Ratheesh KrishnaVadhyar (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} ratheesh) wrote,@ 2003-06-14 18:30:00 |
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Gramaphone
Sachi (Dileep) lives in Mattancherry Jew Street and is struggling to sustain his family. His father (Murali) was a famous composer, but after his death his family has been struggling to survive. Jennifer (Meera Jasmine) lives nearby, she is from a Jew family and her grandfather Gregory (Janardhanan) hopes that someone will marry her and will take them all to Israel. Obviously Sachi and Jennifer have to be in love. Then enter the scene Pooja (Navya Nair) and her mother who was a singer and had got fame singing songs composed by Sachi's father. Up to this is the first half and we can watch it without feeling bored. Especially it was good to hear the song "enthe onnum mindilla" sung by Jayachandran.
In the second half we can see a marriage proposal coming for Jennifer, and she "sacrifices" her love so that the dreams of her family (to migrate to Israel) would be fulfilled. And she is trying to establish a love affair between Sachi and Pooja. It drags on and on and the climax is very comic.
Other than few good songs, there is nothing worth writing about in the movie. Dileep was as usual, Meera Jasmine looked cute even though there was nothing much to act, ditto for Navya Nair. Murali would be great in the role of a politician or trade union leader; but he has no looks of a singer or musician. Thankfully he appeared only in a flashback song sequence and never opened his mouth. Oduvil Unnikrishnan was good as usual in his small role. Salim Kumar, for a change, got a role in which his face doesn’t get blackened by some bomb explosion etc.
I think it was Dileep who introduced a new genre of hero to Malayalam Cinema: A hero who is always jobless and does some little tricks to survive, borrows money from people and never returns - A person who has no good qualities in the general sense, and only knows to look like a joker. And he will go to some beautiful girl and tell: "snehikkan mathram ariyavunna oru hridayam mathram aanu ente sampadyam". Such heroes occasionally sing, paint and what not, but these all just come spontaneously for them and after the song they would just revert back to their comic self. Dileep has been playing only such characters (except for Meesa Madhavan) ever since Sallapam. And so we have got a series of movies that are all "narmatthil chalichchetutha kutumba kathakal". Phfffaaa!!
Director Kamal started his career with impressive movies like Kakkothikkavile Appooppan Thatikal, Orkkappurathu and Ullatakkam. They had interesting themes and innovative narration style. After 10 years, when he comes up with movies like Gramaphone, I don’t think his graph is in anyway going up. I could see only a dispirited director who just wants to cook up a movie with standard ingredients for making some money. Characters, situations, dialogues - everything is artificial here and there is no life in the film.
Sachi (Dileep) lives in Mattancherry Jew Street and is struggling to sustain his family. His father (Murali) was a famous composer, but after his death his family has been struggling to survive. Jennifer (Meera Jasmine) lives nearby, she is from a Jew family and her grandfather Gregory (Janardhanan) hopes that someone will marry her and will take them all to Israel. Obviously Sachi and Jennifer have to be in love. Then enter the scene Pooja (Navya Nair) and her mother who was a singer and had got fame singing songs composed by Sachi's father. Up to this is the first half and we can watch it without feeling bored. Especially it was good to hear the song "enthe onnum mindilla" sung by Jayachandran.
In the second half we can see a marriage proposal coming for Jennifer, and she "sacrifices" her love so that the dreams of her family (to migrate to Israel) would be fulfilled. And she is trying to establish a love affair between Sachi and Pooja. It drags on and on and the climax is very comic.
Other than few good songs, there is nothing worth writing about in the movie. Dileep was as usual, Meera Jasmine looked cute even though there was nothing much to act, ditto for Navya Nair. Murali would be great in the role of a politician or trade union leader; but he has no looks of a singer or musician. Thankfully he appeared only in a flashback song sequence and never opened his mouth. Oduvil Unnikrishnan was good as usual in his small role. Salim Kumar, for a change, got a role in which his face doesn’t get blackened by some bomb explosion etc.
I think it was Dileep who introduced a new genre of hero to Malayalam Cinema: A hero who is always jobless and does some little tricks to survive, borrows money from people and never returns - A person who has no good qualities in the general sense, and only knows to look like a joker. And he will go to some beautiful girl and tell: "snehikkan mathram ariyavunna oru hridayam mathram aanu ente sampadyam". Such heroes occasionally sing, paint and what not, but these all just come spontaneously for them and after the song they would just revert back to their comic self. Dileep has been playing only such characters (except for Meesa Madhavan) ever since Sallapam. And so we have got a series of movies that are all "narmatthil chalichchetutha kutumba kathakal". Phfffaaa!!
Director Kamal started his career with impressive movies like Kakkothikkavile Appooppan Thatikal, Orkkappurathu and Ullatakkam. They had interesting themes and innovative narration style. After 10 years, when he comes up with movies like Gramaphone, I don’t think his graph is in anyway going up. I could see only a dispirited director who just wants to cook up a movie with standard ingredients for making some money. Characters, situations, dialogues - everything is artificial here and there is no life in the film.
