Lucifer's Paradise Lost

Malayalam cinema’s biggest money grossers in the last one decade; Drishyam, Pulimurugan and Lucifer came, from Mohanlal. A street-smart cable TV operator, a skillful hunter and a politician flashing shades of grey, stood up and commanded the attention of viewers across the country and outside, in an age, when content gushes via web like a flash flood.
It also goes down as a period when he did the least number of films compared to previous three decades, characterized by a strange disassociation with the art house and excusing himself from the state film awards list, where he used to be a regular.
Megastar Mammootty seemed not too averse to options; bagging acclaim and success with Kutty Srank and Pranchiyettan and the Saint in 2010. A massive, memorable hit but still eluded him.
“In the past nine years or so, both these actors may have given us commercial successes but in terms of artistic value, their contribution has been minimal. They have reached a point in their career, where they are trying to make the most of the brand they have made of themselves. There was a time when stars like Soman and Sukumaran, sensing that they are being upstaged, took a break and came back as character actors and they retained their slots for a very long time,” says K B Venu, film critic and director.
In the early years of the decade, there had been attempts born out of sheer desperation to dispel the gloom that had pervaded Malayalam cinema since 2000. If one star was not enough, multi-stars were cocooned in narratives cooked up solely with the thought that people came to watch stars and not cinema. The illusion faded soon. Ashiq Abu’s Salt and Pepper blew in a whiff of freshness. With unlikely romance, oodles of cuisine and touches of gentle wit, Salt and Pepper rode on word of mouth from its day of release. Even before the viewers took to a new taste, a slow burner, Cocktail, by Arun Kumar Aravind had signalled the road that can be taken. Traffic with its multi-narratives set the tone.
Just as one thought the doom of 2000s was inevitable, the theatres were teeming again. Thattathin Marayathu had sunny lit frames and presented an inter-religious romance in a breezy style. Anjali Menon chose to tell a tale of roots and relationships over biriyani and black tea and Ustad Hotel became a raging hit. The bold, dark Chappa Kurishu shook the Malayalam cinema of a stupor it had immersed in for a while. Alphonse Puthran’s quirky story telling tropes triggered a rage with Premam and Neram.
“This decade marked the digital shift in narratives. Malayalam cinema got closer to contemporary cinema. It just broke away from formulaic patterns and became genre-specific. It was not just narratives, be it the camera angles, the treatment of a story, the sound design, everything was influenced by the new-found access to digital world,” says Maneesh Narayanan, film critic and editor, Cue web portal.
Small-time filmmakers and debutants walked in with golden content and walked away with glory. Thannermathan Dinangal being a classic instance. Kumbalangi Nights was never meant to lock horns with Lucifer, it placed itself on a different pedestal with layered character sketches and story of a fractured family with a share of irony, humour and pain.
When filmmakers and script writers like Dileesh Pothan and Syam Pushkaran wove a charming web of events and unveiled absorbing facets of human existence, be it out of a man’s quest for a bloodless revenge or the theft of a golden chain in a moving bus, the viewers discovered an aesthetics they once thought they were never capable of experiencing. Lijo Jose Pellissery, on the other hand, staged a drastic shift, announced himself with Amen, and then shot Angamaly Diaries with a feverish energy, before slowing himself down for Ee.Ma.Yau.
“Age catches up only with actors, cinema is always 17. That’s where the new breed of filmmakers finds their space. They come up with stories and characters the present generation can relate to. Initial collection is hardly the criterion here, you have to retain the interest,” says Venu.
Vivek and Vrinda, who run the popular YouTube channel, Malluanalyst, have a different take on Mohanlal. “In the last few years, we saw a Mohanlal who seemed tired or may be bored. There were also times he was also willing to dedicate himself completely. Films like Pulimurugan, in spite of its success, never tested the actor he is. Even in Odiyan, which failed because of so many factors, Mohanlal’s transformation across ages was so striking,” they say.
The decade saw the lines between art house and mainstream dissolve gradually. “Before 2010, there was a clear distinction between an art cinema and a commercial one. The new set of directors have got braver and are opting themes, which once suited art house productions. For eg, films like Ishq and Vikruthi and even Kumbalangi Nights, to an extent, tried out tales in a way obliterating the lines,” adds Vivek and Vrinda.
Pellissery found similar reception for his films like Angamaly Diaries, Ee.Ma.Yau and Jallikattu in festival circuits and theatres in Kerala.
According to Vivek, with viewers accessing content via web and social media, superstardom may cease to exist. It remains a puzzle as to how long can stars beckon their audience but not everyone agrees.
“Mammootty and Mohanlal had once brought in similar narrative shifts at one point in their career. They had also broken formats and films like Lucifer are show business explorers. Malayalam cinema has a multi-tier star system featuring Mammootty, Mohanlal and Prithviraj at various levels. The sustainability of star-driven content will be a challenge in these times of web streaming, where cinema across the world is accessible,” says Maneesh Narayanan.