15 MALAYALAM MOVIES FROM THE 2000s you don’t want to miss

film Kerala Varma Pazhassi Raja

Literally the Dark Ages in the history of Malayalam Cinema, the noughties was an absolute disaster as much with their mindless choices of subjects as with their appalling executions. More often than not they were characterized by a general lack of sensitivity, jarring aesthetics and outlandish productions. It was also a period when the graph of theatregoers drastically plummeted, and quite not unreasonably. An industry that was known to produce gems of the likes of Moonnam Pakkam, Oru Vadakkan Veeragatha and Bharatham brilliantly blurring the difficult lines that separated the egotistical art-house cinema from their popular formulaic counterparts, was reduced to mind numbing idiocy and larger-than-life mockery with absolute disregard for visual imagery, and lasted almost an agonizingly long decade. However amidst the storm of such mass stinkers there were occasional glimmers of hope that kept our faith in the art form from totally dying out a wretched death. Following is a list of such rays of hope that was a saving grace and an exception to the barrage of bad taste that ruled the decade.

15. Kaiyoppu 2007

Kaiyoppu is everything you don’t expect it to be. You probably will have to take a call if it is actually about writer’s block, lost love or terrorism by the end of it. Occasionally falling prey to Ranjith’s trademark exhibitionism, this film revolves around a man whose rather late foray into writing might have lead to brilliance had it not been intersected by all three of the above-mentioned odds. You will perhaps have to also overlook the rather unnecessary twist at the end.

14. Kerala Café 2009

As a precursor to the Neo New Wave that would grace Malayalam Cinema in the following decade, this omnibus film told ten different stories reflecting on contemporary life in Kerala, and randomly overlaps with each other inside the eponymous railway cafeteria. With ten different directors and cinematographers, Kerala Café, predominantly focusing on themes of journey, weaves in a mosaic of styles in narrative and visual language featuring a volley of mainstream actors that were all gearing up for change we all badly needed.

13. Kerala Varma Pazhassi Raja 2009

In this biopic of the legendary Pazhassi Raja, M.T. Vasudevan Nair and Hariharan teamed up for the tenth time to recreate the time and life of a rebellious king who revolted against the British Raj as early as the 18^th century. A sprawling historical drama filled with action, the film intermittently deters in thrills as well as in guiding the British actors who could have used a little more life and realism, but makes up for it in the scope and setting that brings to life a period to be remembered with pride.

12. Meghamalhar 2001

Kamal’s Meghamalhar may have taken inspirations from David Lean’s Brief Encounter but is an endearing tale of love adapted to suit our homegrown mood and setting effectively narrating the platonic love between two people married to different individuals. Partly owing to the conventionality and boredom of their perfect lives, and partly because of their shared interests, the initial infatuation grows to a point where it begins to threaten their marriages, and each has to take a call before it destroys their existing domestic happiness.

11. Classmates 2006

A college reunion rekindles old bonds and tiffs among a bunch of alumni dangling on the brink of issues unresolved from years ago, until a murder attempt in their midst sent them searching for clues into a not so distant past set in their college days when politics reigned campuses and romance was a melodramatic business. Part suspense thriller and part nostalgic drama, Lal Jose’ Classmates is a well-structured film that could very well have done without that schmaltzy scene of love-confession in the chemistry lab.

10. Ore Kadal 2007

In Ore Kadal Shyamaprasad plaits a complex mesh of relationship dynamics and its emotional fulfillment, through the evolution of an extra marital affair between an intellectual economist and his naïve neighbor. Based on Sunil Gangopadhyay’s novel Hirak Deepthi, the film like most of Shyamaprasad films has the burden of forceful displacement in its adaptation when it comes to the characters that don’t categorically fit into the Malayali picture, but is deep and meaningful at a lot of psychological levels, with hauntingly brilliant music.

