Alternate Movies

Uttara(Wrestlers) -Bengali 2000

2007-09-14T20:40:00.000-07:00

Uttara by buddha deb gupta has all the usual elements of his film, but this time he touches a theme that many around the globe can relate too.

The movie is not a single story.There are a few threads each signifying a certain theme.The movie mainly focuses on the wrestler friends Balaram (Shankar Chakraborty) / Nemai (Tapas Pal) and a father of a local church.Some new people from the city come to the village and the peace and tranquility of the village is disturbed.The father character is loosely based on Graham Stewart Staines who was burned to death by hindu activists in orissa.

The story of these various characters are just for the name sake to convey certain message .As usual some of the usual communist/socialist ideas are abundant in this movie.But buddhadeb makes up for all these with beautiful images shot in puralina, bengal.The movie has this usual buddhadeb magical feel to it.You will hardly see any other characters other than the ones who are significant in the movie.And he employs all the classical shots a low camera angle capturing the wrestlers wrestling right in the middle of the shot, on a mountain with the sky above them.An out of place church with a S path Leading to it.

And there are these dwarf characters and dancers coming now and then.Most of the time they are totally out of place and almost dream like.He breaks some scenes with the dancers coming from nowhere.A serious scenes of a gang chasing a boy to kill is cut off by dancers dancing with a beautiful beat and song.

Ananlysis
***spoilers*****
The movie is a ode to the weaker people.The wrestlers basically represent the Powerful,strong,wealthy people or just USA and USSR.The core theme of the movie is that the basically humans are responsible for all bad things that is happening in the world and significantly, it is the stronger/tall people and not weaker/short peoples.The stronger don't care about love and care.In this both of the wrestlers are more interested in fighting with each other than taking care of their family.women for them is just a sex thing.There biggest happiness is wrestling with each other than their family.It could be gov't rather than taking care of its people indulging in war and confronting other countries.

The movie stats with the beautiful scene of woods in the village where there is tranquility and peace.It is disturbed by human beings.The people from the city are another example of stronger people who are only interested in sex and violence.

The dancers are peace harmony and traditional ways from which we are deviating. Buddhadeb is indirectly asking us to follow our old tradition and customs which were made for us to live in peace and harmony.The small boy represents the future generation which has witnessed violence on first hand and joins the dance troops.Basically a positive message that the future generation will be more peaceful and harmonious

Buddhadeb gupta

The Sky

Links
Graham Stewart Staines murder

Bariwali(The Lady of the house) -Bengali 1999

2007-09-14T08:16:00.000-07:00

Another nice movie from rituparno.This is the story of banulatha(Kiron kher) an old spinster, who has been leading a lonely life.Banulatha has a sad past, her marriage did not happen as her would be groom died by a snake bite on the eve of the marriage.Banulatha has been a spinster since then.She lives in a big house with a maid servant ,old house keeper and lot of dreams and desires.

She is finding it hard to keep the house because of her financial difficulties.Her lonely life becomes colorful when a movie director asks her house for shooting. Banulatha is attracted towards the director Deepanakar(Chiranjeet), she starts having feeling towards him.The shooting ends , what happens to banulatha is the story.

Rituparno takes his time with the banulatha character and beautifully conveys her loneliness and attraction towards Deepankar.Deepnakar's entry itself was a nice one.The current goes off in the house, there is some problem in the power switch board.Deepankar who comes to meet banulatha for the first time , sees banulatha struggling with the switch board, he says he will fix it and oolah he brings light into the house and banulatha's life.

Sudeshna Mitra(Roopa ganguly) is the lead actress of the movie, and the movie that they are shooting is Tagore's "Sand in the eye", which is nothing but choker bali.The movie that they are shooting focuses on the widow character(played by aishwarya in choker bali), her suffering and ironically the director deepankar is completely oblivious of banulata's.There is a scene in the movie where they want a married woman beautifully dressed with lot of sindoor to sit next to sudeshna mitra in the movie.just to bring pity to the widow character in the movie.Deepankar insists that banulatha should do that role.Again there is an irony here, this almost widow like spinster acts as a happy married woman and the lead actress of the movie who has it all acts as the widow.There are a lot of scenes like these in the movie.

The movie is subtle and nice.But i just couldn't stop comparing it with 36 chowringhee lane.The core of the movie is definitely inspired from 36 CL.But it is not even close to 36 CL in many aspects.Rituparno actually does his version, where there are many characters and lot of ironies and stuff.This actually makes us loose focus on banulatha, whereas in 36 CL it is all Violet stoneham.Jeniffer kendal rocked in 36 CL but ironically she didn't get the national award.

Cast and Credits:

Kiron Kher ... Banalata
Chiranjeet ... Deepanakar
Sudipta Chakraborty ... Malati
Surya Chatterjee ... Prasanna
Rupa Gangooly ... Sudeshna Mitra
Abhishek Chatterjee ... Abhijeet
Shivprasad Mukerjee ... Debashish

Music is by Debajyoti Mishra.He has done a nice job in the movie.There is this beautifully marriage song that comes during the title and at many places in the movie.

The movie is produced by Anupam kher, husband of Kiron kher.Actually the Banu latha role was supposed to be done by rakhee first, but some how it ended with kiron kher.

Awards:
1999 National award for Best Actress - Kiron Kher
There was lot of controversies around this award.Kiron kher went on record that she practiced bengali for almost a year and did her own voice for the movie.But it wasn't so.Read more about it here

Links
Kiron kher interview with kavitha chibber
The Controversy
Dub and Be damned

Dahan(cross fire) -1997 bengali

2007-09-13T09:50:00.000-07:00

Jeez rituparno gosh is good.Another of his movie where he brilliantly weaves the screenplay with so many characters to build a great story.The movie which is kind of an amoress peros style start has an incident which affects the life of three womens.

