Arabikatha

‘Cuba’ Mukundan (Sreenivasan) is a leading member of the communist party in a village in Kerala. His whole life revolves around the party so much so that he is not married. To me the movie was almost like a cheap imitation of a work of V.S. Naipaul. The writer has made a caricature out of the main character. Mukundan has learnt his communism from ‘Marx’s book with red cover’ and from his dad and some songs. He is a simpleton with no real understanding of the world. But he is an honest man; you don’t even for a minute doubt his intentions. He is opposing the pollution caused due to a factory whose owner is a rich industrialist from Dubai. One of the party leaders, Karunan try to make him compromise but to no result. In the end the leader along with the industrialist falsely implicate Mukundan’s father and blame him for stealing 20 Lacs from the bank in the name of party funds. Meanwhile Mukundan’s father passes away.

To clear his debt Mukundan decides to go to Dubai. At every instant he is cheated. Finally back at home his close friend realizes that Mukundan was implicated falsely and he travels o dubai to find him. But for two years no one has heard of Mukundan. Finally they are able o trace him and also catch the party leader who is now a minister taking bribe and record it on camera. Mukundan settles score and returns home to serve his party and his people.

The film has its moments where the director tries to bring in the irony. Sreenivasan is passable as a simpleton. Nedumudi Venu is wasted in the role of Mukundan’s father.  But the biggest flaw for me is that the movie was pointless.

Useless script, mediocre performances.

Do skip.

Udayananu Tharam (Udaya is the Star)

Today I saw the movie which was later remade into Vellitherai in Tamil. Since it is an almost exact reproduction, for the story please see the review of Vellitherai - http://manymorewoods.blogspot.com/2010/05/vellitherai-silver-screen.html

Even though I knew the story of the movie I enjoyed watching it. Mohanlal plays Udayan and Sreenivasan plays Rajappan. Mohanlal gives a superbly restrained performance. Where Prithviraj (playing the same character in Vellitherai) comes across as an angry young man, Mohanlal is slightly more sophisticated and mature. Prakash Raj played a much more melodramatic form of Sreenivasan and I must say, I felt that Prakash Raj brought more color to the movie. After all the satire on cinema should be slightly exaggerated...

Again, Good direction, interesting script, superb performances.

(Do Watch)

Nadodikattu… (Wandering Wind)

So the thing about movies in languages you don’t understand is that you either enjoy a brilliant storyline or superb performances or something that makes the movie worth watching in that language and not the one you actually can understand. So even if a movie might be entertaining, to a person who does not understand the language it will come across as very mediocre because it is like one of the million movies that one has already seen.



Nadodikattu is one such movie. Bringing Mohanlal and Sreenivasan pair to the screen, in their early days, the movie is no doubt a typical masala movie. It reminded me of the countless Manmohan Desai kind of films I have seen and enjoyed.

Ramdas aka Dasan (Mohanlal) and Vijayan (Sreenivasan) are two friends working in a company as peons and dreaming of steady government jobs. Dasan is slightly high and mighty on account of his being a B.Com. graduate while Vijayan has only done Pre degree. They eagerly wait for the new MD to join so that they can request him to give them appropriate jobs. By some quirk of fate instead they get thrown out of the office. Their landlord helps them get a loan from the bank to start selling cow’s milk and ends up selling them sub-standard cows so that they are unable to make ends meet. With loan sharks behind their backs they decide to bribe a boatman to take them to gulf. Instead the boatman tricks them and they end up in Chennai. On the beach a bunch of smuggles mistake them for smugglers and hand them a suitcase full of narcotics. Like any law abiding citizens they take it to the police and end up in police custody. What follows is cat and mouse chase where the don ends up thinking that Dasan and Vijayan are CID sleuths.

Meanwhile, in Chennai they take up a house for rent and their neighbor is Radha (Shobhana) and her mother. Dasan and Radha develop a special bond and Radha helps him start selling vegetables. A local politician tries to get them to vacate their houses so that he can build a hospital on that land. Dasan tries to stop him and his goon. Through all the confusion ultimately both the don and the politician want to kill Dasan and Vijayan. The final climax happens in an abandoned mill where the politician and the don are finally arrested by the police. Police, to award Dasan and Vijayan gives them jobs in the force. And all live happily ever after…

Like a said a typical eighties movie combining social problems (unemployment, crime and poverty) with right amount of lightheartedness, romance, fights and happy endings. You will appreciate the movie if you understand the local nuances.

For people who do not understand Malyalam,

(Can Skip)