9. Kaazhcha 2004

Forsaken by the Gujarat earthquake and thereafter ferried by a gang of beggars, an innocent little boy ends up in a family headed by Madhavan, a small time film operator who puts up shows at festival grounds. The remaining plot explored the growing rapport that the family develops with the kid and their challenging efforts to adopt him. Blessy’s directorial debut is a heartwarming piece of cinema that explores the compassion of humanity that has not totally died out.

8. Nandanam 2002

Orphaned servant girl Balamani is a diehard devotee of Lord Krishna, but is forever kept from going to the temple next door by the household chores she is swamped with. Meanwhile she falls in love with a young man in the family she works for, and befriends another from the neighborhood. She has not the slightest clue as to what surprises fate has in store for her as Ranjith’s Nandanam while telling a gentle love story is also a gratifying spell that will bowl you over at the end.

7. Kathavasheshan 2004

The first in T.V. Chandran’s trilogy on the Gujarat Riots, Kathavasheshan investigates the death of a man who commits suicide for no apparent reason. As the film progress through a plethora of characters that played large and small roles in the dead man’s life, it paints a diabolic image of the world we live in at the same time deepening the curiosity for the suicidal motivation, when the possible likelihood for claiming his own life gets murkier as his character steadily takes full shape.

6. Naalu Pennungal 2007

An anthology film based on four short stories by Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai, Adoor’s matter-of-factly exploration of four different illustrations of women comprises the prostitute, the virgin, the housewife and the spinster. The segments are disjoint in plot but has a chronology associated with the passing time from the 1940s to the 1960s in the order they play out, thus increasingly reflecting on the change in attitude of and about women from different strata of society and their improving stature.

5. Perumazhakkalam 2004

To save her husband from death sentence, a woman is out to seek the authorized pardon of another woman who lost hers. Even though it is the “will she manage to get the pardon?” concern that takes Perumazhakalam forward, it brilliantly shows us how never to give up on hope, with the overwhelming use of the titular torrential rain as a fitting metaphor to the near impossible feat. At the same time as being extremely humble, the innovative subject matter is as psychological as it could get.

4. Paleri Manikyam: Oru Pathira Kolapathakathinte Katha 2009

Paleri Manikyam chronicles the off-the-record investigation of the first reported murder case in Kerala. A young Manikyam is brutally raped and murdered on the night the entire village was engrossed in a play staged by a travelling theatre. A botched up investigation leaves the case unsolved for years before a new attempt at piecing the grisly homicide together more than half a century later, resurrects forgotten grime and corruption when most of the witnesses and the accused involved are already long dead.

3. Thanmatra 2005

Blessy’s Thanmatra is both traumatic and heart breaking. The slow disintegration of one man’s memory and self to the incurable Alzheimer’s syndrome, and how the resulting hopelessness commands the aspirations of his close-knit middle-class nuclear family in present day Kerala sets the premise of this poignant film that boasts of one of Mohanlal’s most powerful performances to date. The film that stirringly depicts the family’s losing battle to the unassailable foe is based on a short story written by ace director Padmarajan.

2. Dany 2001

Dany is a saxophone player who, in the flight of life, disowned by everybody who played a part in it, is hurled on the wayside only to eventually run into an equally abandoned soul in his twilight years. A heartfelt comedy drama directed by T.V. Chandran, Dany traces the lifetime of this titular character, played by Mammootty in this often overlooked but brilliant performance, chronicling major historic events that parallels instances from the thick and thin of his life as cheerfully as possible.

1. Nizhalkuthu 2002

Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s scathing take on capital punishment is the exploration of human mind and its sense of justice through a few meaningful days in the life of a hangman, wallowing in the remorse of having had to knowingly execute an innocent convict. The cleverly layered narrative beautifully illustrates how the dynamics of point-of-views bluntly differentiates the same given scenario, while at the same time reflecting on the flaws of the erstwhile colonial penal system practiced by the British in India. This one is a must-watch!