When Malayalam cinema lost its original flavour,

directors like me also lost relevance-observed Venu Nagavally, the veteran actor and the director of the latest release ‘Bharya Swantham Suhurthu’. He was talking to the press as part of the promotion of his latest movie. [Malayalam cinema has lost its flavour – Venu Nagavally ]

A successful film maker goes with the times and tells stories which people want to hear. A great film maker tells the story he wants to tell and gets people to come and watch. Just because your movie flopped does not mean that “original flavor” is lost. Also the new thing is “original choice”.

Venu Nagavally’s new movie, though it has a story relevant to the times, has flopped. According to one reviewer:

But it’s the dull, predictable storyline and its unimaginative execution that makes the film an ordinary film. Quite a few scenes into this documentary on morality, we can guess pretty easily, where the story is heading to. And the script never surprises the viewer with some imagination or twists. The preachy tone of the film and its disdain of anything modern could have been an okay one some two decades back, but it fails to make much sense now. The visuals are quite ordinary and the music is jarring to the core, to say the least.

Having a great story is no longer sufficient. You need to let go of the past, move from documentary style, and stop assuming the audience have not grown since Nagavalli’s best days.

He added ”When I started my career in Malayalam as an actor, directors were much more powerful than those of these days. And now the industry and actors have become too big which is leaving out small storytellers

like me”.

While this is true to a certain extent with success of designer films from Shafi, it is no constructive if someone just whines about it. We would think that a person like Venu Nagavalli would find a way out instead of running out to the mini-screen like Sreekumaran Thampi. Just look Sreenivasan. He has been in the industry for a long time and even now a movie written by him – Katha Parayumbol – runs to packed houses.

It is not that all Sreenivasan movies have run to packed houses; people who saw Bhargava Charithram can vouch for it. But still, like the story of Bruce and the spider, he keeps trying, adapting to the times. There was another movie called Classmates which had a bunch of non-superstars and the movie ran, just on the strength of the story.

Venu Nagavally also said that it is no longer possible to make political films in Malayalam as no consistent political views are conveyed by the Parties. ‘Every ideology has been affected with cancer and people no longer believe that any of Political outfits are ideally suited to rule’ – adds Venu who had directed hit political films earlier like ‘Lalsalaam’ and ‘Rekthasaakshykal Sindaabad’.

This is again part of what-I-did-was-great-mentality. We are not sure if Mr. Nagavalli saw a movie called Arabikatha. It was one of the best political movies to come in recent times – well made, well writen, and appropriate for the times.

People like Nagavalli need to stop crying and start being the change they want to see. The 80s are gone; now it is 2009.