Neelathamara Malayalam Movie Review

Neelathamara movie is remade by the director Lal Jose and music  is recomposed  by Vidyasagar as a tribute to its original craftsmen after a pretty time gap of thirty years since it was originally written by the master script writer MT Vasudevan Nair. The lead characters, Kunjimalu and Haridas, are played new faces like Archana and Kailash. Very promising new faces to the Malayalam movie industry. The story line is based on the absolute faith of villagers on a blue water lily (blue lotus). The story happens in Kizhakkumbattu home around Kunjimalu, Haridas, Malukuttyamma (mother of Haridas), where Kunjimalu is working as a housemaid and succumbs to the charm of Haridas and finally ending up in his bed.

Exploiting housemaids was very common in every big Nair homes during 70’s and relevant to the movie when it was made for the first time. Still the Malayalis accepted the movie whole heartedly. “Anuragavilochananayi” songs caught the attention of people without a second thought but when I was watching movie i felt the music scored is too high tech for 70’s concept. Photography is excellent.

Reema Kallingal is playing a village girl, Shaaroth Ammini, who is still not engaged to anyone due to the problems in her horoscope is finally committing suicide. But in her expressions, i felt she is also having a crush on the hero, Haridas.

Samvrutha is playing the wife of Haridas, Ratnam. Very bold characterization of the actress. In all the means Lal Jose and his team has done the best with a theme that felt right three decades back.

• Banner – Revathy Kalamandir
• Producer – Suresh Kumar
• Script – MT Vasudevan Nair
• Music – Vidyasagar
• Director – Lal Jose
• Movie time – 2 hrs

Neelathamara heroines, Ambika (left) when the movie was originally made in 1970’s and Archana (right) when the movie is remade in 2009