-------story-----
Romita (Rituparna Sengupta), goes shopping with her husband Palash(Abhishek Chatterjee).Romita is molested by a gang in front of her husband, when the crowd is watching.Jhinuk (Indrani Haldar), a schoolteacher passing by the way comes to there rescue .This incident and the fight to get the men punished, creates rift in their respective families and in that process the womens of the movie learn many lessons about men and life as whole.
-----------------------

The movie is based on the novel of same name by Suchitra Bhattacharya and the book was inspired from a real life incident in which a female journalist Ananya Chatterjee Chakraborti saved a housewife from public harassment.

She is also the very woman whose courage, conviction and tenacity inspired, first, a novel and, later, a film on her by Rituparna Ghosh named Dahan. Author Suchitra Bhattacharya was inspired by Ananya's guts in standing by a young couple who were harassed in full view of a crowd at a Kolkata Metro station on a rainy evening in 1992... Advised repeatedly to "forget" the incident and look the other way, Ananya stayed the course in her fight for justice and even returned a bravery award from the police.read more about Ananya here

Rituparno is a gifted screenplay writer and he excels when there are more characters, UTSAB, SHUBO MUHURT and DAHAN are good example of that.The movie takes that small incident and paints a picture of problems that women face in our society.The thing is, this is not a movie about the problems of some poor illiterate village women.This is about well educated well do women who still face so many problems in the society. Romita for example faces pure violence from unknown guys in the street and after few days she faces violence from her husband in her own bedroom.It throws up lot of questions.If the violence by those thugs has to be condemned, what about the violence in her own bedroom?.

Like any other benglai movie from a big director, it has the anti capitalistic dialog's all over the movie.There are the usual fake people and those who want to take advantage of the situation.The movie is the struggle of 3 women amidst all these people.

Cast and credit:
Shakuntala Barua .... Jhinuk's mother
Abhishek Chatterjee .... Palash
Subhendu Chatterjee .... Jhinuk's father
Indrani Haldar .... Jhinuk
Nirmal Kumar .... Government lawyer
Suchitra Mitra .... Jhinuk's grandmother
Rituparna Sengupta ... Romita

Directon & Screenplay: Rituparno Ghosh
Cinematography: Hari Nair
Music: Poroma Banerjee, Debajyoti Mishra

Suchitra Bhattacharya

Awards:
1997 was an interesting year. Both the male and female national awards were split for two persons.AMong the actors it was Suresh Gopi(Kaliyattam) and Balachandran Menon(Samaandharagal) and among actresses it was Indrani Halder & Rituparna Sengupta both for Dahan.

1997 National award for Best Feature Film In Bengali
1997 National award for Best Screenplay Rituparno gosh
1997 National award for Best Actress Indrani Halder & Rituparna Sengupta

Indrani Halder

Rituparna Sengupta

Links:
suchira bhattacharya
Dahan the book
Indrani Haldar

Rituparno gosh

2007-09-12T23:02:00.001-07:00

Rituparno gosh has some great movies and he is one of the best directors among the young parallel movie directors.Rituparno is peerless when it comes to scripting complex screenplay's.He handles stories with multiple characters so beautifully.Many of his movies are women oriented and many of his movies have been well awarded at the naitonal awards.He has won the best director award for UTSAB in 2000.His movie Unishe april won the best picture award in 1994 and 3 or rather four of his lead actresses have won the national awards.

Kiron Kher in 1999 for Bariwali.
Indrani Halder & Rituparna Sengupta in 1997 for Dahan
Debashree Roy in 1994 for Unishre April

Rituparno gosh

His movies here
UTSAB
DAHAN
BARIWALI
SHUBO MUHURT
ASHOOK
UNISHE APRIL.

Bhuvan shome(Mr.Shome) -hindi 1969

2007-09-12T10:20:00.000-07:00

The movie that kicked off the indian "Nouvelle Vague", bhuvan shome is a simple movie with a different narration style for its time.

Mrinal Sen

Based on the novel of same name by Balai Chand Mukhopadhyay(Banaphool), It is the story of transformation of one man ,Mr.Shome(utpal dutt).Shome is a strict disciplinarian who has fallen into a routine.He is one of those high ranking authoritative bureaucrat who follows rules to the T. There is one of his subordinate jadev patel(Sadhu mehr) who has been reported for taking bribes.Shome is about to dismiss him.Shome who is bored of his daily routine,takes a break and decides to go on a hunting trip.He steps out of the closed four walls and enters a world of simple village folks.There he meets gauri(suhashini mulay) ,who helps him in hunting. How his day out in the village transforms him is the remaining story.

The story of the movie is simple but the way it is told was very different.Mrinal employs jump cuts,freeze frames,juxtaposing,animation images and he pretty much steps outside the line of all film making style employed at that time.This is not like his later movies, which didn't convey much visually.In this movie he keeps things simple and everything is visual.For example you can see the suit clad shome getting into a villager dress,or the man who has been leading his life in a straight path like railway tracks making a U turn at the end in a muddy track with greenery on both sides.The confined rooms and open desert etc.

Mrinal has used the music and cinematography also wisely and it all adds up to the overall difference in the movie.Music is by vijaya raghava rao and cinematography by K.K.mahajan.K.K mahajan beautifully captures the natural background with desert and birds.

The movie jumps from comedy to sensitive scenes beautifully.Well some credit goes to utpal dutt here.He is in his usual best.And he gets good support from suhashini mullay.You will fall in love with this innocent village girl.You can't tell that it is her first film by seeing her acting in the movie.

