As the legend goes,  blue lotus blooms as a sign of god’s  answer to one’s prayers.  Movie lovers in Kerala been praying for good cinema for a while and we were hoping that Lal Jose’s Neelathamara would be the answer.  Reading the reviews we are not 100% sure about it as the opinion is divided. The story of a maid servant falling in love with the rich boy might have been new in the 70s, but it is no longer so. We had many variations of theme, among which Nandanam is our favorite.

So even though there is nothing new in the story for the viewer in 2009, what is unique is Lal Jose’s treatment, the new actors which the movie introduces, Vijay Ulakanathan’s camera work, and Vidyasagar’s melodious music[Read Neelathamara's music review by Vivek Ranjit here].

Nowrunning.com says:

Kailash is my pick of the lot, when it comes to the performers in the film. He is as much a hot blooded, charismatic and flirtatious youngster of the 70′s as one can be. Confident and remarkably talented, this young actor is one who would be around for a long time to come. Archana is every bit the demure, coy village girl and the innocent sweetheart. Samvrutha puts up a starkly moving performance that should count among the best that she has come up with till now in her career.

Lal Jose is the man when it comes to creating verse on screen. Beautifully shot, Neelathamara has been conceptualized with an effervescent artistry. Vijay Ulakanathan’s camera work is nothing short of brilliant. The three songs that have been set to tune by Vidyasagar are mind blowingly melodious to say the least.

Neelathamara does make an effort to wedge itself into today’s world. And I would grant it to Lal Jose and his team for having done the best with a theme that felt right three decades back.

Hindu offers some interesting tidbits:

Where the first ‘Neelathamara’ ends, the present one opens. The remake is actually the flashback. MT has woven a topical twist to his old script which jells well. Sreedevi Unni who dons the mother’s role stands out for her natural acting.

Archana Kavi has that vulnerable look and understated emotions that go well with rural girls. The male protagonist is played by Kailash. The smaller characters like the caretaker, the man under the banyan tree and the old servant leave an impression with the viewer.

Rainmaker’s review:

Lal Jose has done justice to the script written perhaps a bit too much as well. His handling of the sequences is true with the pace of the story. He has been able to extract creditable performances from the cast especially new comers. Cinematography is superb and one of the best reasons to watch the movie. Lighting is superbly done in night sequences. It looks poetic. Music is lilting with ‘Anuraga’ being one of the best melodies of the year. The Ghazal during the sad sequences is aesthetically shot. There is no injection of unwanted comedy, drama to increase the length. Its sharp as much as the script demands. 1 hour and 45 odd minutes.

Rediff.com comments:

The performance of newcomers Archana and Kailash comes very close to be called enchanting. Archana shows the class of a veteran displaying requisite vulnerability spontaneously. Her expressions and body language convey more than her dialogues. We just hope that this is just the beginning of a long innings. Kailash displays the haughtiness of the male of yesteryears who believes that he is a superior being. He may initially miss being a chocolate boy hero. But, he will surely come on his own as time goes by. Rima’s role as Ammini — Kunjimalu’s sounding board — is insignificant and not well chiselled as one would expect. Or was it truncated on the editor’s table?

All in all, Neelathamara, is lush film without a solid core.

IndiaGlitz gushes about it:

M T seems to be in his familiar terrain, with precise, crisp but powerful dialogues. Interlaced with themes of sensuality, infidelity and sincere romance, the director has created a visual marvel with the aid of cinematographer Vijay Ulaganath and art director Gokuldas. The flashback really gives the feel of ‘being there’, with its realistic settings and greenish tones. Recreation of the early eighties with minute detailing, from that cigarette packs to note books, tape recorders and newspapers is a definitely applaudable directorial stuff. Lal Jose and his regular crew once again displays why they are called as masters of mainstream Mollywood.

