Heard very contradicting reviews about the Malayalam movie, Tanmatra.
::Still from the movie. Thanks, Sulekha.com::
It got many state awards and has created waves in Kerala.
But those friends of mine who saw it almost hated it….curious to know what others think.
This is what the official website of Malayalam movie artisits say about the story line of the movie:
“The story is all about Remeshan Nair, an employee of Secretariat who lives with his family leads a simple and joyful life with his wife Lekha, son Manu, a +2 student and daughter Manju, a primary school student. Remeshan was having lot of expectations on his children as all other parents do. But there comes the dreadful disease Alzheimer’s as a villain over his hopes. And due to this he losses his memory gradually.”
What do you say?
Not sure Y otherpeople hated it.I enjoyed this movie. If nothing, this was a refreshing experience after the lean patch in malayalam film industry. Something reminding the old padmarajan/bharathan era ( uppolam varilla uppilittathu, ennalum). Me also curoius to know the other side of it.
Well, ‘hate’ could be too strong a word..Yes, I also read quite a number of positive reviews as well…Let me see, I’ll ask my friends themselves to write why they didnt like the movie.
Sad, Blessy could not grow up from the typical malayalee filmy cliché of – muslims, darks, poola achayans, tamil villains conspiring against the ‘cultural supremacy’ of high castes of menons and nairs. Each minute of the movie provides ample testimony to that. I don’t find this movie anyway different from one of Priyadarshan’s movies – Thalavattom.
Since I have no detailed clinical information on Alzheimer’s disease, I can not comment on the way Belssy had portrayed the patient – a man getting the disease in the morning, turning to a full scale mental patient by evening and dying a week after !!!
One thing is sure; this Padmarajan disciple is nowhere nearer to his mentor’s class and vision.
“Its all about returning to mother’s wombâ€Â, a comment that I heard while coming out of the plush multiplex in the city suburb. But the film thanmathra, for me, was all about returning to nair tharavad. The movie reclaims all the feudal and patriarchal ‘essence’ of samskarika keralam. The film relentlessly talks the nostalgic memories of the tharavad and its high culture. These nostalgic constructions always require the essential, ‘inferior’ other – in the form of manipulating ministers (muslim characters), gulf-returned, ‘low cultured’ neighbor (christians) and the money minded and tharikida Joseph. Thanmathra is a well-composed movie for projecting all these factors.
Interesting.
But I didnt quite get what jiit means in comparing “talavattom” and “tanmatra”. It would be helpful if you can elaborate.
As an aside, I think there has recently been quite a remarkable move towards what Rat says reclaiming of the feudal and patriarchal essence of samskarika keralam. The nostalgia for a nalukettu architecture, obviously in opposition to the concrete shelter of the Gulf returned, for example. I’m sure it is not just the comfort of the structure that makes naalukettu appealing…….
let me clarify my comparison with thalavattam:
The fact that Priyadarshan-mohanlal combination was responsible for the resurrection of Nair supremacy and tharavad centeredness in Kerala movies is a well known.
Although he always enjoys good box offices for his movies, Priyan’s stature as ‘special’ movie maker is virtually nonexistent, possibly because of his day-light robbery of foreign movie themes. So thalavatttom was never a critically acclaimed movie. The movie, while hovering around the tharavad nostalgia (nedumudi venu’s character and his relationship with mohanlal), do (mis)handle a group
of patients in a mental asylum.
Blessy does the same thing in thanmathra. The difference
here is the support from the critics. The media gives him
the tag of the most promising director.
In a nutshell, although both these directors are one and
the same, the status they enjoy in the malayalam cinema is different. While priyan maintains his position was a ‘popular’ director for the masses, Blessy enjoys a seat
among the ‘parallel’ directors of malayalam movies.