So finally the stardom lobbying succeeded. Whoever pulled strings to populate the Mohan Lal movie Thanmaathra, has succeeded in it all the way with the announcement of Kerala State Film Awards of 2005. The whole press club meetings, all those exaggerated articles and movie reviews about Thanmaathra in the Malayalam weeklies, everything done favor to the actor Mohan Lal to be chosen as the best actor of 2005.
The poor Dileep who wholeheartedly put his efforts to be Radhakrishnan in Chaandu Pottu and Lal Jose who made a wonderful movie that was needed in our times, both were skipped off. But guys, you were already chosen for the bet actor and best director categories in the hearts of thousands of Keralites. So keep going on with such wonderful efforts.
I’m not saying Thanmathra was a bad movie or Mohan Lal wasn’t good in that movie. Mohan Lal did his role really good, but Dileep’s role was more challenging and he did that with such perfection. But the jury ignored him because of the ‘commercial aspects of the movie’ (according to Malayala Manorama newspaper). I do not understand why they are considering the movie to select the best actor. And after all the movie wasn’t any bad too.
Anyways, it is proved again that the awards do not make any sense at all.
And Mr. Blessy, as you are being celebrated for your movie Thanmaathra, you should now mention your "inspiration" from the movies like "Iris". There are atleast a few people who watch Hollywood movies a lot.
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Didn't know Thanmaathra was based on Iris. Iris is a wonderful movie--Judi Dench is phenomenal as Iris...
How's the Malayalam version??
m.jayachandren's 'pachcha panam thaththe' is a copy of m.s.baburaj's 'potti thakarnna kinakkal' (film Bhargavinilayam).
Lal arhikaaththa award.
I wanted to see the Thanmaathra atleast for the songs.!! Somehow couldn't make it.
Congratulations to Mohanlal!! and all the other winners. BTW..who won the best singer award? and what was the song?? And who is the best Music Director??
The details of the award are here.
http://varnachitram.com/2006/02/07/2005-kerala-state-awards/
@Meera -- There are instances of scenes copied from Iris with a twist. But watch it anyway, if you can. Its a good movie.
@Thulasi -- Is it? I havent heard that old song. Hmm...
@N.Venkitu -- The best singer is M. Jayachandran [yeah, the fav composer of both of us. :-)] and the song is "Melle" from the movie "Nottam". The best music director is M.G. Radhakrishnan for the movie Ananthabhadram.
@Varnachithram -- Thank you.
hey joe...i saw chanthupottu man..was not overly impressed by that movie..hehe..but then i'm die hard lalettan fan...appo pinne ende opinion biased aarikum alleee
I watched Chandu Pottu a couple weeks back. While there is much to laugh, I do not consider it to be award material. I haven't seen Thanmaathra so I don't know whether it was better than CP or not. [As for my bias, I like Dileep, and I am an ex-Mohan Lal fan who has hated all the Mohan Lal movies in the past 5-6 years.]
@Anup & Mahout -- I am not saying the movie was great. But Dileep's acting was superb, that is what I mentioned in this post. They shouldn't have denied him the award just because the movie was a pakkaa commercial one.
Saw Chandpottu, didn't think dileep's performance was worth getting an award. Just because it was a role which has not been attempted before in malayalam movies doesn't make it worth an award. Haven't seen Thanmaathra so can't comment on that.
@Suji -- If you have closely observed the characteristics and body language of Radhakrishnan, then only you can realize how brilliantly that role was done by Dileep. That is what makes it an award-worthy role, not that simple reason that it wasn't tried before.
iris based on thanmaathra ? Now thats an allegation taken too far. The only similarity in both films the protagonist is affected by Alzhiemers. If that is being similar, then take any love story and you can compare it with Romeo and Juliet and say that it was based on that because it is a love story.
Blessy has cleraly said that he was inspired by Padmarajan's Orma. However to transform (not plagiarise), a short story to a proper 150 minutes of film is different from customising a Hollywood flick it to suit desi audiences.
As for Dileep's performance in CP, it is different, but doesnt merit an award. To act...no..to live as an Alzheimers patient, mannerisms et al is not as simple as enacting a eunuch.
