According to Comolli and Narboni, 'Cinema is one of the languages through which the world communicates itself to itself'. Probably when they said this Malayalam movie directors were not around! The majority of them were watching Hollywood movies for 'inspiration', remaking old hits, doing cut copy paste of their own movies and images or making sequels. The finger-few who seemed like a new wave in Malayalam cinema in 2011, gave us hopes. Alas! This New Year, the four movies released so far, Kunjaliyan, Asuravith, Orkut oru ormakoot and Padmashree Bharat Dr Saroj kumar snubbed that hope in the bud itself.
'Saroj kumar' was a much-awaited movie for the very reason of Saroj Kumar; a character Srinivasan immortalized in Roshan Andrew's 2005 movie 'Udayananu tharam'. The news of Srinivasan penning the screenplay added to this expectation. We have previous experiences of sequels of chartbusters becoming utter disasters, 'Sagar alias Jacky', 'Balram vs Tharadas', for instance. We seldom learn from our mistakes, it seems!
The plot of the movie, if there is one, revolves around Saroj Kumar (Srinivasan), an ageing hero who considers himself a megastar, and everyone in the movie, except his aide Babu (Suraj Venjarmood repeating himself yet again) thinks him to be an arrogant fool. The film begins with a talk show in which a producer, Baby Kuttan (Mukesh) blatantly denigrates the reigning super star Saroj Kumar. He makes a high winded speech about the present day crisis in Malayalam cinema, accusing superstars, the audience and the directors as responsible. He ridicules remakes of old movies and finally narrows down to Saroj Kumar as the sole cause of the degradation of Malayalam cinema. Srinivasan might have wanted to raise a few questions, and make a statement too, through his script. But while criticizing remakes how did it escape his mind that he himself is resorting to that old wine-new bottle combination by choosing Saroj Kumar, and thus making the movie in itself a contradiction? Everybody, including his wife, wags their fingers at Saroj Kumar as the cause of all the mishaps in the industry. How many times would Srinivasan re-enact the good-for-nothing, complex-laden, ugly duckling and expect to win audience's sympathies? And, how could he criticize stars for repeating themselves if he does the same? If 'Udayananu tharm' revealed the intricacies and power play involved in film making exposing the larger than life stars in that process, this movie stoops so low in trying to tarnish a particular hero, taking incidents from his personal life.
The first half of the film is entirely dedicated to making a buffoon of Saroj Kumar. His bickering wife who joins the bandwagon often ridicules him publicly, never missing an opportunity to foul mouth him as if she is paid to demoralize! He, in turn, never ill-treats her. So her antipathy towards him might be a reaction to his ignorance and inferiority complex. Ironically, she is shown to be enjoying all the material benefits he avails her. If she can't stand this man, as she says, why has she not left him in the first place? Getting sadistic pleasure may be!
There was a study of casteism and its effect in the film world taking the characterization of Srinivasan and Kalabhavan Mani in their various films. In 'Udayanau tharam' this aversion to a dark skinned, lower class, lower caste man's aspiration to becoming a star is ridiculed (' kozhik mula varunnathu pole '). In Indian cinema the criterion for becoming a star is not his acting ability alone, for many of the actors will not even be suspected of knowing the art of acting! (All that a present day heroine requires is an innocent pretty face and a 'not so innocent body'). Then why is Rajappan aka Saroj Kumar picturised as a clown who is unaware of current issues, who stumbles at the journalists' questions and cuts a sorry figure every time he strikes the screen? His inability to act alone would seem a very 'innocent' answer.
Vineeth Srinivasan should perhaps stick to on his singing and directorial ventures rather than acting, for acting involves emoting various 'rasas' which for him seems a tall order now. Fahad Fasil keeps up the promise of talent though he has very little to do in the film. The last few dialogues in the (abysmal) climax of the movie were inaudible: the viewers were hooting and screeching in protest, telling the veteran actor, director and screenplay writer Srinivasan that 'we are not fools; you cannot take us for granted,' and 'we do have a head over our shoulders; we CAN think; don't give us crap'.
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