me very happy. For me, every award is fresh and new. [It's not just another national award for Adoor Gopalakrishnan: Rediff.com movies]

Less mentioned is the fact that Vipin Vijay won the Special Jury Award for a non-feature film for ‘Poomaram’

The award-winning ‘Poomaram,’ is Vipin’s tribute to Judy Grahn’s radical Metaformic theory and is based on several aspects of her book ‘Blood, Bread and Roses: How Menstruation Created the World.’ “It is a ‘mythographic’ audio-visual observation of the interconnection between ancient menstrual rituals and the development of agriculture, mathematics, writing, calendars (the lunar calendar apparently bears similarities to menstrual cycles) and other realms of knowledge, science and arts,” explains the filmmaker. [The Hindu : Friday Review Thiruvananthapuram / Interview : Accolades for experiments]

Interestingly the best actor award went to Prakash Raj and not Mohanlal for Pardesi. If you look at it, Pardesi handled a sensitive issue and had all those words which would appeal to a jury – alienation, thrisanku swargam, homelessness etc. Also Mohanlal portrayed, with Pattanam Rasheed’s help, three stages in the life of a character. Long time back the finalists for the best actor award as Nedumudi Venu for Minnaminunginte Nuruguvettam and Kamal Haasan for Nayakan. The jury gave the award to Kamal since he portrayed the life span of a character whereas Nedumudi was old throughout the movie. This time that logic did not fly.

The film consists of four segments  The Thief, The Police, Two Men and a Woman and One Woman, Two Men. The first story is about a thief who, by force of circumstances, is unable to renounce his only means of livelihood and is punished by his disgrace more than by law; he loses courage to face his proud son. In the second story, two corrupt and wily police men – the ‘grassroots’ representatives of the state, systematically rob an honest rickshaw puller of his savings and also freedom. In the third story we find a youngster wavering between ‘obligations’ to his family and society, and the love he feels for his servant whom he impregnates. It is the ‘law’ of what he is expected to
do versus the ‘justice’ of what his being yearns for. The fourth story, the most sensuous among the four, has a beautiful woman at the centre inviting lovers and inciting stories. Panki Amma is an enigmatic woman to whom men are attracted; she rejects none and seems to offer love to all, may be of different kinds. [The work of a master]

The Kerala State Film Jury thought this was the best film of 2008, better than TV Chandran’s Vilapangalkkapuram. TV Chandran meanwhile thinks Adoor’s film is a TV serial.

“This time the award for the best film has been given to a TV serial and not a film. Last year his film was not given an award because the then jury felt his film was a serial,” Chandran told reporters here. [Adoor's film is a TV serial: T. V. Chandran]

Adoor meanwhile thought that since the accuser was ‘TV’ Chandran, he would know something about ‘TV’ serials.

Commenting on the same Adoor said that those who think his film is a television serial is “ignorant of what a TV serial is and what a film is”.[Adoor's film is a TV serial: T. V. Chandran]

We understand TV Chandran’s frustration. He tried to make an award movie with Dileep as the hero – Kathavaseshan – which was equivalent to making a dragon fly lift Sai Kumar. It did not win any awards. But when Adoor was not in the picture Chandran’s movies have won national acclaim, like the brilliant Padom Onnu, Oru Vilapam.

Both these two are great directors and it becomes a problem when both have movies together. To resolve this, we should change laws so that they alternate each year. When Adoor makes a movie, TV Chandran takes a break and vice versa. If they don’t listen, we think, whatever movie Vinayan makes that year should be given the best picture award. That should teach everyone a lesson.

Trivia

• MJ Radhakrishnan(Cinematography), M Jayachandran(Music Direction), T. Krishnanunni(Sound Recording), Vrinda(Choreography) won the Kerala state award in 2007 too in their respective fields.
• Jury Chairman Girish Kasaravalli commented that no short film, documentary or Children’s film made the mark.
• Jury Chairman also commented that there was no confusion this time on selection of awards and he also stated the obvious – that the quality of Malayalam movies have gone down.
• Lal has the unique distinction of being a succesful director, producer and now best actor.
• This year none of the super stars, minor stars , wannabe stars, meteors, comets or asteroids were anywhere near the awards.
  

Update(4th June, 2009):  Looks like it’s tough times at India Glitz, they have decided to ‘outsource’  HTML development.

It is hard to analyze Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s movies because it requires some perspective of the world and some familiarity with literature (stuff from Ma magazines and mediocre blog posts don’t qualify as literature). As we do a review roundup of Adoor’s Naalu Pennungal we see that there are just a few good reviewers around and lot of mediocre ones.

The first one is our copy cat friend at IndiaGlitz who has one again copied the Movie Mazaa review featured here at varnachitram. Let us first look at some lines from the Movie Mazaa review.

