Nov 7, 2007

Devasuram -- A look back



One of my friends pointed me to these you-tube links of an old Malayalam movie - Devasuram. One of my all-time favorites in Malayalam.. This rekindled lot of memories...I regard the lead character of this movie, Mangalassery Neelakantan played by Mohan Lal as perhaps the most masculine characterization in a malayalam movie ever.. Unlike the superhuman / super-action hero based movies which came after this, Neelakantan / Neelan is a typical character having his own vices ( perhaps a lot of them ) .. And it is these vices & mistakes in his life that adds more than a human touch to the story line.. There is a subtle distinction between masculineness and unrealistic superheros ..And perhaps this is best illustrated by Neelan & Karthikeyan ( the role played by Lal in the sequel to this movie - Ravanaprabhu ) ... Karthikeyan in Ravanaprabhu is portrayed as an invincible super action hero.. But Neelakantan in Devasuram is essentially human.. Yet reckless, brave & intense ..

Known to very few people, this is actually based on the story of a person named "Mullassery Raju" . The transition that happens in Neelakantan from a rogue village guy squandering away his property to a man of virtue and values is really superb. This transition is second to only to perhaps the transition shown in Kireedam ( again a Lal movie, which earned him Bharat award ) ...

Current music : "Sooryakireedam..."

Ajith

6 comments:

Anurag said...

hmmm...mallu movies...they are very famous for being artistic n critically acclaimed

n also for "bombshells" like Silk Smitha :D :D :D

Anonymous said...

i thought dutta would have said "shakeela"

A female colleague in chennai used to think that all mallu flicks were soft porn .. 'n i guess a lot of mallus thought that tamil movies were all about village girls baring their midriffs 'n "kuli scenes".. :D...

gotta say that heroines are kinda "properly utilised"/"exploited" in the tamil film industry...


p.s coming back to the context of the post.. gimme mohanlal and srinivasan in comedy movie any day :)

Ajith Prasad Balakrishnan said...

@dutta,sanjiv -- Sigh!!..The discussion in comments section of this masterpiece movie turning towards Shakeela & Silk Smitha :( ..

-- On the other hand..Yeah, it is a really critically acclaimed movie..It had a cult - following in Malayalam for some time :)

Anonymous said...

Hmm loved Kiridam and Boeing Boeing (I think thats what it was called), where this guy dates many airhostesses at one time...
And sajiv,I thot mal movies wer better known for their seriousness and docu look thanks to addor gopalakrishnan... :)

Ajith Prasad Balakrishnan said...

@Tia -- Yep..thats Boeing Boeing :)
was remade in Hindi recently..

Anonymous said...

Good point, though sometimes it's hard to arrive to definite conclusions