Alternate Movies

This is the best of all the merchant ivory movies, i have seen so far.It is a simple and sweet movie that tells the metamorphosis of a young man into a householder.

Prem Sagar(Shashi Kapoor) and Indu(Leela Naidu ) are a typical indian newly wed couple.Prem is a poorly paid delhi professor, who is always worried about making ends meet.He is also a timid and shy guy, who finds it hard to get across his point to others.The movie tells the early days of this couple, who are coming to terms with their new roles and responsibilities as a mild comedy.

The couple prem and indu go through various stages that the newly weds usually go through, like getting to know each other, growing up from an young adult to a responsible family man/woman,understanding real love and affection etc.Prem apart from all these also goes through the emotions of coming out of his mothers love bonds to get entangled with that of his wife. Prem who was a carefree young man finds it hard to change into a householder. The movie sweetly talks about how he finally does change and comes to terms with his role as a householder, like many millions before him have done.

I used to wonder why the merchant ivory team always went with ruth pawar jabberwala in most of their movies. she wasn't that impressive in many of the movies that i saw. I got the answer in this film.It is her best, the characters well etched and the story told in a beautiful way.The story is universal in its theme. It will touch a chord on everybody who watches it even though the movie is completely told in an indian context. Guess adjusting to your partner and becoming a householder is a common tough task for any young man around the world.

The movie is also about communicating with your life partner and everyone else in the world. Through out the movie you can see the characters living in their own world. Most of the people don't listen to what the other person is saying and they keep on talking about their view point's. Nobody listens to the other.



Sashi kapoor has given a nice performance in the movie.He places the timid and shy professor beautifully. The character Mr chadda played by Harindranath Chattopadhyay was also an awesome one.So are the principal and land lord characters.


Mr.Chadda & khanna played by Harindranath Chattopadhyay & Romesh Thapar

One interesting scene in the movie, is a scene where all the professors are taking a break in their staff room. Sashi kapoor and another professor sohanlal talk about how mehuruli is a long way, how the other professor has to bring his lunch and other mundane stuff.The uptight Mr.Chadda, who always thinks low of the other professors, starts reading from Thrift by Samuel Smiles

Of all wretched men, surely the idle are the most so those whose life is barren of utility, who have nothing to do except to gratify their senses. Are not such men the most querulous, miserable, and dissatisfied of all, constantly in a state of ennui, alike useless to themselves and to others mere cumberers of the earth, who, when removed, are missed by none, and whom none regret? Most wretched and ignoble lot, indeed, is the lot of the idlers.

His quoting is only broken by Mrs.Khanna(The college principal/owner's wife) who reduces the speed of the fan and says that the professors cannot run the fan at that speed with electric charges being so high.Sashi kapoor again continues talking to professor sohanlal about his wifes name how he doesn't like the name indhu and prefers something like nirupama or nimmy. The whole scene is hilarious.

The whole movie is a mild comedy.All the characters are wonderful and funny. The principal, chadda, landlord, prem's mother etc. The jokes are subtle, repeated viewing will make us appreciate the movie better. Here are a few

Indhu goes to the landlords house. The Landlords wife is knitting a sweater, and her son is lying next to her. She says that she is knitting the sweater is for her son who is next to her and reading some magazine.If you look closely you can see that actually he is looking at some models in their designer dresses in some fashion magazine.

Sashi goes to meet the college principal Mr.khanna for an increment in his salary.Mr.Khana is having breakfast. Mr.Khanna gives a big lecture on how to keep ones body healthy, watch out for what he is eating...lots of ladoos

It is a Merchant Ivory movie.There must be Shakespeare somewhere in the movie. Shakespeare qoutes comes as a wall hanging in Sashi kapoor's house.He has Shakespeare seven ages of men framed in his house.
Indhu reads the part

And then the lover
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow.

Leela naidu


Cast and credits :
Shashi Kapoor .... Prem Sagar
Leela Naidu .... Indu
Durga Khote .... The Mother
Achala Sachdev .... Mrs. Saigal
Harindranath Chattopadhyay .... Mr. Chadda
Pahadi Sanyal .... The Swami
Romesh Thapar .... Mr. Khanna
Walter Woolf King .... Professor
Patsy Dance .... Kitty
Indu Lele .... Mrs. Khanna
Prayag Raj .... Raj
Pinchoo Kapoor .... Mr. Saigal
Praveen Paul .... 2nd Lady
Usha Amin .... 1st Lady
Shama Beg .... Mrs. Raj
Pro Sen .... Sohanlal
Jabeen Jalil .... Bobo
Ernest Castaldo .... Ernest

Directed by James Ivory
Screenplay and dialouges by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

This movie belongs to Ruth Pawar jhabvala, this is her best.The movie is supposedly based on her novel of the same name.

Blessy again has come up with a different subject.This time he has roped in the other malayalam super star to do the role of Rameshan Nair in his movie thanmathra.