Can a simple day out change a man?.It is interesting to think on those lines.Shome's office is a imaginary world where he has power and he is respected and he is at the top.But in a distant village nobody respects him and he absolutely has no power over anything.The imaginary power hierarchy of the office is not there and he is totally lost.The simple village life and a caring village girl does seem to have changed Mr.Bhuvan.A simple and interesting movie.

Links
cinematographer mahajan
shooting bhuvan shome
mrinal sen
Suhasini Mulay

Chinthavishtayaya Shyamala(The Pensive Shyamala) -Malayalam - 1998

2007-09-11T16:00:00.000-07:00

The story of the movie is nothing extraordinary, it is about ordinary peoples.It is about one of those many irresponsible husbands in india.In this case it is Vijayan(Sreenivasan) a school teacher in a small town.Vijayan thinks high of himself and thinks that the school teacher job is way below his capabilities.He tries his hand in various business and fails.He does all these things without caring about his wife shyamala and kids.The movie is about what happens to vijayan and his family.

This is another movie with a beautiful screenplay.Probably the best of srinivasan's screenplay.This movie's screenplay is so well crafted that it will swing you back and forth into happiness and sorrow with such an ease.one time you are laughing at the antics of this slacker husband and the next second you want to kill him when the focus shifts to his wife shyamala.srinivasan plays with your emotions of the viewer and takes them on a roller coaster ride with emotions.

This is not a simple comedy movie though.Srinivasan beautifully concludes the movie with a nice message.

Awards:
National award for Best film on social issues - 1999

Music:
Listen to the music here

Links:
http://www.rediff.com/entertai/1998/aug/12sreen.htm

Thaniyavarthanam(Solo perfomance) -Malayalam -1987

2007-09-10T18:43:00.000-07:00

If theerthadanam was all story, this movie is all screenplay.The movie screenplay is just excellent.

This movie is a straight forward story about a man and how the blind beliefs of the society changes him.The movie is by the successful pair of writer lohithidas and director sibi malyail, which has given many award winning movies.One of the best roles of mammooty, this movie will haunt you for ever.

The movie focus on how deep the blind faith is in rural india and how our perception of something , makes it right or wrong rather thatn what really it is.I would hate to give away anything about the story of this movie.Nothing much to say, just watch it people, its one of a kind movie and a must watch.

Sibi Malayil
Lohithidas

Theerthadanam(Pilgrimage) - Malayalam -2001

2007-09-09T20:45:00.000-07:00

Theerthadanam is one of those book based movies that gives you feel of reading a book when you watch the movie.Based on a short story by jnanapith M.T.Vasudevan nair, this is a simple and sweet movie.

This is the story of a retired school teacher Karunakaran(jayaram) and vinodhini(suhasini maniratnam).Karunakaran, occasionally gets letters from one of his old student vindohini.She mentions in the latest letter that she will be going on a pilgrimage to the mookambika temple.You slowly come to know that Karunakaran is actually hiding everything about vinodhini to his wife. He lies to his wife and sets off to the mookambika temple.From flashbacks we come to know that karunakaran had a love interest with vinodhini when he used to be her teacher.what happens to them, when they meet at mookambika is the rest of the story.This is kind of 10% of the whole story there is a lot more to it than this.

The movie is kind of slow and meanders as it follows these two old people on the pilgrimage, but all those scenes adds up at the end, making the climax richer.

Analysis:
*****Spoilers*****
M.T.Vasudevan nair employs some classic story telling techniques with theerthadanam.We usually support the protagonist as the story is told from his point of view.what nair does is he tells the whole story from karunakaran's perspective and you start feeling for his lost love, and you don't care about the vinodhini character.But when the climax happens it turns the whole table and your whole sympathy goes to vinodhini and all your opinion about karunakaran, changes in a minute.He falls in our eyes, as he had enjoyed a good life and all he was doing was chasing his lost love of youth, whereas vinodhini has lost everything.
*****************

Music:
Listen to the songs here

Credits:

Director:B. Kannan
Writer: M.T. Vasudevan Nair

M.T. Vasudevan Nair

Chidambaram -malayalam/tamil -1985

2007-09-08T18:36:00.000-07:00

Ok little bit about the name.chidambaram actually is a holy place in tamil nadu, it has a shiva temple which houses the famous nataraja statue.The climax scene of the movie takes place in chidambaram.Even though the movie is supposedly a malayalam one.There are more dialog's in tamil than malayalam.

Considered G.Aravindan's best work.Chidambaram, Inspired from a short story by C. V. Sreeraman is a beautiful movie that throws so many questions regarding man woman relationship.

Shankaran works in the office of a cattle farm.An unmarried bachelor, he leads a lonely life.Muniyandi a laborer who manages cattle's in that farm, brings his new wife sivakami to the farm.Sivakami who comes from a sun baked remote village in tamil nadu is fascinated by the farm and its greenery.Sankaran and sivakami start having an illicit relationship, the consequences of that is the rest of the movie.

The movie does not do pages and pages of dialog's justifying the action of its lead characters.The dialog's are minimal and it is left to the viewer to decide everything about the characters.These characters are basically good people.But they break the rules set by the society and put so many moral questions to us.When the movie ends,it is not an end, that is exactly where you start constructing your version of the story.

There are lot of visuals in the movie which are metaphorical and has to be watched closely.vanaprastham fame Shaji N Karun was the cinematographer for this movie.The movie hardly has any BGM, probably 5 minutes in the whole movie.But it adds to the drama that unfolds in the movie.