With a duration of just 110 minutes, ‘Neelathamara’ races steadily asking the viewers to want for more. Sticking to that impeccable styles of M T, with a little more directorial and technical finesse than some veterans who usually handle M T scripts and with loads of understated but impactful substories and strains, this is definitely a must watch for a serious movie lover. The coming weeks of the movie at the box office will prove, how far the current generation has equipped themselves to get on to the range that an M T script and visuals offer. Hat’s off to Lal Jose and his team to prove that young makers are still here to bring back the splendour of that eighties.

Image courtesy: rediff.com

Indiaglitz reviews:

The eleventh film from ace director Lal Jose – ‘Mulla ‘ cannot perhaps be called a bad film. But neither can it be called a brilliant movie. After such critically appreciated movies like ‘Arabikkatha’ and ‘Classmates’, one did expect a lot more from the director who gave us path breaking hits, even with lesser stars. An average film that may not make much of an impact at the box office, that’s what ‘Mulla’, is. Though a colorful film that is entertaining at times, ‘Mulla’ falters on many counts, being too far from an engrossing stuff and is perhaps indicative that Lal Jose and Sindhu Raj failed miserably this time, trying to give a long elusive hit to Dileep.

NowRunning.com says

Mulla is a film that stumbles early and never really picks up. It’s dazed and confused and falls flat in its efforts to be the least absorbing. Sindhuraj’s script has not much of a story to occupy the running time and by the end there is neither a conflict nor an agreeable dénouement. The set-ups are simply too outrageous and backbreaking to sit through. The plotting is clumsy and never rises above a self-imposed blandness. The characters are never really clearly defined nor is there a reason for us to care about them.

Dileep as Mulla, does nothing less of a fair job and nothing more. The solid hair-cut is all striking, but he is shaken up by a flood of pointless events and seems all bewildered. He finds himself in an unenviable position when he has to use nearly every acting trick in his armory to distract us from a plot that’s as fragile and frail as a house of cards. Debutante Meera Nandan, looks pretty as a portrait, despite being oddly made-up and ridiculously clad. She appears at times slightly jumpy, and at others distinctly uncomfortable. Biju Menon makes a reappearance in an outlandish wig and Bhavana resurfaces in one of the worst cameos ever.

Rediff’s take:

But the screenplay by Sindhuraj is not that simple. In the beginning it seems somewhat interesting as the story is revealed through flashbacks (maybe a hangover of Classmates to complicate the narrative). But, it does not hold our attention for long as we can guess things taking shape and in what direction they are moving.

Let me say the interesting thing first, which is Dileep’s character as almost dumb and brooding angry young man. He is robbed of the vital ingredient of histrionic armoury that is, to provide comic relief with his antics. The son of a prostitute nicknamed Mulla, (named after jasmine flowers she wears in her hair), he later gets her name after she commits suicide. He is then brought up in a slum that breeds criminals.

Meera Nandan tries her best to be charming as the best of Malayalam cinema did before her. But she will need to spruce up a little before she gets noticed by Tamil filmmakers (which are what all Malayalam actresses aim at these days). Still she is good enough to fit the bill here.

Image courtesy: Rediff.com

Another novelty is the music by Vidyasagar to the lyrics of Vayalar Sarath. Lal Jose introduces 3 new leading ladies in this movie. Meera Nandan, Reena Basheer, Shruthi Menon.

The highlight of Mulla is that he is introducing a new heroine Meera Nandan from Kochi, who was the anchor of a reality show on television. She is doing her Plus two in a school, and looks beautiful and has typical the girl next door looks. Says Lal Jose: “The character she plays in Mulla is that of Latchi a bubbly girl who works in a bakery. She has the looks of my character and I think she can emote well.”

Another important character is Vasanthi a gypsy girl who goes around in trains singing songs. For that Lalu has found a girl from Mumbai Sruthi Menon, a dusky beauty. The other new face is Reena Basheer, who plays the role of Malathy, the wife of a dada in a colony. The story takes place against the background of trains and a slum colony, near the Railway station.

The others in the cast are Innocent, Salim Kumar, Riza Bava, Binish Kodiyeri, Anoop Chandran. Sindhuraj has written the story; camera is by Vipin Mohan and for the first time upcoming lyric writer Vaylar Sarathchandra Varma is being teamed up with the hit maker Vidyasagar. Lal Jose is back with Mulla

Dileep had tonsured his head to suit the character in this movies. Director Lal Jose and script writer too tonsured their head
in an expression of solidarity. We hope that it won’t be producer’s turn to do that after the movie is released.

