For every KGF 2, there's a Jai Bhim. A balance that South has, Bollywood doesn't

After Baahubali, a handful of films from the South have dominated the Hindi belt and the global market. But for every RRR or Pushpa or KGF, there's a Jai Bhim. Here's how South cinema manages this intricate balance.

Let's go back to 2010. Enthiran (Robot in Hindi), starring Rajinikanth and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, and directed by Shankar, managed to set the screens on fire. Enthiran is probably the first film to attain pan-India success. In 2015, SS Rajamouli's Baahubali: The Beginning made everyone sit up and take notice of regional cinema. Rajamouli followed it up with Baahubali: The Conclusion, which received greater critical acclaim and commercial success.

Today, films from the South have become super hit ventures in the Hindi belt, normally dominated by the Khans, Kumars and Kapoors. Allu Arjun's Pushpa: The Rise, Jr NTR and Ram Charan-starrer RRR and Yash's KGF: Chapter 2, despite being regional cinema, have performed exceptionally well in the North belt. In short, South films have breached northern territory.

The common talking point in all these films is its larger-than-life scale and hypermasculinity. So, is South cinema bringing the 80s back?

IS SOUTH CINEMA BRINGING THE 80s BACK?

To understand that, let us tell you what we mean when we say '80s cinema'. In the 80s, films were mostly about the hero overcoming all odds and emerging as the saviour of the masses. Are films in the 2010s and 2020s following the trend? The answer would be a big no.

Commercial films have always been about superheroic, larger-than-life heroes. Be it Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Malayalam or Kannada, our heroes are capable of anything and everything. Our heroes survive bomb blasts, bash up 100 people and yet remain unscathed. This trend will never go away as it is ingrained in our blood and minds.

Then, why do films like RRR, Pushpa and KGF work well in the Hindi belt? It is safe to say that Bollywood's recipe for a masala or mass film has been failing for over a decade. None of the commercial films has been able to make a mark beyond a certain point. This is where South films differ.

Directors down South nail the perfect recipe for a mass film. Of course, there are duds. But, commercial films, when done right, will transcend borders. And the recent examples are a testament to the theory. Take for example RRR's interval block, who would have thought that Jr NTR's Komaram Bheem would unleash a bunch of wild animals in his attack against the British. Here, we must give credit to SS Rajamouli's wild imagination. He also executed the scene with the utmost perfection. So much so that it made us jump from our seats.

Similarly, when Yash's Rocky in KGF fires bullets against the villains, you cheer, hoot and whistle for him. That is the magic of commercial cinema. And it takes a lot of imagination, conviction and perseverance to get it right.

SO, IS SOUTH CINEMA JUST THAT? MASSY?

Is South cinema all about mass and commercial films? Again, a resounding no. For every RRR, Baahubali and Pushpa, there are films like Jai Bhim, The Great Indian Kitchen, Kaala and Pariyerum Perumal. In the South, there's a market for every kind of cinema. Be it commercial or art house films, the audience embrace them with the same love.

VERSATILITY IS THE KEY

Malayalam cinema has been spearheading a change in the way films are being conceived and told. Films like Premam, Kumbalangi Nights and Jallikattu have proven the fact that content is king. One can take a simple story, but when it has solid substance, it does wonders at the box office.

Coming to Kollywood, Suriya's Jai Bhim, which skipped theatrical release, moved the audience and created a lasting impact. The film did ruffle a few feathers. But, at its core, Jai Bhim had a solid story. Similarly, filmmakers like Vetri Maaran, Pa Ranjith, Mari Selvaraj and Ram have stayed away from the 'conventional' tropes and developed their own film language.

This is probably one of the main reasons why South films get wider recognition, irrespective of the medium.

Let's go to the Telugu film industry, which was all about commercial cinema once. But, not anymore. There's a wonderful balance there. If films like Pushpa, Akhanda, and Aravinda Sametha are made, there are films like C/O Kancharapalem, Pelli Choopulu and Awe, which are also being given their rightful due.

Who would have thought that KGF: Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 would put Kannada cinema on the global map? But, director Prashanth Neel and actor Yash believed in it. Films like Kirik Party, Rangitharanga and Garuda Gamana Vrishabha Vahana, among others, have highlighted the best of Kannada cinema.

In the South, there's a space for everyone. Be it ideological films or films that highlight left-wing politics, directors can make a film on diverse topics, and with conviction, unapologetically, unabashedly. And, there lies the success.

(Source: India Today)

Did the Namboodiris change Malayalam to add Sanskrit elements to the language?

 An excerpt from ‘Wanderers, Kings, Merchants: The Story of India Through Its Languages’, by Peggy Mohan

[Earlier] we imagined a place in the north-west of this subcontinent where a local Dravidian population – remnants of the Harappan Civilisation that had unravelled a few centuries earlier – was joined by men coming in small groups from the Eurasian Steppe about 3500 years ago, speaking a vernacular variety of the Sanskrit we find in the Rig Veda.

Our main source of support for this scenario, along with recent Y-DNA studies, is the Rig Veda itself, which is full of the poetry the migrant men composed, but which tells us nothing about the languages spoken by the people they met, except to say that their speech was “garbled”. The sounds of the local languages were unfamiliar to the Vedic men, sounds that must have found their way into the local accent when local people tried to speak Sanskrit.

The Namboodiri associate their immigration to Kerala with the legendary creation of the region by Parasurama. | Drshenoy / CC BY-SA 3.0

We know that the Vedic men were patrilineal, because they had patronymics, while the local people they met must have been matrilineal, and were referred to by matronymics. From what we know of contact situations in other parts of the world, and Dravidian features that have survived in the sound systems of languages now spoken in the North-west, we can expect to see strong signs of an old Dravidian gene pool in the people now living in the North-west.

Indeed, local Dravidians should have greatly outnumbered the Sanskrit-speaking men, at the time of first contact, as agrarian communities tend to have high population densities, though the history we get to see is from the victors’ point of view, omitting the details of the people they engulfed. Meanwhile, the other local people would have continued to live on the fringes of this population merger, unchanged in their genetics and their language loyalty.

This scenario is not far-fetched. It is the story of many countries in the New World: think of Mexico, for example. Local communities were engulfed by Spanish conquistadores who were almost totally male, creating “mestizos” – children whose mothers were local and whose fathers were Spanish. And on the fringes of this mixed community were people who were fully indigenous, many of whom learnt Spanish while preserving the old languages.

There is a place in India, all the way down the western coast, where we can still see an echo of the old North-west of our imagination: Kerala. Malayalam, the language of Kerala, is part of the Dravidian language family, though it has grown a thick top coat of Sanskrit. These Sanskrit words have been adapted to the sound system of a Dravidian language in exactly the way the first Prakrits spoken by the earlier people of the Rig Vedic North-west were.