Cast and credit:
Mohan Das --> Jacob
Gopi --> shankaran
Smita Patil --> Shivagami
Srinivasan --> Muniyandi

Very good acting by everyone.Gopi,smita patil and sreenivasan.Nedumudi venu and innocent come in a guest role for few minutes.

Awards:

1985 National award for Best Film
1985 Kerala state award for Best film and Director

****spoiler*****
when muniyandi dies there is a scene where jacob says that he heard that he killed his wife also, suggesting that sivakami might already be dead.But in the end, shankaran sees sivakami.So did he really see her?.or was it a sign that he is becoming delusional?.If yes what is going to be his fate.If not, what are they going to do are they going to live together?.shankaran and shivakami living happily in chidambaram. can they forget the past?.what about poor muniyandi?.These are only very few ways by which you can expand the movie.The movie gives you an abundance of space to explore.
**********

G.Aravindan

Arimpara(Wart) -Malayalam - 2003

2007-09-07T18:00:00.000-07:00

When is indian cinema going to appreciate directors who experiment with forms, when are we ever going to come out of stories of a poor man/woman suffering in poverty?.Year after year the national awards are given to directors who deal with serious social issues and people like murali who are working hard to bring cinematic excellence by experimenting with forms are forgotten.This is a movie that was hardly recognized in india but was well received in cannes and internationally. This is one beautiful movie from an awesome director.Murali sure is a director to lookout in the future.The brightest star among all the directors in india, he seems to be one of the few indian directors who can make movies that can compete at the international level.

Based on O.V.Vijaya's story of the same name,this is the story of krishnan unni and his wart.Well at least that's what it is from the face of it.But there is more to this movie.Krishnan unnni is a landlord living happily with his wife and son.Krishnan unni comes from a family that is well respected in the village.But things have changed now, laborers are no more the bonded slaves, who used to bend over for their landlords .Krishnan unni still lives in the past glory days and refuses to change with time.The story takes a kafkaish turn when a wart in his face takes a life of its own.what happens to krishnan unni is the story.

The movie is a masterpiece in the way it is told.Murali beautifully shifts the story from one end to the other.At first it is slow, murali takes time in explaining the pastoral and simple life that krishnan unni leads.Krishnan being playful with his kid, the easy going life etc.Changes with the wart are also gradual.But as it grows there is a big tone change in the movie from the pastoral setup it almost becomes a david cronenberg type movie.

Murali at the start shows an evening in which the father and son go to the temple lit with hundreds of lamps reflecting on the pond to the gory gory wart .By juxtaposing this two different setup, he greatly disturbs the audiences.Given the low budget of the movie , the effect murali brings forth is great.I wish all those people who talk about the problem of money in making good movies watch this one.

Good Acting by everyone especially Nedunudi venu, as usual he makes you beleive the character to the core.

Analysis:

****************Spoilers****************

The wart is a Metaphors in the movie.This is my take on what murali is trying to convey.I think the wart is used to convey the burden of our old customs and traditions.Krishnan, who is well rooted in the old traditional ways, refuses to change with the times. He refuses to get it operated, but tries to cure it with old way of herbal medicine.And the lesson here is if you don't change with time, the old customs and blind faith will become a burden and if you keep on doing that, there will be a time when they will take over you, meaning all your decisions will be based on how traditionally you were doing it or what the old scriptures or astrological charts dictate you.And after a while these old traditions and customs, will be taken out as something personal to an individual or a group and would be associated with god,it would be made into something holy.Now everybody has to do it as it is divine. i think that's how most of the old customs and traditions would have come into place.

Murali in the end shows how the wart which was growing in him escapes from krishnan unni and becomes a huge elephant.There are a bunch of priests who are looking at the elephant and they comment, such a big animal, we should keep it in the temple.The wart which was personal to one person has become divine and holy to everyone now.All he had to do to cure the WART was seeks the help of science.

************************************
Murali Nair

Links:
Nedumudi on arimpara
Nedumudi Venu
Nedumudi on wiki
Murali Nair

Cannes: Who cares?
Cannes: wake up call for India
Nedumudi venu on Murali Nair

Watching the parallel movies

2007-09-07T12:59:00.000-07:00

This is to all the people who wanted to know where to download or watch these movies.I watch most of the movies on DVD.for people in US you can rent them through www.Netflix.com , http://www.hindiflix.com/(it has all the other religion movies too),www.italkies.com etc.And there are lot of forums to download other regional movies.There is a new online service called jaman.They have some tie up with NFDC and they have put up some movies that are not available anywhere else.So if you want to know how kumar sahani has handled chekov's or mani kaul has handled dostoevsky, you can watch it here at jaman.

Deshadanam(Migration) - Malayalam -1997

2007-09-06T11:35:00.000-07:00

Thought i will complete my special on jayaraj.so here is deshadanam

There is a fleeting moment in Ray's "Aparajito".Apu's dad is no more and his family has moved to a village.In order to help the family, the locals make apu as the village preist.The kid who used to be carefree and playful ,has already started maturing with burden of the family.He is returning home after doing pooja's at the temple.He stands on a high ground and looks at many kids playing in the field.He just looks at them and moves on, for he has responsibility and he is the man who talks with gods ,a priest now, he can't play with them.

Well that was satyajit ray, who conveyed so much in a few shots.But what will happen if you blow up this scenes into a full fledged movie?.Well Two people tried it, one was martin scorcese with Kundun the other is jayaraj with Deshadanam.Was Kundun the inspiration for jayaraj?.I don't know?.But the result was a national award winning(Best Regional Film) movie.