@Unni -- It is not just the 'alcheimers' which is common in these two movies. I'm not saying the entire movie is based on IRIS. but parts of it. For example, IRIS goes to one of her old date and spends time with him, and in Thanmathra, Lal goes to his childhood love. Iris' close friend dies all in a sudden, like Jagathy dies in this movie. I haven't seen "The Awakening", but a friend said Thanmathra has a lot of similarities to that movie also.
And just see IRIS once more and see Judi Dench's performance compared to our 'great Lal'. Its quite easy just to say "if he was born in the west..." but it has no base.
If you think to act as a eunuch is 'simple', thats your opinion. I don't think so. And only Dileep can do such a role without any fail. It was more challenging than the role of Rameshan Nair in Thanmathra. To act...no..to live as an eunuch,mannerism et al, is not simple as enacting an alcheimers patient. And am not a Dileep fan. (to those who suspect it) But in CP, he was too good.
One more thing -- If you're just a Lal fan who cannot bear to see the criticism about Lal, and if thats the reason you commented here (if not your love for the cinema) do not bother to comment further. Thank you.
Jo - Thanks for the speedy and detailed response. Really appreciate it.
I have not watched Iris/Awakening or even Black - the bollywood film (now i find it strange that people have not commented on
Thanmathra's similarity with Black, bcos that also deals with Alzheimers). For that matter, I am not even a fan of Hollywood
movies. Pardon my ignorance. Whatever I have mentioned about Iris is from some R&D i did through the net, out of curiosity.
Maybe you ARE right in that Thanmathra might have borrowed scenes from Iris too. Fair enough. But i suspect it wouldnt be a
rip-off from Iris(now that is blatant stealing. Many of these bollywood movies have this scene by scene copy). Back to the
point, let us for the moment accuse Blessy of copying. His end product speaks volumes for itself - for the sheer Malayali
values, the settings, the songs and most of all touching your soul. I can say for myself, I was deeply moved after watching
the movie. As i mentioned in another blog, you need to have interacted with an Alzheimers patient to note the change in
mannerisms, the pathos and all. My grandmother died of Alzheiemers not very long ago. I could at first hand experience
a lot of the symptoms depicted by Lal in the movie - rolling of the tongue, going on and on about childhood experiences,
stubborn, snatching food. There was no artificiality attached to it.
As you have suspected by now, I am a Lalettan fan - but not the type who would watch utter trash like Thanadavam/Praja. The
only other movie where I have seen him take real pains to depict a character was Kunjikuttan in Vanaprastham and justifiably
he got his award.
Also let me mention, I never stated that acting as a eunuch was "simple". Dileep was impressive in CP, no doubt, but all i
said was it did not merit an award. I read a lot of all that interviews where he said, he was living as Radha..Radha was
haunting him..That was because it was the first "noteworthy" role he enacted and the experience new to him.I saw CP, i was
impressed by Dileep because it was different from the "formula" movies he is doing these days. His mannerisms were genuinely
funny. But that is where it ends. Nothing more than that. I have seen Jayaram/Mani do similar "sthree veshams" - not fulltime , but they too made me laugh because it was mimicry. Now CP is not mimicry but very close to that. This again is my personal opinion.
I rest my case.
Unni
It is a common practise these days to define acting as 'mimicry' when the competing actors were mimicry artists before they came to the movie industry. Be it Kalabhavan Mani or Dileep, people say the same. Which, I think, is completely non-sense.
It is not just that Dileep made me laugh. If you closely observed, see his body language throughout the movie. Go through the scenes again where he fights back the villain or trying to rescue Bhavana's character. It is a very challenging role compared to Lal's role in Thanmathra. See, even in IRIS, the one who performed even better than Judi Dench was Jim Broadbent who acted as her husband. I liked the boy Arjun's performance in Thanmathra.
Again, I am not saying Lal was bad in Thanmathra. Lal did a very good job, but Dileep's role as Radha had a lot of challenges in terms of expressions, body language etc. It is sad that when people get a chance to see Lal in a good role after a row of flops, they tend to give it exaggerated comments like "Lal was 'living' as this character" and stuff.
