Alliyaambal Kadavil - Then and Now

It tugs at the heart strings.

But I guess one has to be a Malayalee and around five decades old to receive the full impact of Vijay Yesudas’s rendition of the classic of the sixties Alliyambal Kadavil in the just released Malayalam movie Loudspeaker.

I am curious to know how the generation which did not experience the enthralling entry of Yesudas into their young world reacts to this new version of this song. I am curious to know how the generation which was not the first to hear the original Alliyaambal by Yesudas responds to this song.

Alliyaambal 2009 cannot be the same for our youngsters as it is for those of my generation. It creates a wistful longing for those emotions evoked by the original song which the senior Yesudas, in the sixties, sang with such a mellifuous flow, as though 'he on honey dew was fed/ and drunk the milk of paradise’. The song swept us off our feet by its sheer melody the very first time we heard it. Then, the whole of Kerala was humming it, the young and the old, the middle aged and the very old.From the film Rosy, the song was an event which we can never forget. Composed by Job Master, it was as different as different can be from the other compositions, though all of them too seem to have been created exclusively for young Yesudas with his silken voice and incredibly melodious style of rendition.

The 2009 version of the song from Loudspeaker takes you back - back to a time some four decades back when we were the fortunate witnesses of a great and unique confluence in Kerala of a great rendition artist, great composers and great lyricists. It is this that adds a certain special dimension to the nostalgia that overcomes those of my generation when we listen to Alliyaambal of 2009.

In the movie Loudspeaker, the song itself is a very evocative picturisation of nostalgia - naalukettu, flooded nadumuttam, young adolescent love, paper boats, the swing, the kulam, the simple innocent joys of a life close to nature – all seen through the mind of an elderly man (Sashi Kumar).

The slow rendering of the classic of the sixties by the son, who for the first time sounds like the father, fills you with a longing for those days when the phenomenon called Yesudas burst into Kerala and held it spell bound; for those days in the sixties when the Malayalee suddenly discovered what ecstatic enjoyment film music can bring.

And its picturisation takes you back to a way of life that is not just of the past, but one that is vanishing forever.

An Apology for Srinivasan's Katha Parayumbol

I got a couple of comments to the post on katha parayumbol, to the effect that it is a substandard film; given below is a cut and paste of my response to them, showing why i like this film:

guess u have a point.

but it's not realism that i looked for in this movie. true, anavalmothiram, vadakku nokki yanthram, Chinthavishtayaya shyamala etc pay more attention to realistic details--but look at his works in a chronological order. you'll find a change-a movement from the realistic to the symbolic. ( all prolific writers show this tendency ). chinthanvishayaya shyamala is less dependent on realistic techniques than his earlier ones. kathaparayumbol has moved more to the symbolic plane- it's like a fable which goes something like this: 'once upon a time there was a small village in the remote highlands of kerala, where lived a good and honest barber balan'. Then balan's fortunes(misfortunes?) are traced. the social context in which this man lives is represented in typical, not realistic manner. all the usual srinivasan ingredients are thrown in, in a deliberately stereotyical exaggerated manner - for the focus of the movie is on

1. the character dileneation of balan -which all of you must admit is done in an excellent manner -with extreme realism - and with no jaada.

2. the fickless of the herd which is shown through stereotyped portrayal. perhaps opting for realistic techniques for this aspect would have made this movie an all time classic but i think balan's character dileneation and the spectacular performance by srinivasan make this film a real worthwhile experience.

besides, i know a person who is so very much like balan the barber - guess that's one reason i could relate--

SRINIVASAN KATHA PARAYUMBOL

braving a migraine, i went to the theater to see katha prayumbol, 'cos my friend Bhawani insisted that it is a must- see movie.

i think it is Srinivasan's master peice. and i am glad i went to the theater to see the film, instead of seeing it on the small screen. it was a great experience. being surrounded, yes, physically surrounded by feelings- cos that is what the movie is all about. about feelings. the feelings of a do gooder, the type you occasionally come across in life but never go ga ga about 'cos she/he keeps a very low profile, is shy about the world coming to know about his instinctive goodness and genorosity. you know, one of those uncomplicated types whose right hand does not know what the left hand does, who believes in minding his own business, in doing an honest job to make an honest living. and one who yearns only for an innocuous existence.

what a well executed film! -dont think i have seen many Indian films like that. cant think of another movie so free of mush which yet got tears streaming down my face out of sheer happiness? or a more complex set of emotions?

when is this genius of a filmaker going to be recognised? i dont think there could be many others who can take you on the journey through the labrynthian complexities of the human mind, laughing all the way but, all the time, making you intensley conscious of dark horrors that lurk in it.

but unlike his usual scripts, katha parayumbol is no dark comedy. oh yes, it has plenty of frames which offer saritical- bordering- on- farcical representations of human vanities - enough to make the film a super entertainer. but then, those are not surface ornamentations but essential weaves in the fabric of the film, showing us how the world appears to a man of the protagonist's nature. Therein lies the beauty of the film.

it's not one of those selfconscious experimental films. it's a plain, simple and honest narrative with a fabular quality. in katha parayumbol, Srinivasan brings down that artificial separation between art/parallel and mainstream movies.

But then we can say that of all his works.

What ails thee, Malayalam Cinema?

Malayalam cinema was always substantial.It either had a strong story line or thematised sensibly and realistically on social issues. Or liike Srinivasan's films, faced the quirks of human peronality squarely and presented them with a strong comic/tragic flavour - something only a genius can do succesfully.

The appeal of malayalam cinema was the boldness with which it faced and tackled reality. For instance,when unemployment was a major problem in Kerala, it found its way repeatedly in the movies of the eighties. Corruption at all levels figured repeatedly on and off till the issue reached a saturation point.

Today, the film makers seem unable to identify the issues that trouble the kerala society - therin lies the failure of our cinema. And so they beat about the bush, coming up with inane stuff.

Art is more than commerce and box office. It is serious business. It should provide aesthetic experience which comes only from a genuine and honest effort at interpreting life.

Kerala's obsession with Mohanlal and Mammootty

Am in Kerala at the moment. The place is full of huge posters of Mohanlal and Mamootty. True, Mohanlal is the finest actor in the country at the moment. and Mamootty, really really talented. But why are we holding on to them? Isn't it time we let go? And the other he- man Suresh Gopi also appears to be making a comeback.

And where are all those talented female power actors? Why isn't the enlightened Kerala with its proud track record of empowering women providing a space for them in cinema?

The answer could be one of these.

Either the film makers have no feel of the mood of the audience

or

they have their fingers on the pulse on the audience, and know that the Keralites are incurable traditionalists who foolishly believe that the new order can be eternally postponed if the old is propped up by clumsy scaffolding.

What do you think?