When I was asking myself “Which is my favorite Malayalam film of all time.?” I didn’t have to think twice to know that movie’s name is “Thoovanathumbikal”(Dragonflies in the spraying Rain) the cult-classic romance film directed by the great Padmarajan. Very few romantic movies have been this poignant and poetic especially in India and Padmarajan with the help of a terrific ensemble cast - Mohanlal, Parvathy, Sumalatha and Babu Namboothiri - have made a film that deserves to stand tall and be remembered as one of the best Indian films ever made. It wasn’t an overnight blockbuster like Priyadarshan’s “Chitram” but gained a cult following in time through social networking sites & so forth - Facebook especially - and is now, widely regarded as one of the great Indian films off all time in a recent poll conducted by ibnlive.com.(Manichitrathazhu is 2nd in this pole).
Thoovanathumbikal is just the kind of movie that makes audience’s – it brings a cheer to their eyes, it makes their heart’s beat a little faster, while also leaves them wanting to hug the characters and hold them forever - in a state of limbo. When I saw this movie back in 2003-04(I wasn’t born when it was originally released), I felt the same way when I saw Michael Curtis’s “Casablanca” for the first time. I felt as if I’ve been introduced to a poignant movie, a magical movie, a movie where characters are seemingly struggling with complexities and insecurities and also to a document which is pitch perfect in its black and white framing and also timeless in its soulful depiction of love and lust.
The film, based on the short story Udakappola, is a complex love triangle which positions the three strong willed protagonists – Jayakrishnan, Clara and Radha – at the bedrock of live-in relationships, premarital sex etc – with the city of Thrissur, a district in Kerala, providing the perfect setting(the place where I was born and brought up with). The story is primarily centered on Mohanlal’s character “Jayakrishnan” and it revolves around his complex web of love interests - first with his neighbor “Radha”(played by Parvathi) who ditches him initially and with “Clara”(played by Sumalatha) with whom he initially feels a “kittiesh adornment” later dissolving into a “soulful romance”. Mohanlal plays Jayakrishnan, a youngster who lives a dual life – one as a farmer in his village and the other as a demigod in the town where he has insurmountable friend circle. Jayakrishnan gets awestruck by Radha when he sees her for the first time, gets infatuated by her sheer beauty and “crash-lands” in her college - only to get chided by her while the former proposes to the latter, adjacent to her peers, where she arbitrarily takes him as “just another flirt”.
Later “Thangal” a friend of Jayan’s(technically a pimp but manages to evolve more respect in Padmarajan’s brilliant script), introduces him to “Clara”; a woman describes herself as a pro wanting to escape from the plodding banalities of poverty & the sophomoric, mundanes of everyday-life. After being ditched by Radha, Jayan finds solace in Clara’s armrest and that develops into a fascinating romantic relationship between them – a relationship which I must confess – has never been fully clear neither to me nor to a generation of movie-goers who’ve seen Pappettan’s film – purely because of the complexities its director shrouds it with. Admired by Jayan’s sincerity, Clara finds it tough to reject his proposal and hence vanishes from his life, since she is already a renowned sex worker in the public’s eye. Meanwhile Radha learns more about Jayan and his small town heroics(or antics) and falls in love with him in the process only to make things more tantalizing if not to break it. With Jayakrishnan vis-à-vis - Clara – relationship still lurking behind the scene, the duo nostalgically remembers and the erotic pleasures of love and sex they’ve enjoyed in one town, in one place, in one period. This is a movie that celebrates unrequited love and the complexities of this emotion which can never been fully defined or understood by anybody in this world. Love is beyond human experience and/or understanding and it is, to a degree, TRANSCENDENT.
Apart from the obvious, balls out performances from its casts – Mohanlal and Sumalatha noticeably - the ingenious thing about Padmarajan’s film lies in the fact that it gives a personality to a feeble object – RAIN - something which the great Stanley Kubrick often denotes as the sign of a craft-full filmmaker. “Rain” is a reverent theme in this film and is portrayed almost as a character which provides key impetus to the way the protagonist’s behave and the way it brings a paradigm shift in their demeanor. Wait, I must make one more thing clear - when I say rain – I don’t mean to refer to those wholesome, yesteryear Yashraj classics(No offense to Yashraj BTW) where on a bright, sunny day - lovers are shown running through long fields, sneaking and hiding under a tree - and then all of a sudden it starts to ps down like anything –(there’s no clouds in the sky and yet it’s raining!) - I didn’t mean like that at all. **I mean real, heavy downpour with an up-beating heart and soulful, metaphorical romanticism.!
Another strong asset of this film is the original score composed by another legend Johnson Master. Johnson’s score, so fills me with eagerness and nostalgia, while simultaneously helps the time & space bending quality of the screenplay written brilliantly by Padmarajan the same time encompasses the character’s emotions in such a manner that unwinds with unflinching, erotic anticipation and breathtaking, whimsical romanticism. The moment when the OST is used for the first time – the scene where Jayakrishnan is imagining Clara through the raindrops, soon after he wrote the masquerading letter of mother superintendent – it not only stimulated emotional cues in the viewers but also provided impetus & depth to “Jayakrishnan’s” unrequited “search for love”, a psychology which was eminent in the literary works of the great Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
Of special inquisitiveness, my favorite “private moment” in Thoovanathumbikal is still, the scene where Jayan and Clara sits on the hill side and loud groans echoes on to them from the valley of the hill. Jayan explains to Clara that “ It is the cry of a mad man chained up(in love) where the metal has caused a wound on his leg and whenever the link of the chain goes past, it rubs the wound only to make it rotten”.
At this point Clara eloquently quotes – “Eniku aa murivakananu moham. Aa changalayude oru kanniyodu mathram urayunna unangaatha oru murivu” – “I would love to be that wound. A wound that rubs only one link of the chain. A stupid wound that doesn’t get healed.”
For scenes such as this - Padmarajan was undoubtedly a master at controlling the characters and the script as he was(and still is) the only guru for a generation of young directors and enthusiastic movie buff’s like me – purely in terms of sheer technical craft and that majestic, Shakespearean-like articulation. He is to Malayalam cinema, what Maniratnam is to tamil cinema and what Syam Benegal and Satyajit Ray is to Bengali cinema. A PURE, MASTER-CRAFTSMAN, with a Midas touch - whose passion and commitment to genre cinema just fascinates me every time I encounter with one those. In the immortal words of William Shakespeare – “If the beauty of that metaphor is lost on you; then I must pity on you – BABY YOU, BABY YOU, BABY YOU….
With everlasting love & admiration,
I dedicate this review,
To “Padmarajan the genius”; the master-craftsmen who brought love & compassion so eloquently, beautifully and unconditionally on to the silver screen with this majestic, timeless classic “Thoovanathumbikal.