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
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
Comments
n also for "bombshells" like Silk Smitha :D :D :D
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 :)
-- On the other hand..Yeah, it is a really critically acclaimed movie..It had a cult - following in Malayalam for some time :)
And sajiv,I thot mal movies wer better known for their seriousness and docu look thanks to addor gopalakrishnan... :)
was remade in Hindi recently..