This is a straight forward story told in a realistic way.It is the story of pachu.A child prodigy who lives a care free life like any other child, but shows maturity beyond his age when it comes to religious philosophies.He is identified by a holy mutt to become the next Holy guru.His grandfather who once wanted to join that mutt, is delighted and he agrees to that.The parents don't want to send pachu to the mutt, but they can't go against the word given by the grandfather.And to become a monk pachu has to renounce everything,including his family.

The turmoil that the family faces because of pachu becoming a monk is the story.It is kind of a family movie with lot of sensitive scenes.Made on a shoe string budget of 25 lakhs, the movie sticks to basics and makes us feel the characters and their turmoil.The main focus is on the mother, even though other characters also suffer because of this decision, it is the mother who goes through too much pain.For her he was just a playful boy till now, but now has become a holy saint.First of all she has to pretty much donate her loving son to the mutt and apart from that she cannot view him or treat him the same way she used to.From a playful kid, he becomes a holiness.

Filled with lot of sensitive scenes and good music.This is another good movie from jayaraj.

Awards:
National award
Best Regional Film ,Best Child Artist and Best Audiography

Music:
The movie has some excellent songs.Listen them here

Back

2007-09-06T10:51:00.000-07:00

Iam back after a long break.Thanxs for all the comments.Iam Sorry that i was not able to reply to all the comments that were posted.I have some free time now and thought i will post a few good movies before i go underground again.

Paithrukam(Heritage) - Malayalam 1993

2006-10-15T15:20:00.000-07:00

This is a classic case of Clash of Ideologies. How important is ideologies in one's life?.How far should one go for his ideologies?. Are Ideologies more important than love?.The movie throws various questions through a beautiful and different story with an awesome screenplay.The movie also has good music and acting. This is, i would say is one of those must watch movies.

A namboodari(Narendra prasad), who is a high priest in a temple, has two sons.Bhanu(Jayaram) and soma dattan(Suresh Gopi).The namboodari is a very orthodox guy, who performs yaga's and poojas.His first son soma dattan is a reporter in New delhi and his second son is with him and he is a priest at the same temple.

Soma Dattan leaves delhi and comes back to his home town for good. But the family realizes that he has changed. Slowly we come to know that soma dattan is a staunch communist and an atheist. He is against blind beliefs , customs and he opposes even his father on those issues. Because of the difference he moves out of the house, marries another fellow atheist and starts living in a house, that the villagers believes is haunted.

There are two separate threads of how soma dattan's atheist wife changes and his brother's love affair, and how, in both the cases customs and blind belief's becomes a problem.

On the main story, the villagers request the namboothari to perform a yaga to bring rain to the rainless village.The namboothari agrees, soma dattan starts an agitation against it as he thinks it is a blind belief.

On the yaga day he challenges his father and tells him that he should become an atheist if it does not rain.The father agrees. Did it rain??is the rest of the story.

You might take different side or view than what the director has portrayed. But if you consider the whole thing as just a story and get within the realm of the story.This is a wonderful movie.The movie is not about which ideology is right and which is wrong. It is beyond that, it is about the fact that love is above all of them.

During a talk between the father and son.Soma dattan says that he believes that a man has progressed from a primitive hunting tribe who roamed like animals to what he is know, because of questioning everything and thinking on his own, and customs and traditions stops a man from questioning things and thinking on his own.He says heis taking everyone back to the old ages by all the traditional practices His father simply replies that iam not doing anything that will cause an harm to anyone. Iam doing everything on the belief that it will bring good to them.

Analysis:
***************spoilers*******************

Before soma dattan leaves the house the father and son have a talk and then the Nambothari says that soma duttan will return to this house one day,when he has understood everything.

In the climax after the yaga, it actually rains and it rains like hell.Soma Dattan is stunned.He just cannot believe it.But he concedes and goes to his house to ask for his father’s forgiveness. But he goes to the house only to see his father immolating himself.The movie ends with soma dattan carrying on his father's priestly duties.

The big question here is why did the namboothari commit suicide?.Through out the movie, the namboothari has been a good father, He has been trying to balance both his beliefs and being a good father. At the end when his son after all his emotional talks and agitations loses because of the rain. The father is the one who is more sad, he does not want to see his defeated son, a broken soul.Hence he commits suicide. By these acts he shows how much he has loved his son.

The characters are done well. The namboothari and somma dattan are the stead fast ones.Gayathri is the opportunist and bhanu, is more for his brothers love than ideology.Actually Bhanu is the one who suffers the most on this.

********************

Cast and Credits:

Geetha - Gayathri
Suresh Gopi - Soma Dattan
Jayaram -Bhanu

Music:
The movie has excellent music.Music is by S.P.Venkatesh.The songs are all classical based with Yesudoss rendering them beautifully.

Check out the songs here

Kaliyattom(The Play of God) - Malayalam 1997

2006-10-14T09:40:00.000-07:00

Long before Vishal Baradwaj adapted shakesphere's Othello into Omkara. Jayaraj adapted it, into the national award winning movie, “Kaliyattom“. He takes one of kerala’s traditional dance form called theyyam as the backdrop and seamlessly merges Othello into it.

Kaliyattom is a dance performed in temples during festivals, where various characters play the mythological stories. During the festival the lead character is supposed to have divine powers, so people worship and ask advices from the lead character. And because the lead character is semi god the person who is playing that is respected in the society. And he is also supposed to maintain some discipline in his personal life.

Kannan Perumalayan(Suresh Gopi) plays the lead character in the theyyam's.He has two other persons in the troupe, paniyan(lal) and kaanthan(Biju Menon).Perumalayan falls in love with thamara(Manju warrier),the daughter of a rich guy. They both elope and get married. They are both asked to appear before a respected old man of the village and in that meeting the angry father tells malayan that, his daughter is a wicked girl who ditched her father and ran after him and warns him that one day she will ditch him also and run with some one else.