The presence of Sanskrit in Kerala traces back to the arrival of Namboodiri Brahmins in the region around the eighth century CE, on the invitation of local kings who offered them tax-exempt land grants under a system called janmi if they performed śrauta fire rituals, rooted in the Vedas. These rituals were done in order to legitimise the kings’ status as rulers, while the ownership of landholding temples and the attached villages allowed the Namboodiri Brahmins to become a major force in the socio-economic life of the region.

Namboodiri Brahmins were patrilineal, and they also followed rules of primogeniture. That is, the eldest son was to marry a woman of his own caste and keep strict control of the family land as it passed from generation to generation. However, the younger Brahmin sons were not allowed to marry within their own caste and have Brahmin children, as that would fragment the landholdings. They could instead have sambandams, marital arrangements with Nair women, who were from the same caste as the kings, while the Nair men were engaged in battle far away.

Nairs were matrilineal, so this allowed younger Namboodiri men to go on living as Brahmins in their own homes and never actually move in with their wives, while these women stayed on in their original family homes and brought up the children of the relationship as Nairs. In time, nearly all the kings of Kerala had Namboodiri fathers, though they themselves were Nairs.

The Namboodiri Brahmins knew Sanskrit, being the community that was entitled to recite the Vedas, and they had a rich tradition of recitation. This ensured that pronunciation, down to the uniquely Vedic pitch accents, remained absolutely pristine. While that would make them essentially fluent speakers of Sanskrit, it is hard to see them as native speakers, since long before the eighth century CE Sanskrit had moved on from being a first language.

There is no real evidence of what the Namboodiris spoke in their daily conversation when they first reached Kerala – not surprising, since we also know nothing at all about the vernaculars used by the old Rig Vedic migrants. Less literary languages do tend to get ignored in the writing of history. What is known about them is that they came from the North, and that they travelled to Kerala along the west coast, transiting through Gujarat and Maharashtra.

It is hard to imagine that the Namboodiris were too different from other Brahmins of their time. They would probably have spoken a Middle Indo-Aryan dialect from their original homeland, the sort of variety that in Sanskrit is called an Apabhraṁśa, which only means a “corrupted” language that did not follow the norms of Pāṇinian Sanskrit.

It would have included Sanskrit-linked vocabulary with the Dravidian-inspired phonology of the early Prakrits: not the original Sanskrit words, tatsama (“the same as” the original), but words from Prakrit which had passed through the crucible of evolution, and were tadbhava (“born from” the original words, but now mutated).

This would mean that the Namboodiris knew both Sanskrit, which they used in their Vedic recitation, and a more modern dialect with Prakrit words already adapted to Dravidian phonology. This dialect might have had an affinity to early varieties of Marathi, spoken directly to the north of Kerala, in a region that already had a strong Brahmin presence.

Soon the new migrants, despite their wealth never a large and growing community, would have had to pick up the local language, Malayalam. And since the place of Malayalam in their lives would have been essentially the same as that of the Apabhraṁśa they had come with, and since their relocation to Kerala was permanent, it would have made sense for them to move on from the old Apabhraṁśa and switch to a new first language.

There is no trace in the literature of their original vernacular to suggest that it persisted, and Sanskrit – a literary language learnt only after infancy – was not an option as a first language either. It is common for migrant groups to give up their vernacular languages. When they shifted to Malayalam, however, they would have infused it with tadbhava words from the Apabhraṁśa they were speaking earlier. And later when they moved on to writing in Malayalam, they brought in the tatsama Sanskrit words that, they felt, were more suited to the rarefied world of literature.

Malayalam is, despite this, a Dravidian language. Its basic DNA did not change with these superficial additions. In its syntactic structure, it remained essentially the same as its neighbour, Tamil, the archetypal Dravidian language. Its pronouns, ñān (I), nī (you), avaḷ (she), ayāḷ (he) are the original Dravidian ones, with no sign of influence from a northern Apabhraṁśa or from Sanskrit.

Just as significant an indicator of its genetics is the fact that its numerals and its basic verbs are also the old Dravidian ones. The overlay of Sanskrit did not trickle down to affect core vocabulary, the way that words from the European languages did with creoles, or the Prakrits did with the languages of north India.

The numerals from one to five are still essentially the same in Tamil and Malayalam. The verb “come” is va, and the verb “go” is po. But still, if you ask any Malayali, you will be told that Sanskrit words are “everywhere”.

Excerpted with permission from Wanderers, Kings, Merchants: The Story of India Through Its Languages, Peggy Mohan, Penguin Viking.

(Source: Scroll)

The climax of Drishyam 3 is ready: Director Jeethu Joseph

 Here’s the man of the hour, Jeethu himself, in conversation about his much-appreciated film, Drishyam 2: The Resumption.

With the Drishyam sequel, director Jeethu Joseph appears to have outdone himself. The film is cleverer, more meditative, and has more twists than the first film.

Here’s the man of the hour, Jeethu himself, in conversation about his much-appreciated film, Drishyam 2: The Resumption, that is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

Excerpts:

The sequel is titled The Resumption, suggesting that you see this as a straightforward continuation of the first film. In the film too, Georgekutty himself suggests that the events of this film could be interpreted as making the first film whole.

It’s god’s grace that the sequel works so well. I was always clear that the second film should not be an unrelated story. I pondered about the issues this family would face during the years after the events of the first film. The investigation would continue, the trauma would endure. Their neighbours would envy them. Also, as Georgekutty is obsessed with cinema, I wanted to persist with the film angle here too. It all just worked out. I couldn’t really explain how.

Drishyam 2 has been lauded particularly for its writing. Could you talk about your writing process?

It’s a tedious process spanning years. I let multiple stories germinate in my mind. In fact, the idea of Drishyam occurred to me in 2000 when I was not nearly close to being a filmmaker. The Drishyam sequel was one of three stories I was spending a lot of time thinking about. Over months and years, I have considered and reconsidered the events of this film. I have formed and deleted the scene order many times all in my head. Only after I am reasonably convinced do I write it down. I’m a lazy writer; so, I don’t sit down to write until I am able to visualise it all in my head. I may not be good with remembering names and numbers, but when it comes to stories, I remember every detail. Sometimes, as I am playing badminton, or attending the Holy Mass on Sundays, ideas come to me. My daughter smiles at me when she sees me being in a trance sometimes, muttering to myself dialogues of characters in my head.

The film is notable for its focus on being a family drama. Did you have any concerns that it could play on the patience levels of those coming in, seeking a thriller?

I have always maintained that Memories (2013) and The Body (2019) have been my only thrillers so far. I view both Drishyam films to be in the mystery and family drama space. I lied to the audience ahead of this film’s release when I told them that it would not have any twists (laughs). I did that to protect the film from the burden of expectations.

Does it irk you that some criticise the first half for being ‘slow’, even though it’s instrumental in setting up the explosive events of the second?

