15 MOST ENDURING LAST SHOTS IN MALAYALAM CINEMA that will stay with you for a while

film Aparan

“Spoiler Alert”. If there is something more long lasting than a first impression, it has to be that last impression. In fact some goodbyes stay with you much longer than you think. Maybe that’s why some people are remembered more for their last words than the lifetime of discourse they spend the better part of their time yapping. Movie endings have a similar effect. While the climaxes are critical in defining the plot and the overall viewing experience, that final shot where the frame freezes right before the end credits roll are capable of making a lasting impression. Some last shots are so striking they stay with you for days and at times weeks and months. They may variously be optimistic, heartbreaking or shocking, but the good ones certainly last. Following is a list of such lasting ‘last shots’ in Malayalam films that will positively stay with you for a while, be it elating or unsettling.

15. Iyer The Great 1990

In the final scene of Badran’s Iyer the Great, the clairvoyant Soorya Narayan Iyer played by Mammootty, is killed in a hail of bullets inside the hospital ward just like he himself predicted earlier that day as “the premature setting of the sun at three in the afternoon”. Then we get a glance of the clock ticking three, and right before the end credits roll the frame freezes on his pair of broken glasses lying on the floor with a drop of blood trickling down it’s fracture. Then a gentle reminder “THE MAN WHO SAW TOMORROW” appears.

14. Varavelpu 1989

The film follows the trials and tribulations of a gulf-returned Malayali who buys and runs a bus only to get embroiled in the uncanny dynamics of trade unionism and labor strikes. One by one his prospects are all dashed on the wall, and finally a broke man he makes up his mind to return to “the gulf” once again. The last shot shows him boarding a bus that drives away, while the woman, the only good thing that happened to him during his brief stint in Kerala, waves good bye agreeing “to wait for another arrival”.

13. Sukrutham 1994

The funereal Sukrutham focuses on Ravishankar’s battle with blood cancer and his fortitude to survive. Death is an imminent threat throughout the film. When he outlives the disease and returns to his family that has long begun to mourn the loss, things are not the same anymore. He realizes they were preparing for his death more than his return. Soon he decides to end his life. In the final scene he walks into a railway tunnel followed by a speeding train, and the last shot zooms into the dark maw of the burrow sending chills up our spines.

12. Amaram 1991

Achooty is a heartbroken man. His dream to make his daughter a doctor is initially foiled. Then she betrays his trust and runs away to get married. And finally he is blamed for the disappearance of her husband. In the final scene of Bharathan’s Amaram, by which time Achooty’s innocence is proved, he bids adieu to his repentant daughter and rows away into the vastness of the sea that, he says, has never disowned him. It is a touching shot, as you wouldn’t have seen a lonelier man in your life and, set against the enormity of the sea vanishing into the horizon, it is all the more frightening.

11. Nakhakshathangal 1986

Sixteen-year-old Ramu has to choose between Gowri, the servant girl he loves, and Lakshmi, the deaf-mute daughter of their master who is in love with him. Lakshmi’s father reproaches him of ingratitude when he eventually goes for Gowri. Unable to stand the rejection from his master, when the poor boy commits suicide, the girls are devastated.  The last shot has the two girls, Gowri and Lakshmi, grieving the death of their dear one, exchanging heartbroken glances as if to console each other since each knew for a fact what the other exactly felt.

10. Aparan 1988

The climactic tussle between Vishwanathan and his doppelganger criminal end in the death of the latter. Soon he finds out that his family cremates the dead man mistaking it for him, which is when he decides to live the life as the doppelganger. The last shot pans from the dying embers of the funeral pyre to his face that is cocked in a sinister leer, and suddenly we are unsure if the man who just died was actually the lookalike villain or Vishwanathan himself. Th last shot from this Padmarajan mystery film has to be one of the most sinister ever.

9. 1983 2014

The last shot of 1983 is full of hope, and ends with endless possibilities. Rameshan, who wasted his life with his obsession for cricket, finally finds a new ray of hope to live his dreams through his son. The final scene has the father and son returning home after getting the boy selected to the district level cricket team. As the two swing their way towards the mountains that clearly symbolizes the sheer size of their goal, Rameshan thinks out loud, his wish to see his son wear the Indian jersey.