Photo courtesy : sify.com

Any Communist who believes that the party looks after the poor is still living in a fool’s paradise. While this truth was self evident to us for a long time, it has taken a courageous film maker called Lal Jose to put that on screen. His new movie, along the lines of the excellent Achanurangatha Veedu tells some unpleasant truths in a not so unpleasant way. Besides going for a story which looks at Communist hypocrisy, Lal Jose has cast Srinivasan in the lead role, similar to how he cast Salim Kumar in the role of his life time in Achanurantha Veedu.

Sify writes

In the era of superstar driven, shallow, larger-than-life filmmaking with no story line, Lal Jose and his script writer Iqbal Kuttipuram has come out with a solid film. Arabikatha is a stinging indictment of how the communist parties in Kerala, has moved away from the ordinary people its voter base, to be a party controlled by a corrupt leadership devoid of any ideology or social commitment.

There are so many well etched scenes in the film which exposes the hollowness of the communist ideology in a fast changing world. The scene where Mukundan meets his ‘bete-noire’ the NRI Kunjunni in his Dubai office is brilliant. Kunjunni exposes the leadership of a party of the working class, who are not used to doing hard labour, nor do they know how to operate a laptop!

Soon Mukundan realizes that today it is a materialistic world, and the old dogmas of communism are dead. But the dogmas are kept alive by the “corrupt” leadership back home, for their own survival!
A scintillating performance from Sreenivasan is the highlight of the film. He is brilliant and lifelike, at the same time brings nervous energy and anguish to the character he performs which makes the film work. You can feel the earnestness of ‘Cuba’ Mukundan’s intentions, the wetness of his tears through Sreenivasan. Zhang Shu Min the Chinese for a newcomer has played the role with a lot of sensitivity. Jayasurya in a negative role is a revelation. Inderjeet, Samvrutha, Jagathy, Saleem Kumar, Augustine and a host of newcomers have given spellbinding performances.

The Hindu writes

Each of us has heard stories of people whose dreams turned into a mirage. However, we prefer to focus on the stories of the handful of people who have made it big there. But for every millionaire, there are thousands of anonymous workers who are forced to live away from their families and endure many hardships to support their families. What they sacrifice is their youth. This is their story and ours too.”

While scouting for locations in Dubai, I happened to visit a labour camp. I am sure that if I had taken up a job in the Gulf, I would have been living in one of those places,” feels film director Lal Jose.

But cinema came to his rescue and Lal Jose’s latest film, ‘Arabikatha,’ is a sort of tribute to those thousands of nameless Keralites who eke out a living in the Gulf. But the film is not a grim documentation of the labour camps or the under belly of glittering Dubai. ‘Arabikatha’ celebrates the lives of those workers who reach Dubai to chase their dreams.

Velu Says:

Amidst deafening slogans and intensifying vigor, the shots of gunfire reverberate, crushing a few valiant lives in the process. Shot in starch black and white, the scene gains color, as scarlet blood drenches a white flag that a comrade gallantly upholds – Lal Jose sets a crimson tone for his latest offing, as his signature impressively emerges on the screen.

Cuba Mukundan (Sreenivasan), a Communist ideologist, who seeks to establish a classless, stateless social organization based on the Marxian principles that he holds dear to, is a staunch socialist, who wears his heart on his sickle. Son to the revolutionary Society Gopalan (Nedumudi Venu), he is busy waging war against Computers, Casteism and Coca Cola at Chemmannur. Until he finds himself as a debtor of twenty lakhs, and is left with no other choice, but to end up being one of the million job-seekers in Dubai, a destination that he simply abhors owing to its bourgeoisie makeup. Mukundan’s Communist manifesto has few takers in Dubai, as he painfully realizes that the world isn’t all about Fidel Castro and Cuba nor about Lenin and Beijing. The affairs back home aren’t rosy either, as the new generation lefties gain power and clout, and the genuine revolution gets trodden deeper into the grimy dirt.