What they don’t realise is that the first half works in their subconscious mind. They don’t recognise that I’m injecting their mind with the dynamics of the Georgekutty family and making them invest in the family. But I don’t worry about such criticism. As long as the final result is as intended, all this is okay.

In Drishyam 2, the Georgekutty family seems crippled by trauma and stress. How did you approach the four characters?

As always, Georgekutty betrays no signs of weakness. This causes his wife, Rani, to feel anxious. That is why she confides in Saritha about her situation. Meanwhile, their elder daughter, Anju, is still reeling from the trauma of having committed a murder. She is struggling with nightmares, epilectic fits… I think only the youngest daughter is fairly insulated from these issues. She was too young at the time of the incident. However, she still worries about her sister. These are four different types of psychological trauma. I read many books to understand these ideas and have had long conversat ions wi th psychologists.

This film takes places six years after the events of the original. What changes in the world did you have to account for? For instance, I notice that CCTV cameras play a big part in this film.

The CCTV cameras helped me in certain areas, like enabling Georgekutty to be observant about what was going on around him. However, in that scene at the end where Georgekutty switches a certain something, I was worried about the presence of a camera. I went to a real forensic office only to find out that no camera was installed there. When some people refused to believe this, I encouraged them to go and find out for themselves. They have now realised that I am right; they are now asking for the installation of cameras there (laughs).

In covering topics like exhumation and forensic analysis, how loyal do you have to be to reality? Do you let yoursel f take creat ive liberties?

You see, the problem is, when it’s my film, people don’t like logical issues (laughs). I tell them it’s not fair! But they tell me that they will not tolerate such problems in my films. And so, I spend a lot of time on homework and preparation. My connections in the forensic department and the police force help me out with these details.

‘The climax of Drishyam 3 is ready’

Let’s talk about the performances. I enjoyed that when we revisit the film after all the twists, we realise that Saritha and Sabu never break character during those initial portions.

I sat with the actors who played these characters and told them that they could express themselves in quiet ways. That’s why when you revisit the film, you will see Sabu throwing those almost villainous glances at Georgekutty. You will see Saritha, during her conversations with Rani, trying to manipulate her. And yet, Saritha has a conscientious side to her, since she has become great friends with Rani and family during those two years. At the end, I wondered if I should make her smile as she watches Georgekutty walk out as a free man, but then, we decided against it.

Did Mohanlal need to learn something new about Georgekutty for this film? He has mentioned in interviews that he lacks the ability to truly understand the nature of Georgekutty.

I told him that Georgekutty, throughout Drishyam 2, pays special attention to his elder daughter, as he sympathises with her plight. You will always see him treating her gently… throwing his arm around her shoulder to offer support. I guess he (Mohanlal) said he couldn’t understand Georgekutty because there are places where even I did not know how he would act. For instance, I still do not know if Georgekutty actually drinks with that security guy or if he was merely pretending to drink.

There was some criticism about the first film that neither Georgekutty nor his wife reassure their lder daughter that she is not at fault for what happened.

That’s why I set the film in a small Kerala village because people in such places approach the issue like Georgekutty and wife do. If these were progressive people, well, that’s not Drishyam.

Do you think that perhaps, a passing dialogue from Georgekutty empowering his daughter, might have solved this problem?

(Pauses) Perhaps. I guess you are right. I was too focussed on capturing the desperation of Georgekutty that I did not focus on this angle. But yes, I could have written this line and avoided criticism.

Georgekutty and his writer are shown having long discussions over the two climaxes of the film within this film. Was this a conundrum you had too?

I knew that had I ended the film with Georgekutty being arrested, nobody would have liked it. The hero should always escape, as Georgekutty tells his writer. If Drishyam 2 were a book though, I would have sent Georgekutty to prison. With cinema, there is a lot of investment. I have to make the people happy (smiles).

The Telugu remake has already been confirmed. Were you considering the possibility of remakes when writing the sequel?

Not at all. I just wanted to make a good film and then, worry about adapting them.

There are comments on social media that express relief that you became a filmmaker and not a criminal, given the crafty ideas you come up with.

(Laughs) Hey, who knows. If I hadn’t been successful here, perhaps I might have considered becoming a hired assassin. There may still be a chance. (Pauses) I’m joking, obviously.

Can we expect to see Drishyam 3?

I am not going to rule it out as I did with the second film. In fact, I already have a climax ready for the third film. Let’s see if I can build towards that end.

So, there’s a chance Georgekutty can find true peace?

(Smiles) This smile is all I can give you in response now.

(Source: TNIE)

For the love of words, 82-year-old compiles dictionary of 4 south Indian languages

Njattyela Sreedharan is a class 4 dropout who went on to travel, train, read aplenty for 25 years to bring out the dictionary.

Njattyela Sreedharan sat looking at the page in front of him. He had written the words ‘seemantha rekha’ – the Malayalam term for hair parting where some married women apply vermillion. Next to it, he had added the translation in Telugu and Kannada. 

But the Tamil column lay blank. No one he asked seemed to know the Tamil equivalent for ‘seemantha rekha’, including men and women across ages, teachers, and Tamil scrap collectors who came home. Everyone either shrugged off or laughed at him. Finally, months later, a woman who also laughed in the beginning, gave him the term – ‘vakidu’. Thrilled, Sreedharan added it to the fourth column of his page. He just got one more entry for the multilingual Dravidian dictionary he had been preparing for years. The dictionary finally got published this November, 25 years after the 82-year-old began working on it. 

“For 25 years, I travelled and trained and talked to many for the dictionary. But it is in the last 10 years that I sat at one place, without going anywhere, without a social life, to fully focus on writing. Only then could I complete it,” Sreedharan says from his house in Thalassery.  

He also points out that Hermann Gundert, who created the first Malayalam-English dictionary in 1872, was also in Thalassery when he wrote that. “Maybe his spirit entered my body,” Sreedharan jokes.

But unlike Gundert, Sreedharan is no scholar. He dropped out of class four to work in a beedi making company. But he had read books like Sreekrishnacharitham Manipravalam by Kunjan Nambiar and Balaramayanam by Kumaranasan at school. His love for language must have begun around then, Sreedharan reckons.

He went on to read a lot, and as an adult, found a job with the Public Works Department. Nandan, who made a documentary on Sreedharan, says that it was during this time that he got acquainted with Dr TP Sukumaran, a professor at Nirmalagiri College, who gave him the idea of compiling a dictionary, containing colloquial usage of Malayalam words.

Sreedharan had by then become familiar with Tamil, learning it in Palakkad. He decided to train himself in the two other Dravidian languages of Telugu and Kannada before compiling the dictionary.

A Kannada-speaking colleague, Govinda Naik, taught him the language. Sreedharan also took Kannada lessons from writer Raghavan in Kasargod. In Taliparambu, a man from Andhra Pradesh helped him pick up Telugu. But Sreedharan didn't stop there. He made several trips to Mysuru, Mangaluru, Andhra and Tamil Nadu and spoke to the people. He collected words from 20 to 25 dictionaries. He learnt from vernacular newspapers and magazines.