Among the two guys in his troupe, malayan likes kaanthan a lot as he was the one helped him in his love affair with thamara.Paniyan who plays the role of a joker in the theyyam's is jealous of malayan.He is jealous of the importance given to Malayan in both theyam and in real life. As he is only a joker in the they yam, nobody respects him and he is mistreated by everyone. He secretly wishes to become the lead character one day, and become a respected person. He plots against malayan by poisoning him with the idea that thamara is having a love affair with kaanthan. What happens to thamara and malayan is the rest of the story?. Well people who read othello know the answers.

This is a far better adaptation than Omkara.Excellent acting by the lal, suresh gopi and manju warrier adds life to the movie.The theyyam backdrop adds extra color and emotions to the movie.As a lead character in theyyam , malayan is supposed to have a clean mind , but since he starts having the suspicion. He starts feeling that he is not pure enough to be a god and it slowly starts eating him. Suresh gopi expresses that pent up anger , suspicion and love nicely.

Cast and Credit:
Suresh Gopi .... Kannan Perumalayan/Othello
Lal .... Paniyan/Iago
Biju Menon .... Kaanthan
Bindu Panikkar .... Cheerma, Paniyan's wife
Manju Warrier .... Thamara/Desdemona

Original Music by
Gautam Mukherjee

I felt Lal acted a lot better than suresh gopi in the movie.From a joker who is simple and foolish to a very cunning planner. He goes to both the extremes with ease. Lal who was a famous director, script writer, producer was convinced by jayaraj to act in movies.Now he is one of the well known actors in malayalam.

Music:
The movie has very good songs.Especially the climax song "Ennodenthinee Pinakkam".Set on the sahana raaga with beautiful lyrics, this is a wonderful song.

Listen to the songs here

Awards:
Jayaraj bagged the National Award for best director
Suresh Gopi shared the National Award for best actor with his fellow malayalee actor Balachandran Menon.

Trivia:
Jayaraj tried his hand on another shakesphere play.He adapted Macbeth as "Kannagi" starring Nanditha Das , Lal and siddique.It was well adapted except for the stupid climax.

Links
Rediff special on Kaliyattom
Suresh Gopi interview
Lal Interview

Jayaraj

2006-10-14T08:20:00.000-07:00

Call him a maverick.He is just not a director who directed national award winning movies or internationally acclaimed movies.He has also directed box office movies loaded with masala elements to crap movies.One of the under rated director's in india, jayaraj has given some very good movies.

Its a pity that he was not credited for some of his good works in his own state.As most of the film makers in kerala or communist, his religion oriented stories are not credited properly even though there were credited outside the state.

Check out Jayaraj's profile on Rediff here.

Jayaraj Movies in Alternate movies
Kaliyattom

Paithrukam

Deshadanam

Thoovana Thumbigal( DragonFlies of the spraying rain ) - Malayalam 1987

2006-10-13T12:01:00.000-07:00

Probably the best of Padmarajan, this is an awesome movie.A movie that has to be seen more than once and analyzed like a book.

The movie is about the character Jaya Krishnan. A stingy farmer and a clean guy in his village, he leads a dual life. He becomes a different person when he goes to the nearest city. He spends lavishly with his friends and visits the bar regularly in the city.As he had stayed and studied in the city during his college days, he has lots of friends in the city. His friends circle includes a pimp, who he address's as thangal(Babu Nampoothiri). One day thangal asks jayakrishnan's help to bring a new girl, clara(sumlatha) into his business. He asks him to write a letter like a mother superior of a church, asking clara to come to the city.This is to get the girl to the city with her father’s permission. Mean while jayakrishnan meets Radha(parvathi) a homely girl and falls in love with her.He goes and meets her and conveys his wishes to marry her.Radha refuses and insults him.

Thangal again meets Jaya Krishnan and asks for another help. Clara has come to town and he want's to know what kind of a girl clara is.Jaya krishnan who even though knows thangal for a long time and have setup many of his friends, has never touched a girl till now and firmly believes that the first girl that he touches should be his wife.But disappointed by radha's disapproval and the attraction towards the clara, he falls in love with her and spends a night with her.He is surprised to know that it was the first time for clara too.

He promises to marry clara as he is already guilty of the fact that he was the one who wrote the letter and brought her into the business. But clara runs off next morning and disappoints jaya krishnan. Radha changes her mind and starts loving jayakrishanan.Jaya krishnan is again caught in between two worlds. Between the homely radha and now prostitute clara. What happens and who he marries is the rest of the story.

You can say this as a simple love triangle or a great story depending on how much time you spend to understand the characters. On the first go this movie might seem as an average love triangle. But believe me it is not.It is one of the most beautiful characterization ever done in indian cinema.

The beauty of the movie lies in understanding and analyzing the characters. Why did clara run away?. Why is jaya krishnan going after clara, when radha has already come into his life?. Why does his facial expression change after making rishi drink or after setting him up with a girl?. Analyze and ask questions, the movie becomes bigger. Repeated viewing will make you understand the characters better and know what an awesome write padmarajan is.

Analysis:
****spoilers****
Jayakrishnan is one of the beautiful characters Padmarajan has ever created.Jaya Krishnan is not a distant character. He is one of us.Many of us, do have dual lives.Two faces.One for the society and one for our self.Given india’s social setup, there are many characters like Jaya Krishnan living amongst us.Jaya Krishnan is a complete character, he balances everything in his life.He is not an out and out party guy.He is a family man, who escapes to another world now and then.He balances the good part and bad part. Padmarajan extends the dual personality of jayakrishnan to his love life too.Jaya krishnan the homely guys escapes to another world now and then through his visits to the city.On the love front also he does that by trying to meet clara again and again.But unlike his dual worlds he cannot go on with it in his love life and he is forced to take a stand.

