No one could trace the footprints of a poet who wandered lonely to seek the enchantress in nature’s beauty, for his feet never touched the earth. So when dramatist and scriptwriter P Balachandran wielded megaphone for his maiden directorial venture on the celluloid ‘Ivan Megharoopan,’ he is much inspired by the life and times of the late Malayalam poet P Kunhiraman Nair.
The film depicts some chapters from the life of an acclaimed poet K P Madhavan Nair (Prakash Bare) rather his journey into the hearts and minds of women of many class and character. Not a mere Casanova, he is linked to over half a dozen women with a strange but invisible thread of love in its complete form.
Having lived in an era, much before the arrival of Victorian clouds of morality, on a narrow strip of land on the coast of the Arabian Sea, the poet could lead a life devoted to poetry with no strings attached. Each of his ‘femme union’ is an inch towards the beginning of his journey to eternity. This is evident from the poet’s dialogue with Maya Maheswari (Swetha Menon) whom he meets at a hospital during his last minutes in this world.
The poet tries to find beauty in everything and gets blessings from all around him whether it an infant, lunatic or a beggar. The maverick who keeps sweets along with currency notes in the pockets of his shabby kurta, misplaces the page of poetry with an article on poultry farming and forgets about his own marriage. The film does not portray a hero who is the abode of all virtues but tries to bring him with follies. His ego, love, lust, valour, sympathy and everything of a person in flesh and blood as its own in 110 minutes. We could watch some of the finest performances on Malayalam screen here like Chempil Asokan, who comes in a cameo as an oracle. Many an eyebrow will be raised when a film’s producer is also its hero. But Bare clears this doubt with his screen mettle.
Balachandran who had scripted many popular films like ‘Ulladakkam,’ ‘Pavithram,’ ‘Agnidevan’ along with award winning ‘Punaradivasam’, takes a middle path in his debut.
The songs find a suitable place in a befitting manner to the life of a poet with the lyrics of O N V Kurup and Kavalam tuned by Sharreth. Rajeev Ravi (camera), Vinod Sukumaran (editing ) Roshan N G (makeup) and Suresh Fitwell (costumes) give a commendable support to the director in his endeavour.