Jayaraj is the only director in Mollywood who is always ready to dare anything. He has tried his hand at almost all genres of cinema – thorough commercial ones, art house movies, and middle stream cinema. He had earned accolades and awards even at the national level for creating meaningful movies and the next we see is him again doing a musical or an action thriller. ‘Gulmohar’ is his latest offering where he is trying to use the acting capabilities of ace scriptwriter -director Renjith, by offering him the lead character.
Jayaraj had originally planned to do this film with Suresh Gopi. But due to some reasons he was unable to work in the film. When asked for suggestions for a replacement, “ I never realized that Jayaraj had already made the decision to cast me. I could not say no to it since the shooting was supposed to start the very next day,” says Renjith about his entry into acting front. His experience in the Drama school also supported him in taking up this assignment. Jayaraj acknowledges that he is one of the best talents even in acting, which is proved by the successful portrayal of the title character ‘Gulmohar’ in his movie.
The movie is set against the vibrant political atmosphere that prevailed in the state in the late seventies. In this political movie ‘Gulmohar’ is the code name of the youthful college lecturer induchoodan, the leader of a group of six extremists, who are into anything to realize their dreams about a world of equal justice. They operated everywhere in the state to fight injustice whenever they heard something nearby. One of their operations titled ‘Operation April’ was aimed to eliminate the people who intrude into the lives of aadivasis and rape their ladies. ‘Gulmohar’ and his crew were planning to kill one chacko muthalaaili, who spearheaded every illegal operation of the areas. But due to bad luck and a little misunderstanding, they kill another anonymous person who was traveling in the Jeep of chacho. Induchoodan and his gang elopes from the scene, finally to get caught the police. He never spells the names of any of his friends associated with the operation even after continuous torture and harassment. Induchoodan is finally sentenced for rigorous imprisonment for around six years. The movie then continues to tell the story of Indhuchoodan who is out of the jail after years with flames of revolt, still reigning inside.
The other highlight of the film is the scripts by Didi Damodaran, daughter of famous Malayalam scriptwriter T. Damodaran, who is attempting her first independent script with the film. Taking a political plot about resistance, Didi, an English professor by profession is looking up to present some rarely told story lines that she had written 20 months back and has been polishing since then for this film. Didi had been a fair copy assistant to her father, who scripted more than 70 films, including some big hits that created super-stars like Jayan, Mammootty and Mohanlal.
The film will also mark the comeback of music director Johnson, who has been away from the limelight following an accident that happened to him a couple of years ago. The movie will also feature Siddhique, Neenu Mathew, Meghanathan, Nishanth Sagar, Manoj K Jayan and I M Vijayan in other important roles.
‘Gulmohar’ will grace the select theatres by the month of August.
Loading ...