On the other hand clara is a character that wants to be free, a character that does not want to get hurt. A deep character which does not reveal much of herself. She does not want to be caged into anything. Dark and mysterious, Clara is also a very good characterization.

Padmarjan nicely uses rain in the story.At the start when ever jaya krishnan comes in contact with clara it rains.It rains when he writes the first letter to bring her into business. It rains when he meets her the first time.It rains when he gets the message that clara is coming back to meet him.Jaya Krishnan takes these as a sign that clara was meant for him. But later it does not rain when he meets clara , as by that time clara has become a prostitute and jayakrishnan's love for her is not as strong as it was before.

There are some beautiful moments in the movie, Especially the scenes of jayakrishnan and clara.Jayakrishnan meets clara for the first time and they go out to the beach.Its night time and in that romantic hour, they both lay down in the sea shores on the waves and talk about there future.

Similarly when clara comes back after becoming a professional call girl.She meets jayakrishnan and when he asks her whether they should go to any hotel or room.She says that she does not want to go into any room.She just wants to walk around as she is sick of rooms.She says all that she sees in her profession is, walls, walls and walls.Bedroom walls,bathroom walls etc.Lets walk in the open space she says.They walk around the city all night.

The next day they take a lonely house on top of the hills.Padmarajan does not show any scenes of them staying inside the house,they spend there time outside the house under the open sky and stars.

On that hill, when they are talking, clara hears a cry.She asks jayakrishnan who is making that nosie.He says there is a mad man chained and locked inside a room.His legs has got lots of bruises because of the chain and he cries when ever the chain brushes the wounds. Clara says, she wants to be the wound in that mad man's legs. An un healing wound which has only relationship with the chain.

*****************

The film was adapted from padmarajan's novel "Udakappola".

Cast and Credit:
Mohanlal .... Jayakrishnan
Sumalatha .... Clara
Parvathi .... Radha
Asokan .... Rishi
Babu Nampoothiri .... Thangal
Srinath .... Madhavan
Sukumari .... Jayakrishnan's Mother
Jagathi Sreekumar .... Ravunni Nair
Sankaradi .... Radha's Father
M.G. Soman .... Moni Joseph

Original Music by
Johnson (background music)
Perumbavoor G. Raveendranath

Blessy who later on went to make movie like kazcha and Thanmathra was Padmarajan's assisant during this time.

Good acting by everyone.Mohanlal depicts the character jayakrishnan beautifully. The duality of the character comes out of him naturally.

Music:
As usual the movie has good music.Nice songs and theme music.

1)Onnam ragam Padi

From http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZpZYf-Mwh8
Megam Poothu thudangi

From
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPkqMx18LdI

you can listen to the songs here

DVD:
This movie is available on DVD.As usual with bad subtitles.This DVD is released by sandhya films.The movie can be bought at there website here.

Njan Gandharvan(I, The Celestial Lover) -Malayalam 1991

2006-10-12T14:42:00.000-07:00

Last of padmarajan's movie.This is a beautiful fantasy story, filled with magical moments. Many movies were inspired by wim Wender's "Wings of Desire", like City of angels etc.Padmarajan takes a leaf out of Wings of Desire and spins the story around our mythology and legends for this movie.Unlike the other movies where the angels are philosophical and dull, the gandharvan in this movie is a lively character. Padmarajan enriches the scenes of gandharvan with his imagination. When ever he appears there is a feast for your senses. Beautiful visuals, good background music, nice dialogues/songs and the characters talk about how there is a good smell of Palla flower when ever he appears.

First of all who is a gandharvan?. Gandharvans are celestial men, who are very good musicians.There job is supposed to keep the deva's in swarg(paradise) happy with their music .They are also big womanizer's, who often get caught. If they are found guilty they are punished to stay away from paradise and spend a certain time on earth. The gandarvans during their stay on earth, keep on doing what they are well know for, seduce women. They seduce women on earth and go back to paradise after there punishment time is over.

This movie is about one such gandharvan and bama the girl that he falls in love with. Bama is a college student. She goes on a tour to some sea town and while standing at the beach, she gets a statue. A beautiful statue that turns into a man at night.This particular gandharvan is someone who does not enjoy paradise and wants to leave everything and live like a normal man on earth. Unlike the usual gandravan who just use the women of earth, He falls in love with bama and breaks some of the rules that a gandharvan is supposed to follow. The Gods come to know about it and order the gandharvan to come back to paradise or face punishment.The gandarvan is in love with bama and he does nto want to go back. Did those lovers succeed in their love or not is the rest of the story.

The movie is lyrical.The scenes are normal and realistic.But when ever the gandharvan appears it becomes lyrical and pure imagination. The movie has a strong sexual undertone, but there are no revealing or sexual scenes in the movie. Padmarajan at the later part in the movie, wastes many scene by making the gandarvan a simple magician.

This is a story that is a pure fantasy and it is hard to convince the audience about a gandharvan coming and falling in love with a girl on earth.A slight mistake could screw up the whole story.But this is where padmarajan proves why he is a great writer/director. The screen play is done in such a way that you don’t have any time to question the setup of the movie. You are sucked into it right from the start and take the story as it is and enjoy the lyrical quality of the story.

