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Saturday, August 04, 2007

arabikatha a review




strange that i should write a review of a movie i saw just before i left to arabia !


a good movie taken by lal jose on communism ,its philosphy and its slide to the present state.


i too believe communism is an excellent philosophy but has never been practical for humans going by thier nature .


Inequalities exist however we wish them away or deny them ,


thus communist countries always had an elite party group which became the big brother and dictated to others ,ultimately leading to the mighty fall of the doctrine ,


a few places like china ,cuba and of course our very own kerala,bengal ,tripura breathe by thier beaten slogans and are boosted by coalition defences .


The kerala brand of marx and engels has specially been different and it is this that is exposed in this movie .


Cuba mukundan the protaganist briliantly portrayed by srinivasan is a born communist with a veteran partyman for his father ,conned by his colleague who wished him away from the country so that he can get the mla candidature of debts to be cleared mukundan flies to the bouergaise dubai to work and redeem his father ,the only solace for him is his parties command to him to take a note of workers problems in the gulf which sadly crashes into cowardice at the sight of a burly pakistani supervisor .


the life of a kerala worker is depicted nicely and thier hardship and comradery goes beyond parties ,conned again by a thiruvananthapuram slicker who takes his job and by jayasurya who cheats him his chitty gains ,he falls for a chinese pirate cd seller in the streets of dubai ( china is the sole attraction here remember our comrades demanding chinese quotations inspite of security denials for vizhinjam harbour)


one has to appreciate the acting prowess of abdullah a real life businessman in this movie


i also think our atlas jewelery ceo janakodikallude fame acted but was a dud


finally mukundan retires to a distant farm and works hard dressing in the local dress and makes a lot of money ,his friends come to dubai ,expose the villain who is now a minister and takes him back to kerala to work sincerely for the people which lal says is the definiton of a true communist ,very true comrades


i found here in gulf the government quite concerned of workers rights and insist that all construction workers should be given rest facilites between 12.30 and 3pm in summer and any company not doing so are taken to tasks ,


but our chaps would plan strikes ,hartals and see theat companies are closed or threaten the public with attimari


lal salaam

8 comments:

Nanditha Prabhu said...

i always enjoy watching srinivasan movies!....thanks for this review!

deepak said...

>>( china is the sole attraction here remember our comrades demanding chinese quotations inspite of security denials for vizhinjam harbour)<<

i see ur bias here.. the parties in kerala were not demanding chinese qoutations, but were fighting against the security denials.. the security denials were unreasonable to say the least.. and it was not juz the comrades, but all parties had tried to resist the security denials.. understand things before you comment on themm..

Unknown said...

.....the supreme lord ‘state’could see nothing but oneness in all classes of its children and during the pre-perestroika-glasnost era in lenin’s own land, a peasant,a mason and a surgeon earned the same wage for a day’s struggle; something our deities failed to deliver to their devotees!

(since the party mouthpieces having a biased view on its own seasoned leaders and their policies, it’ll be unfair to ask dr. hari to be unbiased in his writings)

GVK said...

A pity, I know no Malayalam. Your depiction of the theme prompted us to take note. Took the liberty of highlighting your post in Mysore Blog Park.
Is the film sub-titled in English?

Maddy said...

am eagerly waiting to see this - like any other srinivasan movie, this has to be good.

GVK - most malayalam dvd's these days have english subtitles!!

harimohan said...

thanks ,nandita,raju,maddy and gvk specially for mysore blog.
regarding the accusation of delivering views not based on facts i still feel that the left parties wanted security concerns to be watered down and give china a chance because of its political philosophy only ,but personally
( i may be biased i confess ) we have had enough experiences of indichini bai bai and indo pak love and got bitten to commit a mistake again specially on a high security project .
any party with the intrest of the nation would hesitate to do that

Tiju John said...

This is okay movie. It has a very good visualization of party villages, struggles by the people in Gulf, their dreams etc. Laljose is able to tell it in satire way so that we won't feel sad, angry or avoid watching it, but it touches you some where deep in heart.

But the movie lacks a strong story line. But it got a good theme and exposes the mallu attitude to the life, heroism, dreams etc. And one day when life stucks you leave everything go to gulf, big cities in India, or many other countries and struggle and find a new life. For visualizing this he had done a great job. But lal Jose struggled to bring a story line to connect everything in a single thread. That story line lacks the movie and you what is going to happen at the end and it is only to watch how it is going to happen.

But what makes the movie different is the various shots which visualizes the mallu life and touches you. But he is looking at it in a satire angle. Lal jose don't take any sides. We can see that he is just observer. He don't want us to feel pity about it. He want us be shame about it. These visuals are a lot. Some of them come to my mind are the Karl Marx picture in the place God's photo in srini's home, Srini's strike against computerization, he finds himself unskilled for a Job in Gulf, Or the house construction dreams of Varghese, James Thrivanthorom who cheats srini for job, srini help ness in front of the Pakistani supervisor and a lot. At the end when you leave the movie hall you don't remember the story line or ending. But these visuals will come to you again and again. That makes this movie to stand different in the crowd.

I always felt that directors and screen play writers lost touch with man in the street once they become popular. We had seen this Sibi malyail, Lohithadas, Sthyan Anthikkadu etc... The movies from these people where good in late 80 and early 90'. But I think they are struggling now make a decent movies .... Lal jose have such a talent and should be careful that he is also not falling in the same trap.

Maddy said...

i have to correct myself, all srinivasan movies are not good - last week i saw a perfectly horrible movie with srinivasan & mamooty & script by srinivasan - it was titled bhargava charithram - 3)o kandam a kind of remake of "analyse this'. so horrible that we had to FFWD to the end....

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