I always wondered what has been the contribution of supposedly great arthouse directors of Malayalam Cinema over the years. Its next to nothing. How can you classify their cinema in the context of good cinema several Malayalam directors having being churning out for the benefits of Malayalees across the world. Gems that can be cherised until your last breath. Let's take a case in point of two exalted directors during the 1980 and late 1990. Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Govindan Aravindan. They made awful movies which had no entertainment value of any kind. They got ill deserved praise and adulation from journalists and juries with adherence to a certain political ideology. I remember watching "Kanchana Sita" by G Aravindan, its probably the worst movie I have ever seen in my life. It was meaningless and pointless, a retelling of Ramayana made by the jaundiced eyes of an ultra-left director. It was so comical to watch the movie, in fact Sita is never shown in a movie centred around her. But crticis educated us by saying that her virtual presence is compellingly evoked in the moods of the forest and the elements. How funny. It became evident to me why these people flourished making such crap during the so-called arthouse, new age period of Malayalam cinema.
There have been great directors apart from the arthouse clique in Malayalam cinema who provided wholesome entertainment which encapsulates what cinema should actually be. To a name of few Ramu Kariat, Padmarajan, K G George, Bharathan, IV Sasi, Fazil, T Hariharan, Sathyan Anthikad, Sibi Malayil, Ranjit etc made sensible and evocative movies. They raised the bar of Malyalam cinema by several notches, not the arthouse crooks.
The same malady is setting with the new crop of directors who are trying to emulate their long forgotten masters and their brand of cinema. The recent, Nna Thaan Case Kodu is a classical case of such cinema, this movie was completely rubbish but had a certain brand of film critics raving and ranting about it. Are they really honest in their opinion? Did they actually enjoy watching it? I guess not.
Thankam falls into this very category of baseless of should I say pointless cinema.
There have been great directors apart from the arthouse clique in Malayalam cinema who provided wholesome entertainment which encapsulates what cinema should actually be. To a name of few Ramu Kariat, Padmarajan, K G George, Bharathan, IV Sasi, Fazil, T Hariharan, Sathyan Anthikad, Sibi Malayil, Ranjit etc made sensible and evocative movies. They raised the bar of Malyalam cinema by several notches, not the arthouse crooks.
The same malady is setting with the new crop of directors who are trying to emulate their long forgotten masters and their brand of cinema. The recent, Nna Thaan Case Kodu is a classical case of such cinema, this movie was completely rubbish but had a certain brand of film critics raving and ranting about it. Are they really honest in their opinion? Did they actually enjoy watching it? I guess not.
Thankam falls into this very category of baseless of should I say pointless cinema.