"I read everything from horoscopes to cooking recipes. One must not mock them. You get the most common and useful words from the recipes," Sreedharan says.

The fact that there has still not been a comparative study of the words in the four languages kept Sreedharan, the language lover, going. “A lot of people travel between all these states for work or business. It will be very helpful if there is a resource for learning the everyday words they’d need – like drinking, bathing, eating. Another reason I wanted to work on the dictionary was the way dialects of some places were seen as inferior to those of other parts of the state. When people from one part of the state tease those from another for their pronunciation, it makes the latter think poorly of their dialect. Calling one dialect purer than another is like discriminating between castes, claiming one to be superior to the others,” Sreedharan says feelingly.

It also struck him as odd that people found it shameful to use words of their own language for private body parts but were not uncomfortable to use words from another language.

“I was also curious about why certain similar sounding words changed pronunciation when it came to Malayalam. 'Thodangu' – meaning start – is pronounced with ‘tho’ in Kannada, Telugu and Tamil but in Malayalam it becomes ‘thu’. 'Elaneer' – tender coconut water – is pronounced with ‘ila’ in Malayalam, but ‘ela’ in all the other languages. I put all of this together for the readers to interpret it in their own ways,” Sreedharan adds.

He kept finding Dravidian equivalents for Sanskrit words too. For instance, both ‘meen’ and ‘malsyam’, meaning fish, come from Sanskrit, Sreedharan says.

He found that it is easier to learn the scripts of other languages than that of Malayalam. That would also come out in the dictionary, he says.

The dictionary was not easy to publish. Having prepared the content, Sreedharan took it to a number of places to get it printed. Everyone was wary of getting the words wrong. Finally, a woman agreed to do the desktop publishing (DTP) for Rs 100 a page and she was paid Rs 1 lakh for the whole dictionary. It got printed by the Kerala Senior Citizens Forum.

“It is an expensive and exhaustive process. You travel, you read, you buy books and materials, and you sit for long hours to write. I have worked 10 to 14 hours on many days.”

Sometimes, he says, he cannot not believe that he achieved this at his age. All the reports of his dictionary even before it got published had him overwhelmed. And Nandan has made a documentary on him too – Dreaming of Words. The film has just got selected for the 18th Mindanao Film Festival. 

(Source: TNM)

How Sridevi shot for 'Devaraagam' in between her mother's botched up brain surgery

Despite the mental agony she must have been going through, Sridevi kept flying back to Kerala at regular intervals to shoot for 'Devaraagam'.

Director Bharathan, who had shot child Sridevi in her first-ever ad campaign for Chandrika soap, approached her to play Lakshmi in his biting social commentary Devaraagam (1996). More than the actress, it was Rajeshwari who was elated. She still remembered Bharathan from that calendar shoot and instantly persuaded Sridevi to accept the project.

With the actress’s professional front silent, her personal life was about to create headlines now. In early May 1995, Sridevi’s mother suffered a seizure and diagnosis confirmed a brain tumour. Following the advice of doctors in Madras, the actress took Rajeshwari to the reputed Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York for surgery. During this time, Boney Kapoor reached out to her once more. Boney shares: ‘My relationship with Sri normalized again. I helped her with all the arrangements in New York and also took time off to be with her family. I got closer to all of them. Many years later, Sri told me something that touched me deeply. She said that while flying to New York, her mother had told her in the plane that if she ever did another film with me, she should not charge any money. I think Sri also started seeing now that my feelings for her were sincere.’

Despite the mental agony she must have been going through, Sridevi kept flying back to Kerala at regular intervals to shoot for Devaraagam. Returning from her father’s last rites four years ago, she had performed a comedy scene for Lamhe. Now in between attending to her ailing mother in New York, she was shooting for Devaraagam in India. The actress was not only displaying professional ethic but also personal grit. Veteran actress and Bharathan’s wife, K.P.A.C. Lalitha, wonders where from was Sridevi drawing such impossible strength: ‘No one else could have done this when your mother is lying in a critical condition in a different country. I think it was Sri’s big heart that made this possible, her kindness and compassion for others. Her belief in the sanctity of her work. Her mother had promised us and she was honouring it no matter what.’

That teenage girl who had squabbled with K. Bhagyaraj on the sets of 16 Vayathinile, because she hardly understood the importance of continuity in a film, had now become a meticulous woman. K.P.A.C. Lalitha reveals: ‘Since the schedules of Devaraagam were erratic due to Rajeshwari amma’s illness, Sridevi maintained a diary. She would note down all her costume details before leaving so that when she would be back for the next schedule, there would be no continuity issues. Keeping track of such minute details in the middle of a personal crisis is exemplary. I have never seen anyone so dedicated and I don’t think I ever will.’

Bharathiraja, who met Sridevi during this time, found her putting up in a small apartment in New York. He advised her to rent a larger one but the actress wanted to keep things simple. She was cooking herself and taking care of her mother. In public, she had her brave face on. In private, she was anxious that the surgery goes well. 

Alas, that was not to be. The day Rajeshwari was being wheeled inside the operation theatre, she suddenly clutched her daughter’s hand, her nails digging into Sridevi’s skin. A spasm of terror passed through her face. Glancing at the actress and their family doctor who had accompanied them, Rajeshwari uttered these strange words, ‘Please tell them to operate me in the right place.’ Their family doctor laughed and assured her saying, ‘Of course they will. It is like telling your daughter to act well.’ Hours later, Rajeshwari’s fear had come true. In a bizarre case of medical negligence, the neurosurgeon, Dr Ehud Arbit, had operated on the right lobe of her brain while the tumour was in the left lobe. The botched-up surgery soon sparked headlines across America. While Arbit faced suspension, President Bill Clinton made it mandatory for US hospitals to disclose their medical malpractices. But in the middle of all this chaos stood a horrified daughter trying to make sense of what had just happened to her mother, wondering if she was to blame for bringing Rajeshwari here, clinging to her own sanity as the press hounded and lawyers bickered.

And yet, Sridevi turned up on time for the final schedule of Devaraagam in India. The actress was in absolute control while performing the last remaining scenes—the composure on her face hardly betraying the storm inside her. But when Bharathan gently inquired about Rajeshwari’s condition, Sridevi broke down. K.P.A.C.Lalitha recalls how the actress’s pent-up emotions spilled over: ‘She was in tears as she told us that the wrong surgery had affected the memory part of her mother’s brain. She said Rajeshwari amma was talking about things that had happened ten years back. But even in that state, Sridevi kept apologizing to my husband that because of her personal problems, Devaraagam had to be scheduled in an irregular manner.’