It is not that I think Hollywood movies are all great, but see their approach to Cinema. Stardom has nothing to do there. Perhaps the academy awards have had allegations related to the color decrimination, but not on stardom. But in India and especially in Kerala, stardom plays a major role.
If you wanted to see a touching movie about "Malayali Values", see "Acchanurangaattha Veedu". That will definitely give you a food for thought even after you walk out of the theatre. Thanmathra helped people to realize how bad the alcheimers disease can be. That's the only plus-point I saw in this movie.
PS: Sorry to hear about your grandmother. Alcheimers is a terrible disease.
I think Kunjukuttan from Vanaprastham was a nice character, but Lal's ultimate was in "Iruvar". I think that is the ONLY character he 'lived' in the cinema. I've seen Shaji N. Karun proudly saying that Kunjukuttan in Vanaprastham was the best chracter in Lal's career. But its not. It's Mani Ratnam who extracted the talents from Lal as an actor.
Also Hindi movie Black's main focus wasn't alcheimers.
Why the obsession to rate one higher than the other. Why, if as you say, thousands of viewers have taken chandupottu to heart giving it their awards, do you debate the awards. Both roles were challenging and it isn't quite easy to say one is better.
Depending on a lot of things, (including whether you had a fight with your parents before watching the movie, for example) can affect how you perceive its quality. I hope you'll agree with me when I say it's hard, if not impossible to objectively judge two performances when you have to watch one before you watch the other.. You've been tainted already, positively or negatively by a wish to either love or hate the first. I can keep going, but the point is kudos to both actors and film makers for bringing out two awesome films for us malayalees. Let the awards go to whoever.
I cud not stop myself commenting for this..U said, Thanmatra just made u feel how difficult a patient's life can be. Let me remind u something, u are restricting urself in seeing that wonderful movie just by the love for the dileep or maybe some grudge towards mohanalal as a person.
It talks about un certainities of life, it talks about how the love between father and children. I took an effort to show this movie when my parents were watching together. Belive me, it made an impact..
Mohanlal was denied national award for Kalapani saying movie was not up to the mark. Chandupottu as a movie is nothing exceptional in fact I did nt like it at all.
I dont know whether u enjoy acting or whether u act. But I am one among them. And I felt, mohanlal is a genius and way beyond comparison .Dileep needs to be given encouragement, but hes noway near to lal in any aspect. I cannot make it measureable unfortunately..but I can relate to the brilliant performance of lal as an actor and also as a hero [ I mean heroism ] . Hes a complete actor.
About allegations on mimicry..being emotional about this does not help. Kalabhavan mani does not really have mimicking in his acting "Skills" for all the roles. But u can see a quite a bit in "Vasanthiyum...". When I say mimicry; its imitating what you have seen somewhere. But acting, trying to potray that character in your own way. Theres a big difference. In fact in CP u can see only see mimicry. Belive me, I hate Dileep as an actor. His performance is just entertaining but never appeals to me as an actor. You encourage him for movies like "Kalayana raman", its fun watching. Its a personal opinion..
I cannot take u to another level ofthinking..I can only say one thing, thanmatra and mohanlal is way beyond what you just concluded...maybe that really did not appeal to you..It has done a lot to me. Theres a feeling that I cannot express about this movie and mohanlal the actor. I hate him as person..but that really does not come in when I see him acting on the screen. People whome you can compare him with is Dr. Kamalahasan ..I dont see any other names in India. Englsih movies and actors I cannot really compare, because they portray different characters which I am not really familiar with...No one impressed me till day except Will smith in Pursuit of Happiness and Russel crowe in "Beautiful mind"
copying from IRIS ..Do you think its a valid argument. From your post, I think you are enough intelligent to have a thought over it and conclude.
Tanmatra shows how a middle class family lives..their dreams and loving moments in their life. I really wish if you could see the depth of that film...Mohanalal anyway u ll not agree with what I say. I can only say something, u are not fortunate enuf to experience the genius.
IRIS isn't even Hollywood, its a British film, right?
anyway, I haven't seen that Dileep's film.
I did see Lal's film though.
I heard a lot of ppl saying his performance was brilliant and stuff.
But I don't think it was THAT great.
it was good, thats all.
Lal has done better performances than that one.