IndiaGlitz.com comments:

It is natural for people, especially Malayalees to leave their homeland in search of a better life and a bright future for their children. In Arabikatha, the director tackles the subject of an intense party men living on the fringes of an alien society which does not recognize his existence. The film has Sreenivasan playing Cuba Mukundan, who is an ardent fan of Fidel Castro and loves his party than anything. He and his father ‘Society’ Raghavan who run a tea shop, are the torch bearers of the party at Chammanur in Kannur district. Being the local secretary of communist party, he criticizes and resists everything that is forbidden by the party texts. And so he is against cola, bourgouisie, bribery, computers and even don’t believe in gods as communists originally don’t. As Marx somewhere suggested that he rethought many times about his decision to enter into marriage, Mukundan also don’t like to enter into matrimony. . But all in the party were not like Mukundan. People like Karunan, a party leader wants to take over the party in the village from Mukundan, for his own selfish reasons.

The film opens with the lathy charge on ‘Cuba’ Mukundan and his party men, who are making an agitation against the leather factory in the village, set up by Kunjunni (Jagathy Sreekumar) a rich NRI. The party resists the factory due to environmental reasons and the industrial pollution that it creates. But Karunan has a secret deal with Kunjunni, to somehow avoid the agitation. But soon the court rules to close down the leather factory. Kunjunni now agitated, plans with Karunan to frame Mukundan’s father Society Ragahvan on a scandal related with society’s expenditure. They succeed in that, when Raghavan is at hospital with a fatal stroke. ‘Cuba’ Mukundan believes the cooked up scandal story and suspends his father from the party for the involvement, but soon the old man passes away. Now Mukundan decides to repay the ‘misappropriate’ amount involved and take leave from the party. The district committee suggests Mukundan to go to gulf so that he can make the big amount of 20 lakh to repay, within a short time.

Rediff.com says:

Can just talking of idealism and fighting for a just world for others buy you a bowl of rice? In these times of rampant and unabashed consumerism where ideology does not count for much, this question is the ultimate that can stop any argument on political or ideological integrity.

And, if you have the protagonist of a film carrying the ideals of some long lost era, what will be the outcome? Scriptwriter Dr Iqbal Kuttipuram creates such a man in the Malayalam film Arabikatha, and succeeds greatly in putting across the point that progress is vital.

He bashes the leftist ideology with subtlety by concentrating on an individual rather than making a hyperbole out of it as seen in most commercial films.

One of the most elaborate scenes in [tag]Meesha Madhavan[/tag] is when the local money lender Bhageerathan Pilla ([tag]Jagathi Sreekumar[/tag]) and his daughter Rugmini ([tag]Kavya Madhavan[/tag]) set a trap to catch the Chekku village thief Madhavan ([tag]Dileep[/tag]). Folklore says that if Madhavan twirls his moustache at someone, he will steal from that person’s house. Knowing this they setup a cartoon film based trap consisting of ropes, pulleys, marbles and powder. On that night they not alone. Joining Pillechan is his trusted friend, middle aged man with a neck problem and the Chekku youth wing secretary Thrivikraman ([tag]Cochin Haneefa[/tag]). Joining Madhavan is his friend Sugunan played by Harisri Asokan and the advocate Mukundanunny who is chasing him (played by [tag]Salim Kumar[/tag]). Another person who wanders into this milieu is Lineman Lonappan (Machan Varghese) whom Madhavan had bribed to disconnect the power supply to Pillechan’s house.

What follows for the next 15 minutes is various encounters in various parts of the house. Pillechan’s hot water tub is substituted with a bucket of burning coals. The advocate falls into a cow dug pit and walks like a zombie scaring everyone. Madhavan walks into the trap and is caught in a fishing net. No, that’s still not the entire cast of this movie. Not seen in this scene are constable Achyuthan Namboothiri (Oduvil), who is pally with Madhavan, Prabha ([tag]Jyothirmayi[/tag]) who is Namboorthiri’s daughter, and Eepan Papachi ([tag]Indrajith[/tag]), the new inspector in town.

