One thing that the directors in Malayalam movie industry complain about is the lack of good story material. It has been their prime excuse for their churning out of crap movies. On the other hand the Malayalee audience keep complaining about the crap movies and the very same set of people ignore good movies as "award padam". It's really very funny to see this.

Shyamaprasad is a wonderful film maker compared to all those where-is-the-story yelling types. He has caught my attention right from the days of his tele-films such as Peruvazhiyile Kariyilakal and Uyirthezhunnelppu. As a well read person himself, he knows how to craft a beautiful movie out of a good story. And Shyam has never ever disappointed since the beginning of his career as a film maker. Ore Kadal, his latest, is just another wonderful movie from him.

Let's have a look at his movies -

Peruvazhiyile Kariyilakal (Tele film) - Based on the short story in the same name by N. Mohanan (son of Lalithambika Antharjanam, whose novel was made into a film - Agnisakshi - by Shyam later)

Uyirthezhunnelppu (Tele film) - Based on a short story by Marquez (or is it Anton Chekov's?). Kukku Parameshwaran, who does the costume design of Shyam's movies now, had given an amazing performance in this one.

Agnisakshi - Adaptation of the same novel by Lalithambika Antharjanam

Kallu Kondoru Pennu - Based on S L Puram Sadanandan’s popular play in the same name

Bokshu the Myth - Adaptation of Ganga Prasad Vimal’s Hindi novel Mrigantak

Akale - Adaptation of The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

Ore Kadal - Adaptation of Sunil Gangopadhya's Heerak Deepthi

In an interview when he was asked why he is not writing his own stories and heavily relies on adaptations, he said:

I am not a writer. I prefer to adapt well-known literary works of noted writers for my television and cinema productions, so that the viewers too get a chance to explore the literary works from the perspective of the visual media.

It is not at all an easy task to do the movie adaptations of the literary works. Another good thing that this adaptations do is it makes the audience read the original work. I went on to read some books only after watching its movie adaptations (ex: Godfather, Message in a Bottle, Bridges of Maddison County etc).

Are other story-hunting directors who blame it all on the new age writers listening??

The movie Ore Kadal is about a relationship between a renowned economist and a housewife. The story of love and lust which has been given life by two of the finest actors in Indian cinema in the lead role, Mammootty and Meera Jasmine, with brilliant supportive performances by Narain and Ramya Krishnan, is so beautiful. Meera Jasmine has become one gem of an actor and you can see how naturally she fits into a role and delivers it to perfection. What the heck if she dances around or being glamorous in Tamil and Telugu movies, I am happy to see that she is being picky in Malayalam and gives us some memorable performances.

Mammootty has given a subtle, yet a very good performance in this movie. I do not understand why some of the die-hard Mohan Lal fans and some actors like Jagathy Sreekumar keeps questioning on Mammotty's versatility. If there is one actor to be called versatile in Malayalam, I would say, it is Mammootty. He keeps challenging himself with varied roles and he succeeds in it. Nobody could thought of him doing a comic role, but he succeeded in it through a masala entertainer Raja Manikkyam. He did a villaneous role in Vidheyan while he was portrayed in an extremely opposite role in Ponthan Maada. He used to be hesitant of doing intimate scenes in the movies, but here in this movie you can see that he has gotten rid of that too.

To those who complain that Malayalam cinema is not doing good enough like in the old times, I would ask them to take a look little deeper and begin to appreciate the good movies which is usually called as "Award Cinema" or Parallel Cinema. Compared to the old days, the narrative and the filming of these movies have changed a lot to accommodate the change of times. If you are not watching it, and if you keep feeding the Antony Perumpavoors with your money and time, you have no rights to complain about the mainstream packs of junk.

Also read:

Interview with Shyamaprasad
Velu's movie review