It was only after the tumour was removed at Cornell Medical Center that Sridevi returned to India after two harrowing months. While the actress was relieved now that Rajeshwari was recuperating, she was herself battling an enormous sense of guilt. She told Movie: ‘I cannot live without my mother. I need her for everything. If I have a problem, I still call her up and ask her what to do. We are virtually bound by an umbilical cord. How can a qualified doctor do something as drastic as this? It’s unpardonable. Today, when I look at her, I feel so guilty. There are so many good doctors even in Madras whom I could have taken her to. In the US, I felt so frightened, lonely and lost.’

Excerpted with permission from Sridevi The Eternal Screen Goddess by Satyarth Nayak, published by Penguin Randomhouse. 

(Source: TNM)

From Mallu Singh to Malar Miss: How Malayalam cinema has depicted non-Malayalis

While many characters have been insensitive caricatures, there have also been a few depictions which have won the audience's hearts.

What does it mean to depict a ‘non-native’ character on screen, as part of a fictional film?

It must be a character that is written keeping in mind the nuances of the region he/she comes from; ideally played by actors who hail from said region; holding their own space in the narrative, and not forcefully squeezed into a buttonhole in the script.

It’s an easy brief to begin with, but how has Malayalam cinema fared over time in the depiction of non-Malayalis on screen?

How they worked better as comical caricatures
In the Rafi Mecartin written and directed 1998 comic caper, Punjabi House, which has quite an ensemble, every single detail sketched about an immigrant Punjabi family is bluntly caricaturish. From casting quintessentially Malayali actors to play the part of Maninder Singh, Man Singh and Sikander Singh to mixing every Punjabi school textbook motif into their bearing, food and culture, even someone who has never been to that part of the world will guffaw at the stereotypes.

There is Janardhanan as the elderly uncle, Maninder Singh, who dotes on his nephew Sikander Singh (Lal) and you know that even at gunpoint, he can’t recite even one of the 35 letters of the Punjabi alphabet.

The “Punjabis” in the film own huge mud tandoor ovens and apparently only cook rotis. They also indulge in regular boxing matches, have a dance for every occasion and their women rarely get out of their ghunghat. But it’s also true that Punjabi House remains one of the most iconic comedy films of the time, so the irony is in the fact that it’s these very caricatures, mimicries and sly word plays (“char-chey-chor”) that really worked in the film’s favour. Perhaps any attempt to keep it real and authentic wouldn’t have raised as many laughs.

Pandippada (2005), by the same team (Rafi Mecartin) follows a similar narrative, where they have a loud and caricaturish Prakash Raj (it helps that he is a familiar presence in Tamil cinema) playing Pandi Durai, a landlord of a village in Tamil Nadu. He is brash, cruel, dim-witted and has a fascination for the English language that predictably results in hilarious situations. It’s again the same old stereotypes running overtime—Tamil landlords being uneducated, greedy womanisers. But here, again, that’s what saves an otherwise ordinary screenplay.

The scenario is repeated in Chattambinadu (2009), directed by Shafi (who is also coincidentally the younger brother of Rafi), written by Benny P Nayarambalam. Here Mammootty plays a loud and flamboyant Kannada landlord and small-town don, Virendra Mallaya, who speaks in broken Malayalam, punctuated by a heavy North Kannada slang. Mammootty’s hilarious turn with the language is what spruces up a cliched narrative.

None of it worked in the Vysakh directed Mallu Singh (2012), written by Sethu. A Malayali boy decides to voluntarily adopt himself into a Punjabi family as their son after he accidentally kills their son. He is baptised as Hari Singh (Unni Mukundan who limits his acting to glaring consistently) and becomes a strict brother (of five sisters) and dutiful son to them. With blaring Bhangra beats in the backdrop of lush paddy fields, colourful salwar-kameez costumed heroines, a turbaned hero and a few hilarious side characters, Mallu Singh gets reduced to a tacky comedy costume drama as the writing gets neither the essence of the milieu nor the hilarious incongruity of the situation.

Sathyan Anthikad is also one director who places non-Malayalis in his narrative, quite effectively, rarely offensively, if you discount Jagathy Sreekumar’s cameo as the womanising Vetrivel Sundara Pandian. Urvashi’s Anandavally in Mazhavilkavadi (1989), the Tamilian village woman, who is madly in love with her father’s new assistant is endearing. It goes without saying that her nuanced performance takes away what possibly might have been a stereotype on paper.

In Jomonte Suvisheshangal (2017), Aishwarya Rajesh’s Vaidehi is a Tamilian, an accountant at a textile company in Thirippur when Dulquer Salmaan meets her. It’s a typical Sathyan Anthikad no-nonsense heroine, but because it is played by a Tamil actor, sticking to Tamil, there is a freshness to it. It’s the same Anthikad along with Sreenivasan who created a hilarious North Indian politician called Yashwant Sahai in the socio-political satire Sandesham (1991). What more? They had the audacity to give it to an actor like Innocent, and even allow him to get away with speaking terrible Hindi with that pronounced Malayali accent (“Ye Budhu ka aadmi”).

Sreenivasan redeemed himself two decades later with a more heart-warming representation of Bengalis in Anthikad’s Fahadh Faasil starrer, Njan Prakasan (2018). Not only is the Bengali community in Kerala drawn with sensitivity, revealing their living conditions but the film also shows how an average Malayali fares rather poorly in comparison to Bengalis regarding work ethics in Kerala. There is a lovely little scene which shows the Bengali labourers planting seeds in the background of their folk song.

How mixed relationships often resulted in intelligent offspring
Malayalam filmmakers and writers often assume that a north Indian father and Malayali mother or vice versa will result in smarter, liberal, more empowered offsprings, especially daughters. In the Joshiy directed Sainyam (1993), Priya Raman makes a stunning entry as Shradha Kaul, wooing the young airforce cadets and irking her senior officer all in good time. Soon, it’s revealed that the smartness is courtesy her Kashmiri father and Malayali mother.

In the Shaji Kailas directed Renji Panicker scripted The King (1995), the daring young assistant district collector Anura Mukherjee (Vani Vishwanath), owes her boldness to a union between a Bengali father and Malayali mother. While in the Anjali Menon directed Bangalore Days (2014) Meenakshi’s (Isha Talwar) casual approach towards relationships has apparently something to do with being a daughter of a north Indian father and Malayali mother.

Niharika (Ahaana Krishna), in this year’s Luca is also a child of inter-state unions (Bengali father, Malayalee mother), which is probably an excuse for her decision to move in with Luca (Tovino Thomas) very early into the relationship.

Tamil invasion — good and the bad
If Tamil cinema at some point tried to point out that a Malayali woman’s wardrobe has only set mundu and blouse and can also be amoral, Malayalam cinema bracketed Tamilians initially as “pandi” (a degrading term), people who can fit in either as a don’s henchman or someone who can only do menial jobs.