Rameshan is a middle class family man working in a government office.He is yet another father who harbors the dream that his children’s would make it big in the future. Everything goes smoothly, till his family and friends see him behaving differently. Later the doctor diagnose him and declare that he is an alzimer's patient.The movie is how the family copes up with the disease.



The movie explains rameshan's life and his lovely family in the first half and the second half is how the family deals with the disease. The doctor after diagnosing the disease says that it is the family that has to know more about this disease than the patient. As they are the one who are going to suffer more because of this.

At one point in the movie rameshan who explains the alzeimer's disease to his son says that it is a slow process where we keep forgetting everything that we have learnt till now, kind of a reverse process where an adult keeps forgetting all that he remembered till now and goes back to a child state before he dies.The second half of the movie is that slow reverse process.



Blessy again comes up with a movie that is filled with love and lot of touchy moments. Realistic characters and good acting makes the movie very interesting.One of the complaints on him is how he is not showing the progression of the disease gradually. I also agree with that, could have used some more scenes to show the graduation deterioration of his condition, As rameshan's change from a normal person to a full fledged alzeimer patient seems to happen kind of quick.

Blessy


The movie has good acting by everyone, especially mohanlal. But don’t expect a Amitab's Black like performance. Alzeimer's forgetfulness patients are sometime mistaken as crazy people. Mohanlal walks the fine line of portraying an alzimer patient who could sometime be mistaken as a crazy person. As usual he gets into the skin of the character with so much ease.

Mohanlal who has been acting in one crap movie after the other since vanaprastham, redeems his reputation a bit with this movie.

Nedumudi Venu & Mohanlal


The story is inspired from Padmarajan's story 'orma'.

Cast and Credits:

Mohanlal .... Rameshan Nair
Meera
Vasudevan .... Lekha
Arjun Lal .... Manu
Nedumudi Venu .... Krishnan Nair
Jagathi
Sreekumar .... Joseph
Seetha .... Swarnam
Innocent .... Sukumaran Nair
Manka Mahesh .... Lekha's Mother
Prathap
K. Pothan .... Doctor
Niranjana .... Manju

Music:
Music is again my mohan sitara, who did blessy's other movie kazhcha. He has composed some good numbers.

The best is the melodious "Mele Vellithinkal" which is a song to show the loving family.watch the song here



The other good song is kannama which is in tamil.

Listen to thanmathra songs here



Awards:

At the state level the movie bagged many of the biggies

Best Film
Best Director: Blessy
Best Actor: Mohanlal
Best Screenplay: Blessy
Arjun lal who plays the son got the special mention from the jury.

Links:
Thanmathra Official website
Thanmathra special on rediff
Mohanlal interview
Mohanlal interview in hindu

The movie is mediocre at best.It has a story that can be guessed in first 5 mins and performance are very average by everybody including shabana.The only saving grace is Lillette Dubey.shabana tries very hard to do the alapanaas, even though she is pronouncing the swaras right, it is very obvious that she is trying hard.

The only good thing about the movie is its music.Very few films has done this kind of fusion music before.With some of the big guns of carnatic music doing the singing the songs are a beautiful blend of east and west.The movie goes to a fitting climax with a beautiful fusion song.The song is Oothukkaadu Venkatasubbaiyyar's "Thaye yasodha".It is rendered as a duet with Sudha Raghunathan singing it in tamil and Ranjani Ramakrishnan in english.The music is also a beautiful blend of western orchestration and carnatic violin interludes. Music is by Mani sharma and Amit Heri.



The movie is directed by Mahesh Dattani’s and rajiv Menon is the reason behind the good cinematography of the movie.

Oridam is a quest of a sex worker to find a place for herself in the society.The very same society, which uses and throws her.The sex worker character played by geethu mohandas doesn't have a name, nor does many of the other characters in the movie.The protagonists has a simple dream.A dream of leading a decent life, one that doesn't have anything to do with the flesh trade.The movie is her quest to fulfill that dream.

Geethu Mohandas

The movie doesn't sensationalize anything and focuses just on the protoganist and tries to bring her inner self out on the screen.Through the eyes of the character we come to know the problems of sex worker's.

Murali's handling of various visuals to convey the protagonists desires and thoughts are the only best part of the movie.Otherwise its an average movie that promises more but fails to deliver.

Pradeep Nair and Geethu Mohandas

Awards:
Special mention award at the 52nd National Film Award

At the state level it got the following awards

Geethu mohandas best actress for Oridam and Akale
Best background music : Issac Thomas, Kottukapally
Best costume design – Kumar Edappal
Best film processing – Chithranjali Laboratories
Special jury award for outstanding brilliance in cinema – Pradeep Nair


Links:
official website
You can pay and download the movie here

Kazhcha is a wonderful movie that sings an ode to love. Universal in its concept, it beautifully etches the importance of love and care.Yet another awesome movie which could only be made in kerala as a main stream movie and run in packed house.

