NEELA THAMARA - MY REVIEW

NEELA THAMARA

I heard abt this movie from one of my friend and he commented that the movie is good and is like a poetry (I shudve realised that poetry and me dont sit well!!).I asked one of my csin in kerala about the movie and he said that he is yet to watch the movie but that the reviews are good.So I thought I should give this a try..after all its a LAL JOSE movie and its a remake of a late 70's movie by the same name (Was the 70's movie a HIT ???) and its penned by none other than M.T.Vasudevan nair (Anandalabdhikkiniyenthu venam ??).So we booked the ticket (couple of friends and myself) and went to watch the movie..there wasnt much crowd inside the cinema and I thought the reason may be lack of awareness or absence of MAJOR STARS in the movie and not coz the movie is dull (I think there is a major flaw in my thought process!!!)

The movie started with a documentary crew shooting a docu(what else will a documentary crew shoot ???)abt a flower called NEELA THAMARA(Blue Lotus) which grows in a temple ponds…the legend is that it will blossom if someone makes a wish to the lord of that temple and if that wish is going to be fulfilled…after that scene we are taken to an old and traditional housing to see an ailing Granny….and as usual many old ladies visit our granny and convey their regards and then 2 other middle aged ladies comes to visit our grandma…one is her daughter-in-law (She married another guy after the death of her 1st husband who was our Granny's son) and another one is a woman who used to be a maid in the house 3 decades before(She was attracted to our Granny's son…..)

Now camera rolls to the past and we are shown the story that happened 3 decades back (We are not even interested in their present !!!).Our heroine (Archana Kavi) works as a servant maid in our granny's house and our hero (Kailash) is granny's one and only son who is doing his LLB….Our hero is portrayed as a person who is fond of poetries and novels (and Galss of course!!) and he will try to seduce our maid who initially defended his advances but later succumbed to his charming and romantic gestures(Btw she prays in the above said temple and asks god if what she is going to do is right or wrong and the answer was a blossomed LOTUS!!! kalikaalam ennallathe entha parayya!!)…she believes that he is her knight in shining armour (or her prince charming) and surrenders her viriginity to him…there is a nice song in between and its picturised well (Only saving grace in the movie is the songs).The hero is waiting for his exam results and he is not sure about whether he will pass or not…Our maid comes to know about his worries and she prays for him and a lotus gets blossomed and he gets a distinction….she starts dreaming abt marrying him (this is not in the movie - but I assumed that’s the case!!) but his uncle(who is a busy lawyer and who manages to secure a nice paying job for our hero) had different plans for our hero..he wantes his daughter to get married to our hero and says the same to his sis (our granny or hero's mother) and she was more than happy to agree…I thought atleast our hero will show some spine and disagree with the arrangement and will stand for our maid…but I was mistaken…he accepted the proposal without showing any dissent (Bloody imbecile!!)…our maid hears this and she is heartbroken (who wont be ?? )….She wont even get a chance to talk to him after this incident (Till that time he was following her like a shadow!!) …our hero gets married to uncle's daughter (Samvrita Sunil) and our maid had to continue staying in the household eventhough she felt uncomfortable to be in his presence…in the following days Samvrita comes to know about the past affair and she shouts at our hero and asks our maid to leave the home….There ends the flashback and now both of them are grown up and hero is dead…they (Its no longer Archana Kavi and Samvrita but 2 other people who portrays their old age) are recollecting the past and how much have changed since then..they no longer carry any grudge towards anybody (Maid is not angry towards Samvrita or Hero and Samvrita is not angry with LATE hero or Archana!!)…..the film ends soon…

So the whole movie is about how an innocent servant maid is molested by a feudal youth and got away with it….there is nothing new in the story and I don’t know if it’s a scene by scene copy of the old NEELA THAMARA (during the late 70's such a story wudve been relevant and many a gals wudve empathise with our maid coz such incidents were the order of the day then but now the situation is not similar..such incidents do happen occassioanlly…modern women is not dumb and helpless anymore..they know their rights and most are willing to enforce their rights) then I wonder why didn’t the creators just re-release that movie by doing a bit of colour correction and stuff ??? I believe it still wudve been watched by those people who watched the new NEELA THAMARA…if its not the same then I wud like to find out whats new in this version (any masterful touches by Lal Jose ?? I didn’t notice any…).

My opinion

1) The movie is not worth a theaterical release….it wudve been better if the creaters released it straight to TV or DVDs….Its not a kind of movie u go with ur frnds over the weekend for the purpose of getting entertained…

2) Archana Kavi as the maid has done a wonderful job..she looks so fresh and innocent and suits the role of a manipulated teen..

3) There isnt any scope for brilliant performances for other actors…

4) Reema Kallingal is wasted in the role of Shaarath Amminy (Most didn’t understand the need of such role in that movie..)

5) Songs was good…(When I told this to a friend he told me that if song is good then play it in stereo….rather than wasting tym watching the whole movie)

6) It will be appealing to the BUJI's and Female audience coz its slow and its Female oriented resply