Cast and Credit:
Nitish Bharadwaj .... Gandharvan
Suparna .... Bhama
M.G. Soman .... Gopalakrishnan Nair
Ganesh Kumar .... Pradeep
Philomina .... Bhama's Grandmother
Vinduja Menon .... Bhama's Sister
Thezni Khan .... Bhama's Friend
Sulakshana .... Bhama's Mother
I.V.Sasi .... Bhama's Father

Art Director for this movie is Rajiv Anchal. Who later became a director and directed movies like Guru.

Music:
Music is by Jhonson.Like many of padmarajan's other movies, this one also has some melodious songs and BGM.The songs are classical based and Yesudoss who is called the "Gana Gandharvan" renders them beautifully.
Listen to the songs here

You Tube Links

Devi

Paalapoove

Devangangal

Moonnam pakkam(The Third Day) -Malayalam 1988

2006-10-11T14:33:00.000-07:00

Among loads and loads of trash movie that india produces, this is a gem of a movie.A wonderful movie from a master director.A beautiful combination of music,story, screenplay and acting. If u can get the movie don’t read the review as it has spoilers.

Thampi(Thilakan) is an old man in his 80's.A retired lawyer, he is leading a solitary life in a beach town.He gets the news that his grandson bhaskar(Jayaram) aka pachu is visiting him on his holidays.He is excited, cause he hasn't seen pachu in the last 5 years and after his son's death, his grandson is all he got in this world.Pachu visits his grandfather with 3 of his college friends. Thampi is very happy, as pachu and his friends bring joy and happiness into the house. One day while swimming at the beach Pachu is sucked into the sea. Nobody is sure whether pachu died or not as they are not able to see his dead body. The rule of the sea is that if someone drowns, the body will wash ashore after three days. What happens with everyone and pachu in the next three days is the rest of the story.It's about those painful three days.

This is not the usual tear jerker movie.No, you wont see long crying sequences and sad sad dialogues. This is about those moments that affects the characters deeply.Padmarajan plays with the emotions of the viewer in the later part of the movie. He repeatedly teases the audience with hopes and despair. When others are hopeless that pachu will come back alive. Thampi believes that he will come back. Padmarajan switches back and forth between the hopeful thampi and others, creating doubt in the mind of the viewer.

Like many of his other movies, padmarajan beautifully builds the characters. All the characters become memorable.Unlike other movies, the stories does not stop with the drowning of pachu.It goes on for another 45 mins to a good climax.The movie can be seen in two parts. The scenes before the accident and the scenes after.Before the accident padmarjan builds the story on the mischievousness and fun of pachu and his friends.In the second part he gets into the feelings of everyone who was associated with pachu.The guilty friends, the hopeful grandfather, the shattered girl friend etc.what goes in the mind of a old man, whose has lost his son and is not sure whether his grand son is alive or not.Or the friends who saw pachu drowning,or pachu's girlfriend who is away from her parents and her only comfort was her childhood love.

There are lot of nice scenes after pachu's disappearance .The scenes are realistic and touching .Like, Pachu's friends are guilty as they are the one who always wanted to go and swim at the sea.They go to the sea side every morning after pachu disappears, to see whether the body has washed ashore. One day Ranjit, one of pachu's friend is looking at the sea.He sees some kind of object at a distant, he rushes with the expectation of seeing pachu alive/dead(with a very good BGM playing),only to realize that it is some kind of a wood. Everybody at the beach keep asking them "Did they get the BODY?","Did they get the BODY?".The word BODY hurts the friends greatly.

Cast and Credit
Jayaram .... Pachu
Jagathi Sreekumar .... Kavala
Thilakan .... Thampi
Rahman .... Lopaz
Ashokan .... Ranjith

The movie has very good acting by everyone. Especially thilakan. He comes out with a performance of a lifetime and brings the character thampi alive. Jayaram as pachu is a good fit for the character, with his cheerful attitude and innocent looks he makes the loss of the character unbearable to everyone.

Music:
Music is by Ilayaraja.
There are two songs in the movie

1)Unnarum Ee Ganam
A beautiful nostalgic song.Pachu is coming.The grandfather is excited about his arrival,his old memories come out as a haunting melody.

from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6x2xiL6mXZM

2)Thamarakilli Paddunnu
A duet between pachu and badra.

Forget the visuals,You can switch of the visuals and just hear the audio of the movie.Hearing just the movie's awesome background scores is a experience by itself.THe movie has an excellent background score. Looks like Maestro illayaraja was impressed with the story.

Awards:
G. Venu Gopal won the state award for best singer

Trivia:
The novelist that badra talks about with thampi is Borges.You know you are watching a malayalam movie when the heroine reads Borges, instead of sidney sheldon or other popular novelist.

Links
Thilakan Interview

Padmarajan

2006-10-11T01:02:00.000-07:00

Read about padmarajan on wiki here.

One of the important directors who started the middle of the road movies in malayalam, Padmarajan is an awesome writer/director. So many directors make movies from books, but not all succeed. Off these very few movies give the same feeling that you get when you finish a good book. Padmarajan is such a good writer/director that most of his movies gives you that feeling.

Watch his movie and the character stays with you for life.I haven't seen anyone who can etch out a character as good as padmarajan.His movies have to be read and analyzed like a book. Like books in his movies he slowly builds up the story, with good characterization and nice climax. He spends time on his characters and makes the audience understand it well with the detailed portrayal of the character. And like books there are those magical and moments in the movie. His eye for details brings out those cherish able, simple moments of our life through the characters in the movie. And on the bigger picture, he chooses different and unforgettable stories.

Watch his movie or rather read his movies.

Padmarajan movies in Alternate Movies

Moonam Pakkam

Njan Gandharvan

Thoovana Thumbigal

Links
Padmarajan Home page