Though he is a thief, Madhavan is loved by one and all. His father had borrowed money from the money lender Pillechan and so he has to make payments based on Pillechan’s demands. This gets them into fights quite often and they try to one up each other. Madhavan, since he spends his time roaming in the dark, finds that Pillechan has an affair with the wife of a soldier and uses this information to black mail him. This cat and mouse game goes on for a while when Rugmini enters the fray.

So there are more games between Madhavan and Rugmini as she wants to support her father. In such movies, it is imperative that the hero and heroine be childhood friends and that requirement is depicted through flash backs. Soon Pillechan finds an ally in the newly arrived arrogant inspector Eeapen Papachi. One casualty of the game played by Rugmini, Pillechan and Papachi is the marriage of Madhavan’s sister and then Rugmini makes a U turn and falls in love with Madhavan. But then the idol from the temple is stolen and the suspect is Madhavan since he was seen there last night. If Madhavan did not do it, then who did it? (No points for guessing the answer.)

This movie was a big hit in the year it was released for a good reason – it is an excellent entertainer with very lovable characters, funny scenes and a smooth screen play. Like any other [tag]Ranjan Pramod[/tag] script, it just flows from the beginning with one event after another establishing the relationships and introducing the characters, like how we saw again in Naran.

The film does not break new ground in terms of comedy but the way in which these characters interact provides all the entertainment required. There are scenes like Pillechan taking a knife to cut down Madhavan and the whole village joins him in the procession with Thrivikraman calling everyone to come and watch the fun. When Pillechan steps into the barber shop where Madhavan is hiding, he finds that Madhavan is sitting along with the Military husband of the lady with whom Pillechan has an affair. Pillechan pleads with his eyes and Madhavan makes fun of him in front of everyone.

Besides such Tom & Jerry scenes, there is romance, misunderstanding, jealousy, compassion, drama and every possible human emotion, all captured in a realistic way. There is even one beautiful sensual scene when Madhavan enters Pillechan’s house to steal Rugmini’s aranjanam. The movie stands out in terms of performance of all the actors – Dileep, Kavya, Jagathi, Haneefa, Harisri, Oduvil, all perform their parts without over acting. While all these people are all established actors, one person who impressed us was Indrajith as the menacing Papachi. Even Salim Kumar as the advocate who goes around saying, “I may not have the looks, but I am an advocate”, was tolerable.

If you observe the successful comedy movies in Malayalam like Nadodikaatu, Sanmanasullavarku Samadhanam and Ramji Rao Speaking, you will find that they all have an under current of poverty. It this this poverty that drives the protagonists to do all those crazy things which is comical to us and makes them human. In this film too there is an explanation for Madhavan’s necessity to be a thief and such behavior silently rationalized.

[tag]Vidyasagar[/tag] gave some excellent foot tapping numbers for this movie, the most famous being Chingamasam which bought Jyothirmayi to attention. All the songs have excellent choreography by Prasannan. Each frame of the song is captivating, both due to the costumes, the contrast of the costumes with the background and also due to the framing of the beautiful locales and one has to commend the excellent work done by S. Kumar.

This film catapulted the careers of director [tag]Lal Jose[/tag], Dileep, Kavya and Ranjan Pramod. This is an excellent movie and is highly recommended.

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In the teaser scene of the movie you see Sukumaran (Prithviraj) chasing Sateeshan (Jayasurya) along the campus. Finally Sukumaran catches him and beats him to pulp. Someone throws him a hockey stick and as he is about to kill Sateeshan, someone shouts that their friend Murali (Sunil) is found dead in the generator room. Suku wakes up from his dream and gets ready to go back to Kerala from Mumbai for a reunion among those classmates.