Adoor’s women remain engraved in conformist stones, never ever even marginally moving away from the firm frontiers that have been intricately drawn around them.

Back home, she starts life afresh, the marriage having passed off as an unpleasant interlude that never really took off.

Here is the review from IndiaGlitz and pay attention to the words in bold.

Even as the stories are set 60 years ago, Adoor’s women remain fixed with establishmentarian attitude, never trying marginally to move away from the firm boundaries that have been complicatedly drawn around them by the society.

Once left back to her home, Kumari starts life afresh, passing off her marriage as an unpleasant interlude that never did happened.

Paresh Palicha writes the story in detail in Rediff, but offers no perspective.

Unni Nair writes

The helplessness and vulnerability of the fairer sex, the inherent strength they have, and the vicissitudes of Fate to which women often fall prey in a male dominated society are some of the issues that get discussed in Naalu Pennungal. A very important aspect of the film is that even seemingly minor characters are portrayed with due importance given to them, for example the character played by Sona Nair in the first story and the character played by Ramya Nambeeshan in the fourth one.

Surprisingly, the film, which speaks volumes about women in general, doesn’t seem to have cut much ice with the womenfolk in Kerala (who obviously are trapped in the mesmerism of tear-jerkers on the small screen), whereas reports say that women constituted the majority of the viewers when the film was screened at the Toronto Festival. Can the makers not do something to get the film across to such an audience which ought to have been the prime target of the film?

Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s tribute to Thakazhy Shivasankara Pillai – Naalu Pennungal (Four Women) – chronicles a journey of womanhood across assorted backdrops; a classic amalgamation of source matter and technique that splendidly spans frames and times.

Of the four disjoined narrations The Prostitute is by far the best; Kunju Pennu, the street hustler (Padmapriya) and Pappukutty (Sreejith Ravi) who falls in love with her find themselves caught up in an ironic violation of civil laws that blandly brands them as having crossed the fragile borders of morality that leisurely vanish as they cautiously approach. The Spinster oddly resembles a telefilm of the 80’s in feel and form as it truly belongs to an age that had long back made its exit. Kamakshi (Nandita Das) can only watch as her younger siblings are married off; the apathy and desperation in her stagnates after a while into a cold recognition that helps her regain what she had lost a few years back. The Housewife has Chinnu Amma (Manju Pillai) lamenting over her inabilty to bear childeren to a lusty visitor Nara Pillai (Mukesh) who puts forward the only solution of taking him to bed with her. Geethu Mohandas plays The Virgin married off to a man who has an obsession with food and little liking for anything else including his wife. Back home, she starts life afresh, the marriage having passed off as an unpleasant interlude that never really took off.

Even as the tales are as dissimilar as they possibly could be, a streak of parallels that runs through can be identified that invariably point to a quizzical analysis of passions that underlie a relationship. The sexual undertones are muffled and hushed and forever behind closed doors; doors are slammed on your face as the younger sister (Kavya Madhavan) of Kamakshi enters matrimony or when Chinnu Amma finds out to her delight as to why her husband has returned home early from work. Sexual deprival stains are splashed over the composed Virgin portrait while the Prostitute has moved beyond a world of haphazard sex into a singular scenario where warmth and the sense of togetherness offers a fulfillment that she has been hitherto unaccustomed to.

At times sluggish, plain and edging on the melodramatic Naalu Pennungal does display magnificent directorial skills compounded with some fierce acting by at least a couple of its lead performers. I would pick Padma Priya and Nandita Das out of the lot, the former for a real squall of a performance that throws together a gamut of emotions ranging from the absurd to the abandoned, and the latter for a fierce struggle that she puts up with a character that monstrously has intentions of slipping into a chestnut. Adoor’s film has no dearth of stars this time around vying for screen time, with a few of them real out of place, looking discomfited and quite ill at ease.

Adoor’s women remain engraved in conformist stones, never ever even marginally moving away from the firm frontiers that have been intricately drawn around them. There are indeed a few clichés that paradoxically stand the test of time, and in the transactional process across media, quite a few of them have managed to scurry across. More than one tale among the four thus suddenly assume the garb of a moralist fable and starts babbling about issues that had long lost purpose or worth.

It’s well worth pondering if there exists an association between the women than what appears on the peripheral level; perhaps there is, which makes the film appealing on three zones – a devout one that holds fast to assumptions of morality, a mutinous vein that confronts steadfast conventions and beliefs and a passive discernment that views it all with an unconcerned inquisitiveness of a spectator. As such it emerges triumphantly offering a few vaguely brilliant insights but nevertheless remains a movie with utterly no raison d’être for being.

(Photo courtesy: sify.com)