It is strange a congenital story-teller like M T Vasudevan Nair should be suspicious of his own plot. In the reworked ‘Neelathamara,’ MT attempts to add some footnotes to a love story that he had originally told in 1979; as though the story would not be fully appreciated in the changed circumstances and therefore needed some explanation.
The freshly-bloomed ‘Neelathamara’ has the same old story and happens in 1979 itself, but MT has included a kind of preface in the form of events that take place in the now. Three decades ago, MT had told the story of a beautiful servant girl, Kunji Malu, who was tricked by a guy who behaved as though he was badly smitten by her. It was a sad tale. Now, using the preface, MT says the girl might have been heartbroken but was smart enough to put together the pieces. The outcome leaves one neither sad nor happy.
In the preface, a 40-something Kunji Malu is in complete control of her life. She had married a resourceful guy who cared for her (from what little she says about him it is clear he is very understanding and runs a decent business). She is also a mother of two; the elder one, a girl, now a doctor.
In short, she has had a contented life. The guy who ditched her had fared poorly in life, the writer hints.
It is with this foreknowledge (imparted in the first few minutes of the film) we are led to the old love story. The viewer, granted the faculty of clairvoyance, will know certain things for sure.
The girl will be better of without the hero.
Also, her devastation will be as short-lived as a solar eclipse. Profundity is suddenly evacuated from the story making it seem hollow, obsolete. If in the earlier ‘Neelathamara,’ MT was making a social statement, about how young housemaids are used and thrown by amorous feudal scions, this time the raconteur of Valluvanadan fables treats the story like he was narrating an irrelevant anecdote, an amusing incident to pass time. You could almost hear the greying Kunji Malu smiling at her adolescent folly.
The story per se could seem trivial but the aids used in its telling make the film watchable.
Lal Jose’s unhurried pace of narration is one such. He seems to fanatically believe in the story and conjures up a near-perfect atmosphere; moist, laid-back, nostalgia-inducing surroundings, which turn surreally romantic on moon-washed nights. Vidyasagar’s songs are pure charmers. (This cannot be said of his background score, which at times barges in and stays on like a person with inexcusable manners.) The lead players did not disappoint. As Kunji Malu, Archana Kavi was adequately coy and submissive. Kailash, as C P Haridas, was sufficiently rascally, therefore likeable. His easy body language suggests cool confidence.
But it was Samvritha Sunil, as Haridas’s bride, who steals the show. She is supposed to be both tormented and dignified at the same time and she pulls it off with amazing grace.
But Samvritha, the lead pair, and the director seem to have been betrayed by a great writer’s lack of faith in his own creation.
r_ayyappan@expressbuzz.com