8. Kamaladalam 1992

A fine example of how to end a tragedy on a positive note! The concluding scene has Nandagopan coughing blood and collapsing onstage breathing his last. Then as if responding to the beckoning of his dear departed wife Sumangala from up in the heavens, he smiles and leaps to life, only to run up to the skies and embrace her vanishing in the clouds. The death is shown as one of the few good things that ever happened in the doomed hero’s life, enabling the reunion with his dead wife whose death he mourned for a lifetime.

7. Ente Sooryaputhrikku 1991

At her mother’s funeral wake, Maya Vinodini kills each one responsible for her murder and before surrendering to the cops, in a quirky turn of events, marries Dr. Srinivasan. Following the unsettling images of a bloodied climax, the last shot has Maya setting inside her new prison cell with the flower garland from the wedding. Brilliant metaphors for a new beginning tucked away on one side as the wedding motif, in contrast with the menacing prison door on the other side representing the doomed future offers the viewer with an enduring paradox.

6. Chilambu 1986

At the end of Bharthan’s Chilambu, exacting revenge and reclaiming the titular ancestral anklet, Paramu is shown fleeing into night with Ambika against a dramatically cloudy crimson sky. Apart from the striking graphics of the last shot, Paramu and Ambika, bolting in the dark with a raised sickle sword reminiscent of the Worker And Kolkhoz Woman, reinstates the idea of victory, freedom and epoch, at the same time leaving the wide-open gash of an uncertain future. This one has the strong quality of being a recurring image in your mind even long after getting over the details of the story.

5. Chithram 1988

The final image of one of the most successful comedies in the Malayalam language is of a man going to his death with a smile. At the end of all the rollicking fun, Vishnu has to return to prison for execution, and bidding farewell to his newfound ladylove, he gestures the click of a camera in air from the rear of the moving jeep as if to capture her last snap, and freeze frame! Not just a haunting image in the minds of Mohanlal fans, this is perhaps the most iconic of images from this Priyadarshan film that was the biggest hit of 1988.

4. Kaliyattam 1997

This one, you watch with a shudder. The concluding scene of Kaliyattam displays the way Kannan exacts punishment on himself for having suspected his chaste wife and killing her. He is ritualistically dressed in the theyyam outfit and as a final offering to the fire, dashes into the roaring conflagration and burns to bits as his friend Kanthan helplessly hollers in shock. Symbolically it is not just the person that crumbles in the fire, but also the virtuous form of the theyyam deity representing everything pure that he stood for in this spine-chilling finale.

3. Vadakkunokkiyanthram 1989

This excellent case of the Othello syndrome has Dineshan, with his raging inferiority complex, finally loosing it all for being extremely suspicious of his wife. When he returns from the psychiatrist a changed man and successfully persuading his wife to return, we know it’s all going to be okay from then on, but no! Once a loony, always a loony! In the last shot, reminiscent of one of the earlier scenes, Dineshan wakes from his sleep, vigilantly walks up to the window and stares out into the dark with a lit torch. Suddenly we are back being concerned about his wife who is sleeping in the background unknown for the prowl.

2. Chemmeen 1965

Along with the final glimpse of the raging waves, the movie ends with three other very distinctly haunting imagery- one, of the little girl with the baby calling out to her sister not knowing that she’s actually dead, another, of the lifeless shark that had earlier tugged away the angry husband deeper into the sea, and finally of the two dead lovers washed on the shore in their farewell embrace. The last shot, so to say, is the turbulent sea, but the montage of the heartbreaking end wouldn’t be complete without that immortal image of the doomed lovers that will stay with you forever.

1. Kireedam 1989

This is perhaps one the most haunting images of all, and it comes at a time when all hopes are already flushed down the tube by the end of the film. The police notice board with the 'most wanted' list is shown once earlier in the film with the photo concurrent to the name ‘Keerikadan Jose’ torn out. The last shot is of the same list with the photograph of Sethumadhavan in its place, following his surrender having killed the dreaded criminal. As disturbing as a movie could ever get, Kireedam didn’t make it any easier while leaving with the unsettling parting shot shrieking ‘injustice’.