Reverence and bhakti can be crippling in so many ways. It unwittingly deprives you of your own vision. All the more so in creative pursuits. The best kinds of tributes any great creative mind would expect from those who swear by his/her work is that creators reimagine the original craft in newer ways, to wrest it from history and accord it contemporaneity. Doing so opens up the scope for the new work to live beyond its shelf life, much like how the original story does. A faithful book-to-screen adaptation does greater disservice than pay tribute. Nobody knows that better than a Bengali who is tired seeing many a Bengali filmmaker staying terribly faithful (and unimaginative) to the works/ phenomena of Satyajit Ray and Rabindranath Tagore instead of creating something new out of it. An independent filmmaker Abhinandan Banerjee, whose outstanding film Manikbabur Megh (The Cloud and the Man) is running in some Indian and American theatres, is a new beacon of cinematic hope. Kerala, one thought, would be different.
The anthology Manorathangal (Mindscapes), originally slated for Netflix is an unusual Zee5 Original in Malayalam with subtitles and Hindi dubbing that released today, and has more misses than hits. Comprising nine episodes/films, the anthology has been adapted from the short stories of MT Vasudevan Nair (or simply MT), a name that is synonymous with Malayalam literature and layered screenplay writing, to images, emotions, characters, and to bringing the Malayalam language closer to the audiences by using simple, quotidian and witty, even poetic, vocabulary.
Manorathangal Review: Cast
The highly anticipated Manorathangal features the best of creative talents in Malayalam film industry, prominent filmmakers (think Priyadarshan), actors (Mohanlal, Mammootty, Parvathy, Fahadh Fasil, Nedumudi Venu, Indrans, among others), some of whom have appeared in films written by him, and technicians (M Jayachandran’s music, Santosh Sivan’s camerawork, KS Chitra’s gorgeously soulful title song, among many others) and despite that, the big actors and sound design mostly disappoint. Veteran actor Kamal Haasan is the sutradhar/narrator who introduces the nine stories, standing in a library. Kamal Haasan’s first leading role (after his child actor roles in Tamil films) was in the Malayalam-language Kanyakumari in 1974, which was written by MT. Haasan should have acted in one of the films, but as a Malayalam-speaking narrator he is a poor choice. Despite all the glitterati, the star of this anthology, besides MT, is a feline.
Manorathangal Trailer
Manorathangal Review: The stories in this anthology
Each episode in the anthology harks back to an older time, when time was slow, life was simple, and air was clean, it rekindles the memories of films made in the 1970s and ’80s, when MT wrote the scripts. The episodes have a relaxed pace, a slowness that belonged to the pre-internet era, and themes which, even though contextually rooted in Kerala, are universal.
But barring a few, most of the films, like their makers, feel trapped in time, impeded by the weight of reverence. Show courage, take risks, be irreverent. Why remake or recreate when you can imagine?
Veteran Priyadarshan director is Manorathangal’s “Showrunner” and has helmed two episodes. He has re-filmed PN Menon’s acclaimed film Olavum Theeravum (Ripples and the River Bank), in black and white, with Mohanlal as a boatman, whose relationship with a sex worker’s daughter (Durga Krishna) doesn’t end in marriage as they had hoped, as she pushes him away even as he wants to be all savior-like, as his many roles of yore have been. But age shows on the actors, neither the same-old Mohanlal is convincing as a young man in love nor is the villain (Hareesh Peradi), who reminds of Hindi film cardboard cut-out villains from the ’70s Amitabh Bachchan-starrers. Priyadarshan’s Shilalikhitam (Inscriptions), about how indifference and self-interest isn’t just an urban phenomenon, featuring Biju Menon Gopalankutty’s who visits his ancestral home, is much better in comparison.
Jayraj’s Swargam Thurakkunna Samayam (When the Doors of Heaven Open) is based on what Kamal Haasan says is one of his favourite stories, about Kuttynarayan (Indrans) who can famously predict the time of someone’s death. In Ranjith’s Kadugannava Oru Yathra Kurippu (Kadugannava: A Travel Note), Mammootty holds fort as a journalist looking for a family connection in Sri Lanka but this story should have been longer. It ends too soon.
In Vilpana (The Sale), MT Vasudevan Nair’s daughter Aswathy Nair directs Madhoo (remember the Roja girl) as an aching, lonely housewife who bonds with a journalist (Asif Ali), an unlikely buyer, while she is selling her household furniture. This segment might work better on paper than on screen.
Manorathangal Review: Direction Hits and Misses
What works in Manorathangal: What touched a chord was Shyamaprasad’s Parvathy Thiruvothu-starrer Kazhcha (Vision), which I loved. Sudha, in a very saint-like way of having accepted her life circumstances and yet wanting to stand up for herself, seeks Virginia Woolf-like “a room of her own” to pursue a creative life in music and walk out of her crumbling marriage, against the will of her relatives. A calm resilience that Parvathy also displayed in her recent film Ullozhukku. Like in that film, in Kazhcha too, the role of Sudha could not have been essayed by anyone else. That smile of Sudha has ache but is full of kindness, forgiveness and hope.
And, perhaps, the only present-day episode in the anthology, Mahesh Narayanan’s Fahadh Fasil and Nadiya Moidu-starrer Sherlock, whose standout star is a cat. The film retains a certain quietude and gravitas in the silences while exploring the themes of alienation, escape and redemption. Watch out for the exchanges between FaFa and the cat, which is bewildered by the presence of this new guest in his house but is equally curious to follow him around and even shares adult beverage like bros. But the ending is a tad convoluted.
What does not work in Manorathangal: Episodes that don’t work at all are Rathish Ambat’s Kadalkkaattu (Sea Breeze), featuring Indrajith Sukumaran as a husband who cheats, and Santosh Sivan’s way-too-abstract Abhyam Theedi Veendum (Once Again, In Search of Refuge), starring Siddique, who’s stuck between fantasy and reality. Sheer poetic injustice!
Star Rating: 2 out of 5 stars.
Manorathangal is currently streaming on ZEE5
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