***** spoiler**********

Kazhcha tells the story of Madhavan a 16 mm film operator.Madhavan is a small time operator who screens movies in festivals and for cinema enthusiast’s around kuttanad area in kerala. Madhavan comes across a small boy, who speaks a different language.He takes him with him to his house. Even though the boy speaks a different language which no one understands in the family, a special bond grows between the boy and everyone in the family. They later come to know that he is speaking gujarathi and that he was a victim of the gujarat earthquake, which left around 30,000 dead. what happens to the boy and how politics, judiciary etc look at the boy and whether he gets back with his parents is the rest of the story.

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Mammotty gives a beautiful performance in the movie.The action is very controlled and as necessary for the movie.He should be appreciated for doing this role as Master yash who plays the kid pavan, gets as much coverage in the movie as the super star himself. Good supporting roles from everybody including master Yash.



The movie is shot in kuttanad, a lush green backwater place of kerala.The visuals are beautiful and it's very refreshing to see such a beautiful landscape and lifestyle of the people who live there. For example lakshmi, madhavan's wife tells her daughter that she is late for school. You hear a horn sound from outside the house.You think the school bus is waiting outside.The camera pans to the front of the house. Instead of a school bus, you see a school boat full of children’s dressed in their school uniform. Madhavan's house front gate ends right at the back water. If you step out of the house you will step into water. The primary means of commute in this part of the country is boat. we get to see the milkman pouring milk to his customer from the boat etc. Camera man azhagappan has done a good job in capturing the beauty of that region. Towards the end, the movie shifts from the lush green backwaters of kerala to the dry kutch region of gujarat and cinemetographer azhagappan's makes us feel his presence there too.



Credit should go to blessy for narrating a beautiful story with focus on so many other things also.He has given lot of attention to small things in the movie.First he takes time to make us feel the people in the village. Through various actions of people in the movie, we come to know the laid back, helping and friendly nature of the village.And on an another aspect he spends time to makes us feel the thoughts of pavan the vagabond kid.A guy who is traumatized, yet so much like any other kid of his age. With pavan and ambili, madhavan's daughter, he takes us into the world of children's. A world of pure joy,love and fun.


The movie is about visuals, the sights.Even though pavan does not know the language malayalam, he is affected by various scenes that he sees in the movie.Belssy also talks about how media affects people.Everybody understand the boy's problem once they see the visuals off the earthquake.He also tells about how media manipulates emotions etc.The movie is also about movies, through madhavan's profession he constantly points about movies, how cinema has degraded, how tv is affecting cinema.And how movies are so close to people.There is reference to tamil movies like vasantha maligai, veera pandia kattabomman, and scenes of few movies are also shown.Malayalam movies like desadanam,spadikam etc.I was sweetly surprised to see scenes of "Battleship potemkin" in the movie. Only in a malayalam movie would you be able to see Sergei einsteins classic "Battleship Potemkin" and show the "Odessa Steps".

Above all the movie is also about our inflexible judicial system.A system that does not have a eye or a heart.



******** spoiler******
At the end of the movie, we are left with a great sense of releif. What would have happened to this boy, if he wasn't taken care by madhavan?.He would have turned into a street criminal, he could have been misused by the people.He could have become the scum of a big city.But madhavan's love for him changes his whole life.Not only does he changes to the laid back and friendly lifestyle of the village from the city/town life.He also changes to a kid from becoming an young adult.Away from his street friends and his fight for daily food.IN the village he remains as a kid due to his friendship with ambili.He retains his childish laughs, childish playfulness and sense of wonder and amazement of small things.The love of madhavan's family, the dog,hen, birds and a home changes it all for this small boy.From a guy who hurts a man who tries to misuse him, he sings song with the crocking of a frog.Love can change the world, in this movie it is the life of an innocent boy, his future.
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Cast:
Mammootty .... Madhavan
Yash .... Pavan
Padmapriya .... Lakshmi
Sanusha .... Ambily
Manoj K. Jayan .... Joy
Innocent .... Fr. Kuriakose
Augustine .... Political Leader
Venu Nagavalli .... Officer

Azhagappan and Blessy

Music:
Music is by Mohan Sitara.He is the source of one of the big discontent of this movie for me. He overdoes the background music. He has gone for sensational scores. Even though the scenes or underplayed by blessy and mammotty.

The movie has good songs.
Jugunu -This is a beautiful number. This is the song that pavan's dad sings for him.
Kunje - what can you say. It was sung my yesudoss.
The movie has 3 more songs.
Listen to kazhcha songs here




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x7UPH0mwSY

Awards:

Mammokka won the best actor award in both filmfare and kerala state
The movie had to compete with akale.So even though shyam prasad won the best director award at the state level.Belssy won awards for "Director of the best film with popular appeal and aesthetic value" and "Best Debut Director"

Trivia:
The various movies shown in kazcha are

Spadikam
Desadanam
Saanthwanam -unni vaa vaa voo
Battleship potemkin

Links:
Blessy interview
Mammooty official website
Mamooty on kazhcha
Blessy's interview in the week
gurajat earth quake
Gujarath earth quake on wiki