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History of
Malayalam Cinema -
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21st Century Malayalam Cinema
The spread of cable television and
the lack of talented film artists in Kerala acted as catalyst
for the fall of Malayalam commercial cinema which started
showing its decline during the 1990s. People go for commercial
cinema for just "time pass". When they received it through four
full time Malayalam television channels in the form of tele-serials,
which narrates endless melodramatic tales of family
relationships, which are capable of damaging brain cells, they
stopped going to theatres for seeing films. The commercial film
industry couldn't bear the abnormal rates of the "super stars"
of Malayalam, Mammooty, Mohanlal and Suresh Gopi, who also
didn't guarantee success for the producer. Here comes the new
messiah who appeared as the rescuer of Malayalam cinema-
Shakeela. Her soft porn films like Kinnara Thumbikal broke box
office records in Kerala. The "cultural activists" (a wonderful
species seen only in Kerala called "samaskarika nayakar") of
Kerala cried foul saying that these films destroyed all the
morality in Malayalee's culture, as if every thing was safe
before the Shakeela "avathar". Isn't it unfair to blame Shakeela
or the makers of her films for the success of such films? Isn't
the success of such films just the reflection of total
degradation seen in all the fields in Kerala? Every day
newspapers brings new stories of sexual abuses, consumer culture
reaching its heights, corruption in all fields being accepted as
the way of life, renowned writers, whom once the youth of Kerala
worshiped and considered as role models started fighting each
other for silly monitory matters and engaged in pathetic games
for awards, communal violence, once unheard in Kerala, becoming
a daily matter, isn't all these the real cultural degradation?
Isn't Shakeela just a part of this?
Another trend, which is visible presently in Malayalam cinema,
is the return of small budget comedies, which people often
forget just after leaving the cinema hall. The surface level
comedy of these films often degrades to fancy dress and mimicry.
Dileep is elevated to the superstardom after his successive
hits.
The parallel cinema stated a comeback during last two years.
Young film makers like Sharath (Sayahnam) and Murali Nair
(Maranasimhasanam) made some of the best films seen in
resent years. Adoor Gopalakrishnan is seen in the Malayalam film
arena after a gap of seven years through his film Nizhaalkuthu.
T.V.Chandran made his much talked about films Susannah and Danny
during this period. But the sad reality remains that these films
are never seen in cinema halls and are restricted to film
festival circuits.
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