Perhaps the most memorable tribute to Tamilians from Malayalam cinema has to be the beauteous Nagavalli from Fazil’s cult classic Manichithrathazhu (1993). She is alluring, bold and maintains a mysterious exotic aura around her. That the character didn’t work as brilliantly in any other language remakes speaks a lot about the exquisiteness of the Tamil language as well. Note how Nagavalli’s threat to finish off Sankaran Thambi on Durgashtami day gets lost in translation when it was remade in Tamil, Telugu or Hindi, besides factors like shoddy making and acting.

Premam’s (2015) Malar Miss comes a close second. Easily one of the most fascinating heroines in Malayalam cinema, Malar (Sai Pallavi) is a Tamilian lecturer in a college here, who falls in love with a Malayali student (Nivin Pauly). Be it her characterisation, her conversations (a delightful blend of Tamil and broken Malayalam) with George, she remains Malayalam cinema’s favourite Tamil heroine. There is a relatability about her even amongst the youngsters in Kerala despite representing another state.

Mammootty’s Murugan in Kamal’s Karutha Pakshikal (2006) is a hat-tip to the Tamilian immigrants in Kerala who run mobile ironing clothes services. Though Mammootty’s nuanced performance is the highlight of the film, where he aces the Tamil accented Malayalam, the “Tamil lower caste” stereotype is evident as he is given a blackface make-up.

Ranjith’s Black (2004), has a similar immigrant character, played by Tamil actor Daniel Balaji, while Shreya Reddy essays the role of his wife and has more nuanced writing. It also addresses immigrant issues in the state.

In this year’s best film so far, Kumbalangi Nights, it’s a Tamil character who provides a crucial breakthrough in the narrative. Murugan aka Vijay, who also makes a living ironing clothes. Saji (Soubin Shahir), one of the lead characters, lives off his meagre savings and then when one day Murugan dies, trying to save Saji from killing himself, he offers Murugan’s wife a home, that eventually helps in bringing together their dysfunctional family. Again, two things help—the roles being played by Tamil actors and a very realistic sketch.

Rajasenan’s Meleparambil Aanveedu’s (1993) heroine (Shobana) is the daughter of a Tamil landlord who falls for Jayaram and gets married to him, only to end up disguising herself as a domestic worker of his house. Since her character sticks to Tamil and her roots, it’s a reasonable depiction. Though they do pull up a few stereotypes, like how she hangs a photo of her “Kadavul” MGR on the wall. Similarly, Sathyan Anthikad’s Narendran Makan Jayakantan Vaka (2001) has Tamil actor Parthiban playing a Tamilian and it works well.

Ranjith’s Puthan Panam (2017) has a Tamilian boy sharing space with Mammootty’s Shenoy who is from Mangaluru, though he speaks in a heavy Kasaragod accent! Lijo Jose Pellisery’s City of God (2011), with its hyperlink format, has a narrative that throws light on the Tamil immigrants living in Kochi. There is Indrajith’s Swarnavel who is in love with Parvathy’s Marathakam who has escaped from an abusive marriage. It helps that both actors effortlessly slip into their respective characters, without making them caricaturish.

The Tamilian cops have been imbued into our narrative quite often. Out of which Mayaanadhi’s (2017) police officer is one of the better written ones, falling in line and length with his Tamil backdrop, where the dialogues seem to have been written in Tamil for him. But in this year’s Lucifer, Mayilvahanam IPS is a typical mainstream cop depiction (though Tamil actor John Vijay effectively pulls it off), corrupt and lascivious, who fantasises about a serial actor and bends backwards for the system.

North India, Bihar and Bombay
In the early '90s when Mumbai used to be Bombay, Priyadarshan would make sure his heroes inevitably took the “Kalavandi to Bombay” to make it big. Both Aryan (1998) and Abhimanyu (1991) had Mohanlal taking the familiar route to reach the maximum city.

Priyadarshan would wisely use Hindi-speaking actors as villains though they were one-dimensional. Sibi Malayil’s His Highness Abdullah (1990) and Thampi Kannanthanam’s Indrajalam (1990) also opted for north Indian one-note growling villains.

In Lucifer, director Prithviraj himself plays Stephen Nedumpally’s confidante, Zayed Masood, a powerful mercenary from north India, who calls the former Bhaijaan which sounds hilarious as the audience knows it’s Prithviraj mimicking a Hindi character.

Arayannangalude Veedu (2000) has one of the most realistically done female characters based in north India. Lakshmy Gopalaswamy (her debut) plays Mammootty’s north Indian wife (today’s Chhattisgarh) and though her clothes are a tad dramatic, she gets most of the nuances right.

Lohitadas also convincgly shows their life in Bhilai, where though they are struggling to make ends meet, they live happily in a one-room house.

But two characters share credits for the best North Indian depiction in Malayalam cinema. First is Basil Joseph’s Godha (2017), a sports film, which has a female lead who plays a wrestler from Punjab. Full credit to the casting as they roped in a Punjabi actor like Wamiqa Gabbi to play the part. The template is fresh with no attempts to localise her character. She is simply that quintessential Punjabi girl who comes down to Kerala for wrestling matches and stays that way till the end.

The other one is Sachy directed Anarkali (2015), a love story that revolves around navy officer Shanthanu Varma (Prithviraj) and Nadira (Priya Gor). Nadira is 16, playful, stubborn and falls madly in love with Shanthanu. It’s the kind of character that works primarily for her ethnicity (she is the daughter of a Nawab based in Hyderabad) and so the casting (television actor Gor is a natural) and writing are spot on. Even Kabir Bedi and Sudev Nair (probably the only Malayali actor who works for such a role) are bang on as her father and brother respectively.

(Source: TNM)

Can Mohanlal and Mammootty keep up with new-gen Malayalam films?

The two superstars have ruled Kerala’s film industry for decades. But as a new generation shapes Malayalam cinema, how will they negotiate their future path?

Getting two superstars at the peak of their game to act in your movie? That’s the easy part. The harder bit is making sure neither of them feels shortchanged, and more importantly, that their vocal fans are pleased. That was the quandary Malayalam director Fazil found himself in when he convinced Mohanlal and Mammootty to play the lead roles in his 1998 movie Harikrishnans. The struggle shows: in the movie, if Mammootty’s Hari began a sentence, Mohanlal’s Krishnan would finish it. The two stars, playing hotshot lawyers, dominated the screen for a large part of the movie, with almost equal screen time. 

But Fazil’s biggest challenge was solving who would end up with the heroine Meera (Juhi Chawla in her only Malayalam movie so far) in a way that would make everyone happy—so instead of giving her the agency to choose one, or even neither, of the two heroes the director shot two endings. The story doing the rounds was that viewers in South Kerala, between Thiruvananthapuram and Ernakulam, saw Meera choose Mohanlal, while Mammootty was the lucky man in other districts, though the makers have maintained that the experiment was random, and not targeted at geographies. The move backfired when the Censor Board stepped in to object. 