The reunion of the 1991 Chemistry batch was organized by Prof. Iyer (Balachandra Menon) and his wife (Sobha Mohan) in memory of their son Murali. The plan was to have a get together in the evening, recollect memories, stay in the hostel for the night and leave in the morning. Besides Sukumaran who is now a diamond merchant the other people who arrive are Sateeshan, who is an MLA, Pius (Indrajith), who is now in Gulf, Thara Kurup (Kavya Madhavan) who is a professional dancer and Raziya (Radhika).

As they arrive one by one, both Thara and Sateeshan give a hostile looks to Sukumaran and you know something is not right. His only friend is Pius, but since his daughter was sick, Pius leaves to see a doctor at night at the insistence of Thara. As Suku is drunk and lying in the hostel room at night, Prof. Iyer comes to meet him and talk about Murali and his guitar which Iyer kept in another room. That night when Pius returns he finds Suku is strangled by the guitar string and police comes to investigate.

Suku was not dead and he is moved to the ICU. The police meanwhile find his diary in which he had written that he wanted to end his life, but before that he wanted to go back to his past one last time. Iyer does not believe that it is suicide. He walks along with Pius and tells that to understand the present, we have to go back into the past. The movie then flash backs to 1991.

The college life of that era was a time of strikes, a time of romance, a time of political fights and the time of love letters hidden in books. Suku is the leader of SFK and Sateeshan that of DSU and they have their tiffs. Suku also has an ongoing feud with Thara ever since she refused to leave class following a strike call issued by him. They play pranks on each other and finally it turns out that they both are madly in love with each other.

To disrupt this, Sateeshan influences Thara’s father, a big shot in DSU and makes her a candidate in the elections. She disregards Suku’s warnings which irritates him. Murali meanwhile is the favorite of everyone as he is a singer and non political. Pius is the local kamadevan trying to flirt with everyone in the campus including Raziya who is called Penguin because of her purdah. Sateeshan plays dirty in the elections, steals a love letter written by Thara to Suku and deposits it in the ballot box.

Thara and Suku fall apart. Then Murali’s death happens and a disgusted Suku stops his education and leaves. Iyer then goes through more details with Pius and slowly he pieces the story of the last 15 years. In this process he learns how his son died. He also learns who attacked Suku. This unfolding of events forms the story of Classmates.

There are two aspects which made this movie very interesting to watch. The first one is the nostalgia it creates for the campus life. We studied in a college which is exactly same as the college shown in this movie. We had friends who were like Suku, Sateeshan and Thara. Writer James Albert has made that era very lively and realistic. In one of the scenes one of the guys mentions that he was in love with a girl for almost two years and another one asks, “Does she know it”. We had a friend who fits this silent lover to the t.

The second aspect is the very interesting way of narration. Initially a set of sequences are shown, both in the past and present. Then as Iyer learns more and more, the gaps left in both past and present and filled one by one leading to the identity of the killer and attempted killer. Also in this layered narration, a hidden story of relationship is also revealed which was very interesting. Due to this, characters who remained in the background in the first pass get more prominence in the second around. The same scenes are shown again and you get to see the new angle. Due to this style of story telling, even after the movie was over, we were re sequencing the story in our head. This was clever writing.

The movie was funny. Any college movie should have pranks and the ones between Suku and Thara where he swaps her dance song for a Rajnikanth song and kidnaps her from the hostel while she is sleeping had us laughing. In another scene, Murali is asked by SFK guys to sing their revolutionary song for campaign. As he is singing, he is lifted by the DSU guys and forced to sing a different son. Then the SFK guys chase him and he starts singing both songs.

The movie had strong emotions too. The point where the relationship between Thara and Suku turn from hostility to love was refreshingly done. Similarly the hostility between Suku and Sateeshan build up over small incidents resulting in frequent fights and finally it reaches the climax with the ultimate prank that Sateshan plays which destroys Suku’s life completely. The drama here and the tension between the characters make for compelling viewing.

Besides writing such a layered story, dialogue by James Albert is non cliched as well. When Suku asks Thara not to stand for elections, she simply asks him to marry her immediately so that she does not have to listen to her father anymore. When they are locked up in the Chemistry lab, both Suku and Thara talk about their love for each other, mostly in third person which was interesting. When you have so many characters giving each one of them time is not easy, but James Albert has done justice to all the characters.

