For a spoof which lampoons almost every cliché of Malayalam films, Chirakodinja Kinaavukal is a cliché. A debutant director and scenarist, with the help of an A-list producer, make a gutsy film that pokes fun at everything that defines Malayalam cinema including certain aspects of what keeps the film industry ticking. The film is received well and garners praise from within the industry.
For 20 years Santhosh Vishwanathan worked in the television industry; he has assisted K.K. Rajeev on his serials. Films were a dream but he had no idea how to ‘get in.’ Over the years he made friends and contacts, writer duo Bobby-Sanjay were two such friends. He had worked with their father Prem Prakash in a serial.
“They told me about this script writer Praveen S. who had an interesting one-line story – a spoof. I heard it and I was in,” Santhosh says. It was what he was looking for, a story unlike anything seen in Malayalam cinema. Listin Stephen hopped on as producer because of the kind of film it was, it needed a producer willing to take chances and back it without cutting corners. The film is kitschy; therefore it ran the risk of slipping into a parody if not handled carefully.
It took four years to script, “between the two of us we had seen enough films to pick and choose the clichés. I usually make it a point to watch every film that is released.”
The one thing they knew was the story would be anchored by none other than N.P. Ambujakshan of Azhakiya Ravanan . A tailor, Ambujakshan essayed by Sreenivasan, nurtured unfulfilled or rather broken dreams ( chirakodinjakinaavugal ) of making a film; the voiceover is by director Lal Jose, who was assistant director of the film. The rest of the cast was decided upon after the script was ready, typed and bound. There are references and cross references to many films, and characters, one can’t help but marvel at the effort that has gone into it. Those who have watched Malayalam films of the last 20 odd-years would get the puns.
The choice of cast, as the story-line, is unconventional – Rima Kallingal as a nubile, naadan , pavada and blouse wearing 19-year-old Sumathi; the usually stylish Kunchacko Boban as the Thayyalkaaran (tailor), the fair hero and as his nemesis, the dark complexioned villain UK.Karan ; Joy Mathew as the villainous father who stands in the way of true love and others. “We haven’t used all the clichés…we have left some for the future just in case,” he says adding that his next will not be along these lines.
The film was a risk and the artistes were anxious, but in the end he is satisfied with how his film debut panned out. The response, he says, has been flattering.
“We wanted to hold up a mirror to the industry showing what is wrong and ‘break the wings’ ( chirakodinja – broken wings) of some clichés in the process. There is the hope that people making films would think differently. We even poke fun at ourselves in the opening credits (we call ourselves ‘remake artists’). The joke is on all of us.”
Fellow script writers and others from the film industry have congratulated the duo on the film, “they told me that the film has made them self conscious, about what they write. Also that they’re waiting to see what we do next.”
Each frame, each scene is packed. The jokes keep coming, be it oblique references to current events such as an airport for the tiny, imaginary Thayyankari and SSLC result controversy; or the eccentricities of the film industry such as the culture of ‘bans’ in the film industry where an actor slapped with a ban (and replaced by another after the edavela (interval) by Edavela Babu); a producer making a film with an eye on income from satellite rights and many more.
“We wanted to keep the film current, we incorporated current happenings, as possible, into the film and redid certain aspects,” says Santhosh.
The 39 year-old who hails from Marthandam near Thiruvananthapuram, is a graduate in Mathematics. As a means of getting into the film industry, he did a course at the Southern Film Institute there. Apart from television serials, he has made a short film, Glare .
He is working on his next film; with a film full of clichés to avoid, he says he is game.
