Kerala State Film Awards 2008

The Kerala State Film Awards 2008 have been announced and as always, it has sprang up quite a few surprises! Debutant director K G Sasi's "Adayalangal" bagged the awards for Best Film, Best Director and Best Camera- 3 major awards with 2 more adding to its kitty! No one would have seen the movie but the surprising fact is that it scored over expected winners like Adoor Gopalakrishnan's "Naalu Pennungal". The jury did have its own funny theory for not selecting Naalu Pennungal- that it is not a feature film in the real sense, instead it is a collage of 4 stories. How funny, right? A film that has bagged awards and accolades worldwide has been mercilessly rejected by the learned jury for a reason as trivial is that. What probably the jury did not understand is the mastery exhibited by Adoor in selecting 4 stories with a common theme running through them relevant even in today's modern world! The next surprise came through when Sathyan Anthicaud was selected as the best script writer for Vinodayathra. Now, this is taking it a bit too much. I have immense respect for the director Sathyan Anthicaud but I would definitely not vouch for his literary abilities. In my opinion, Rasathanthram and Vinodayathra can easily be considered the worst scripts filmed by him in his 25 odd year long career. The biggest flaw of Vinodayathra was its hackeneyed, lacklustre script that was meandering between characters looking for an opportunity to preach. With this end in view, one could come across situations that had no relevance to the plot but were pushed into the narrative to broadcast a message to the audience. The director Sathyan towered over the scriptwriter Sathyan and could make a success out of this script, thanks also to a competent starcast! Apparently, Sathyan was competing with Sreenivasan for Katha Parayumbol. In my opinion, the award should definitely have gone to Sreenivasan, if not for anything, for the honesty with which he penned Katha... After winning all popular awards, one was naturally expecting the best actor crown to sit on Mammootty's head for his scintillating performances in Katha Parayumbol and Ore Kadal. However, fate (read jury) had other plans and it went to Mohanlal for Paradesi. There is no doubt that Mohanlal is a wonderful actor, but his performance in Paradesi was definitely not worth an award. He did not get the slang right and he suffered from weak characterization and cold script. P T Kunjumohammed's direction was so bad that he could not lift Paradesi beyond the standards of a High school fancy dress cum drama! I am not complaining though since the actor in question is Mohanlal. The jury did some good things as well- Meera Jasmine, Murali and Lakshmi Gopalaswamy walked away with the honors for Best Actress (Ore kadal), Best Supporting Actor (Veeralipattu, Pranayakalam) and Best Supporting Actress (Thaniye) respectively. M Jayachandran, Vijay Jesudas and Shwetha Mohan were awarded in the music category for that lilting "Kolakkuzhal vili" from Nivedyam. Vinod Sukumaran and Ouseppachan were rightly honored for their razor sharp editing and fabulous background score respectively in Ore Kadal. Katha Parayumbol bagged the award for the most popular film, something that the public would agree. Jagathy Sreekumar was awarded the special jury prize at least 10 years later . It remains to be seen whether the actor would accept the honor! It was good to have Jahnu Barua (Assamese director) as jury chairman since if it was a malayalee holding the position, the awards would have given rise to n number of controversies. As of now, Shyamaprasad has expressed his unhappiness, Jagathy has made his thoughts public and Mammootty- Mohanlal fans are fighting all over the internet! Compared to last year, the cultural ministry has reasons to cheer this time! All concerned have definitely got over the shock of Urvashi being awarded the best actress last year for that apology for a performance in the dreadful "Madhuchandralekha" Lets hope the awards get fairer as we progress!!!