The movie is not without its drawbacks also. There is a scene where police enters the campus and beats all students including girls. We studied in a college where this was a regular feature and not once have we seen police beating girls. Also in this movie, lot of events happen because one person overhears what he is not supposed to. Thus we see Sateeshan overhearing the conversation between Thara and Suku, Sateeshan’s friend overhearing a conversation between Pius and Suku about Thara’s love letter and finally the person who attacked Suku overhearing something incriminating. This overhearing in fact forms the pillar of the movie and was overused.

Prithviraj did an excellent job as Suku. As we saw in Vargam, playing arrogant head strong characters is his forte. But in this movie he gets to be a romantic as well as a devastated helpless man. The other revelation is Indrajith. There is one scene where he grabs the letter Thara wrote to Suku and reads it out while Suku tries to grab it. His body language and the way he does it was really funny. Though we are not big fans of Jayasurya after seeing terrible movies like Immini Nalloral and Pulival Kalyanam, we were impressed with his role as Sateeshan. He can make a good villain. One versatile actor is Sunil, who morphs like a chameleon into each of the characters he is playing whether it is the rowdy in Chittiram Pesuthadi, or Police Officer in Four the People. In this film too he plays the musician’s role with ease. Among the actresses Kavya as usual has done her role very well. Radhika who played the role of Rasiya got some excellent scenes.

The music of the movie too deserves mention. Alex Paul and Vayalar Sharat Chandra Varma’s songs re-create the spirit of the campus with very memorable songs. Our favorite is Ente Khalbile. Technically too this film stands out with the use of steady cams to get us into the middle of the action. Director Lal Jose has impressed us with movies like Meesha Madhavan, Chanthupottu, and Achanurangatha Veedu. Once again he has impressed us with this well made movie.

When a superstar driven movie hits the screen, it already has many advantages to it. There is the name recognition which brings in the initials. Superstar movies usually have the best off screen talent working with them and then there are die hard fans who don’t care if the movie has a script or not.

Right now both the superstars are doing extremely well in their careers. Mammotty and Mohanlal had a list of hit movies this year which showed their versatility once again. In such a time for a movie with young actors to do well is an uphill battle. But director Lal Jose has shown that such a battle can be fought and won.

The trick is to concentrate on the script, a oft forgotten component in today’s movies. If you look at successful movies with non-superstars like Sargam and Nakshakshathangal, you can see that besides an excellent story, they also had beautiful dialogue and great direction.

Says Lal Jose: “I chose this script as it was daring and had some freshness about it. A dual love story and a murder mystery told against a campus background were sure to click with the audience.”

Lal Jose has proved once again that it is not stars but the novelty in the story that matters most in the making of a blockbuster. James Albert says that he had approached Lal Jose with a complete script of `Classmates,’ written according to the sequence of the scenes. Initially Jose was reluctant to listen to the story but once Albert started the narration, he was truly hooked.

Adds James, “Some of the characters you see in the film are based on real-life people and that’s why the film appeals to everyone. Student politics, campus romance and canteen jokes added to the right flavour.”

Indrajith who played Pious the campus Casanova points out, “The innovative script and presentation worked and my character was something which I had not done so far.”

Kavya says, “The suspense element in the script and the natural way that we all performed made the film a super hit.”[Classmates,' a trendsetter]

This movie’s success is a lesson for all film makers. What matters is the story and the refreshing style of presentation. We really don’t care if the movie is released on American Independence Day or if the lead actors are making idiots of themselves in the streets of Thailand or Switzerland. Instead of wasting money on such cosmetic embellishments, our advice is to give that money to the script writer.

In an industry where the script is written on the sets, where a complete bound script is an aberration instead of practice, and where scripts and stories written with personalities and mannerisms in mind, here’s one director who had the courage and conviction to take the path less traveled. We hope this path will be traveled more often and movies like Classmates is not an exception but a regularity. And that would be the time when we would recognize the real superstars of cinema – the script and the director.