Mohanlal, Juhi Chawla and Mammootty in 'Harikrishnans' (1998)

This is one of the more bizarre examples of the way the Mammootty-Mohanlal star show has played out in Kerala over the decades. No other actors in Malayalam cinema have commanded the kind of fan following and loyalty that the two have had, and for years, they have dominated public imagination with their embodiment of the Malayali man on screen. Their films were seen as a reliable barometer of the trends in the film industry, and perhaps in Kerala’s social life as well.

There are many similarities between the two men, who get along well, unlike some of their more raucous ‘fans’. Both are terrific actors, and a truly neutral observer would find it hard to choose between them in their best roles. They have rarely been outspoken about their views on important subjects (though Mammootty has never hidden his Leftist affiliations), and both have been criticised for their wishy-washy stand when one colleague was accused of planning the sexual assault of another. Alongside their many great, author-backed roles that can undoubtedly be included in any film studies class, they have also portrayed misogynist, communal, casteist characters that have set back the discourse around gender and discrimination in the industry. And most significantly, they have survived and held onto their No. 1 position.

But Malayalam cinema itself has changed a lot in this century. A new generation of actors, writers and directors have been slowly expanding the limits of the industry, which had been collapsing under the collective weight of its two stars and their larger-than-life characters. These so-called “new generation” films made a mark with younger viewers who craved stories that rang closer to the ordinary person’s life, one that the superstars seemed to have lost touch with.

As films like Kumbalangi Nights and Angamaly Diaries find new viewers on streaming platforms, and neighbouring film industries remake popular hits such as Premam and Bangalore Days, a younger Malayali viewer, or a non-Malayali, is more likely to watch out for Fahadh Faasil and Dulquer Salmaan, rather than the two big Ms.

Can the two superstars navigate the shifting sands in an industry that has been at their beck and call for years?

The rise of the superstars

Mohanlal and Mammootty established themselves in the Malayalam film industry during the late ’80s and early ’90s, a period which coincided with the emergence of a number of talented scriptwriters and directors, some of whom made their mark with funny, accessible movies about the struggles of the middle-class Malayali man. At the time, there was no one star ruling the roost—Prem Nazir, arguably Malayalam cinema’s first superstar, had graduated to playing roles nearer his age (he died in 1989), and the macho Jayan had tragically died in 1980, while shooting a helicopter stunt.

Mohanlal in 'Manjil Virinja Pookkal' (1980)

Mohanlal’s path to stardom finds parallels in Rajinikanth’s. His first big-screen appearance as a villain in Manjil Virinja Pookkal (1980), and he played a variety of supporting roles and was part of several multi-starrers before turning hero. But, unlike Rajini, who did many off-beat roles before getting boxed in, Lal’s roles aligned closer to his middle-class, boy-next-door image. He was a regular in Sathyan Anthikad and Priyadarshan films as he organically carved an indelible mark for himself in Malayalam cinema, often finding himself sharing the screen with Mammootty, who had begun his career a decade earlier. 

It was a film originally written for Mammootty that catapulted Mohanlal as Malayalam cinema’s emerging superstar. In 1986, roughly 100 films after his debut, Mohanlal got bumped up from playing the boy-next-door to a crown prince in RajavinteMakan (The King’s Son). Loosely based on the Jeffrey Archer bestseller Rage of Angels, he played Vincent Gomes, a calm, formidable underworld don. The film, a huge box-office success, also marked the actor’s switch to an action hero. 

Mammootty, on the other hand, began his career playing roles much older than his actual age, often getting stuck in the image of a dutiful husband, father and son. Two films released in different years are credited for his emergence as a star. Some point to PG Vishwambaran’s revenge action thriller Ee Sabdam Innathe Sabdam (1985), said to be the actor’s first big solo hit. Others think that Avanazhi (1986), an action-packed police story, propelled him to superstardom.  

“Till then he was trapped in the image of a suitcase-bearing father travelling in a Premier Padmini, but these films were a big shift,” said Mukesh Kumar, a social media film critic.

Till the mid-90s, despite being established stars, both Mammooty and Mohanlal chose to showcase their acting chops in the films they did. Mammootty, in particular, was the first superstar to blur the boundaries between mainstream and parallel cinema, acting in Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s Mathilukal and TS Suresh Babu’s Kottayam Kunjachan (1990) in the same year. 

Slowly, the alpha male

As the two established their dominance over the industry, the star began to take precedence over the actor.

Mohanlal of the 80s was the quintessential middle-class hero, usually in Sathyan Anthikad films such as TP Balagopalan MA (1986) or Nadodikattu (1987), as well as the charming, boyish lover in Kilukkam (1991), Vandanam (1989) or Yodha (1992). But in these movies, there was the scope for a few interesting characters for women as well—be it Karthika in Sanmanassullavarkku Samadhanam (1986), Sumalatha in Thoovanathumbikal (1987) or Shobana in Nadodikattu (1987), they were all part of his character’s coming-of-age arc. The actor’s turn as Solomon in Namukku Parkkan Munthiri Thoppukal (1986) was radical for its times, one that challenged puranitical notions of love and romance. In Manichithrathazhu (1993), his psychiatrist character, Dr Sunny, only enters the story right before the interval, and he wisely underplays the role, becoming a perfect foil for Shobana’s phenomenal performance as Ganga/Nagavalli. 

These were not the sort of roles you would see Mammooty play. His hero was rarely the mild romantic lover but had much more responsibility on his shoulders. In many movies, he played a stern husband, brother or dutiful son, which also explains why youngsters preferred Mohanlal over Mammootty back then. Be it Sangam (1988), Nirakoottu (1985), Aavanazhi (1986), Inspector Balram (1991) or Dinarathrangal (1988), the heroines of these films were rarely memorable and depended on him to save them. Fittingly, one of Mammootty’s most memorable heroines in this period was Narayani in Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s Mathilukal (1990), a woman we only hear, never see on screen. 

Meanwhile, Mohanlal’s masculine avatar had slowly been taking shape in movies such as Devasuram (1993) and Aaram Thamburan (1997), which both dealt, in different ways, with the crisis of the upper-caste Hindu man as the foundations of a feudal society slowly crumbled.

Mohanlal and Mammootty in 'Athirathram' (1984)

In 2000 came Narasimham’s Induchoodan, possibly the most larger-than-life alpha male that Malayalam cinema had witnessed until then. If in Devasuram,Mohanlal’sMangalasseri Neelakandan was a flawed hero, Narasimham’s Induchoodan smothered all those chinks. 

Of course, the tone of these roles was not new to Malayali viewers, who were already familiar with Mammootty’s turn as the foul-tongued, patronising district collector in Renji Panicker’s TheKing and Suresh Gopi’s pompous cop outings in Commissioner and Ekalavyan.

Mohanlal’s Induchoodan was writer Ranjith’s ultimate tribute to machismo. He was brash, had great exit lines, beat up the bad guys and was treated as a demi-god. Induchoodan’s relationship with his heroine was even more problematic—despite having a double post-graduate degree, she is treated with wink-wink-nudge-nudge irreverence. In fact, when he suggests a marriage where her primary role will be that of lover and child producer, not an equal partner, she eagerly accepts it. 

It’s no coincidence that the rise of the toxic male character dovetailed with the shrinking space for women. While until mid-career, Mammootty and Mohanlal shared screen space with actors such as Shobana and Urvashi (and later, for some time, Manju Warrier)—who had commanded significant screen space and played a variety of complex roles—this new breed of movies starred much younger women, whose primary requirement was looking pretty. 

Meanwhile, Induchoodan became the template of a hero we would see over and over again—as Zakir Hussain (Praja, 2001), Velayudhan (Naran, 2005), Karthikeyan (Ravanaprabhu, 2001), Kashinathan (Thandavam, 2012) or Sagar (Sagar Alias Jacky Reloaded, 2009). Though Mohanlal occasionally shined as an actor (UdayananuTharam, 2005; Thanmathra, 2005; Pranayam, 2011, Bhramaram, 2009), by the mid-2000s, the alpha male persona had taken over the actor. 

Mammootty, on the other hand, preferred to mix things up. For every Dubai (2001), Rakshasa Rajavu (2001), Chronic Bachelor (2003) or Phantom (2002), he balanced it with a Kazhcha (2004), Palunku (2006), Ore Kadal (2007), Paleri Manikyam (2009) or Kaiyoppu (2007). For the actor, 2005 was a significant year as he tried a huge image shift with Rajamanikyam. Unlike Mohanlal, Mammootty had always been mocked for his inability to pull off comedy. But he changed that with Bellari Raja—an uneducated buffalo seller who spouts chaste Thiruvananthapuram slang, he stunned even the harshest of critics with an effortlessly comic act backed up by a powerfully funny accent. It did, however, lead to a series of distasteful comedy films that, while often box-office hits, didn’t really add anything to his career. 

Right behind Mammootty and Mohanlal was Suresh Gopi, who rose to fame with Ekalavyan (1993) and was regarded as the ‘third superstar’. Dileep also held steady with his brand of comedy (which later became problematically sexist and vulgar) to create a fanbase among the family audience. But none of them, it was clear, could match up to Mammootty and Mohanlal in terms of acting chops or popularity.

An overhaul

Over the past decade, as Malayalam cinema was going through a dip in quality, a fresh crop of writers and directors slowly began weaning audiences away from this formula. The trend, which started with Rajesh Pillai’s Traffic and Aashiq Abu’s SaltN Pepper in 2011,led to a new wave in Malayalam cinema. These films were often breezy, broke clichés (and sometimes winked at them) and featured a hero and heroine who looked and sounded ordinary in a way a new crop of viewers could identify with. 

Mammootty in 'Mathilukal' (1990)

But the economics of cinema still lean heavily on superstar films, so the two actors continue to wield huge influence on the industry.

“Many stars have risen in between and then faded away in due course, but the value of the two big Ms has remained intact.There has been a shift in prominence during the past few years, with content proving the key factor, which has resulted in the emergence of some “unconventional” stars. But when it comes to ensuring initials at the box office, only these two have been successful in a consistent manner,” said Vijay George, a film critic. 

The biggest change, however, has been off screen. As Malayalam films became more popular among a new audience, because of outward migration as well as subtitles, the public actions of actors and their roles were beginning to be scrutinised more closely. This came in large part due to the Women in Cinema Collective, formed by a group of women in the industry after a colleague was assaulted.

The case did not just expose the deep misogyny in the industry, it also threw light on where its biggest stars stood, and their responses were sharply criticised for being inadequate. Both Mohanlal, president of A.M.M.A, and Mammootty received severe public backlash for reinstating actor Dileep, accused of orchestrating the attack, into the industry body. 

Another incident saw Mammootty’s fans viciously troll Parvathy, a talented actor who is also a member of WCC, for her criticism of his misogynist role in Kasaba.

But none of this has affected their standing among fans.

Earlier this year, Mohanlal’s Lucifer, an unabashed superstar vehicle, grossed over Rs 200 crore while KumbalangiNights, a relatively smaller film, staggered along, winning hearts at multiplexes. One celebrated the alpha male while the other made a villain out of him.

Mohanlal in 'Lucifer'

Mohanlal now packages himself as a brand in himself, investing in big-budget extravaganzas that work on his star power. His film announcements are planned with much fanfare, be it Pulimurugan (2016) or Lucifer. 

“Mohanlal isn’t interested in getting out of his comfort zone. It’s one reason why he continues to give dates to (directors like) Major Ravi or B. Unnikrishnan. But for now, his strategy to just work in films that exploit his superstar image seems to be working well,” said Krishna Kumar, a film critic.

It is rumoured that for a cameo in last year’s Kayamkulam Kochunni, he pocketed a cool Rs 3 crore (considering that most of the middling reviews for the movie praised Mohanlal’s role and the movie made Rs 100 crore, it doesn’t seem like a bad investment).

Meanwhile, Mammootty, who keeps doing his share of middling superstar glorification vehicles, remains the more accessible superstar. He is prepared to step out of his comfort zone (like in the recent Peranbu or Unda—his first Malayalam movie in a while to work with both viewers and critics), work with new directors and strike a balance between films that satisfy both the actor and star in him.

Aswathy Gopalakrishnan, a film critic who works with silverscreen.in, says that superstar culture is alive and relevant even today.

“It’s the superstar actor, often male, who calls the shots on a film set. And the satellite rights business has boosted his power. Mohanlal has reinvented himself into a brand, thus smoothly fitting into every field within the show business. He is on TV selling retail products and hosting reality shows, and has narrowed down his work in feature films to big-budget projects helmed by high-profile names. Mammootty has taken more risks as an actor by working with new directors and associating in films like Unda, which have a sturdy political voice. What is more significant about their movies is their transformation into a device of Malayali nostalgia. In recent years, a number of stage shows, television programmes and feature films have paid tributes to Mammootty and Mohanlal, although they are far from being retired from acting business” said.

Fahadh Faasil, Parvathy Thiruvothu, Nivin Pauly and Dulquer Salmaan

The big-budget star vehicles continue to co-exist with the new generation films. Lucifer was so popular its makers have announced a sequel. Unda played in theatres at the same time as the small-budget Thamaasha, a gentle, witty take on body-shaming. 

“In Malayalam cinema, we have always cohabited. We can’t exist in isolation,” Mammootty had said in an interview some years ago. 

Over four decades, 400 films and several awards later, Mammootty and Mohanlal continue to be spoken of in the same breath, though their journeys have been vastly different. But some observers are watching closely to see how the two negotiate their future path.     

“I think unless the content is king, the star cannot do it today. A star can probably bring day one opening, nothing more than that,” said Pillai. 

(Source: HuffPo)