I watched Thoovanathumbikal! Because it seemed to be the general consensus that it was the next best one on my list. And it was really good, but also really made me think and concentrate to understand it. Partly because I was struggling with a wacky subtitle situation.
I watched Drishyam! Finally breaking free of my rom-com streak! But I got Classmates delivered on DVD (finally!), so I’m going to watch that next and be back to rom-coms. Although, I think I saw somewhere that Classmates has a mystery at the heart of it along with the romance?
So, last night I took the next Malayalam DVD off my library stack, and there were no subtitles! Even though the box promised them! So, yay! That was easy, and I’m down to only 4 left.
And then I took the next-next DVD off the stack, and it was an artsy looking 80s movie called Aalkkoottathil Thaniye. I wasn’t looking forward to it, but the point of requesting every single Malayalam film from the library and then watching them in a random order is to make me watch a wide variety of films, even if I don’t think I will like them. So I watched it, and turns out, it was great! I finally “get” Mohan Lal!
I was going to skip this one, but then people in the comments said it was not to be missed, so I gave it a shot! I’m glad I did. It isn’t my favorite-favorite, or one that exactly hit the sweet spot of what I like, but it was definitely interesting and different. And it got me thinking about the Mahabharata and how Indian film acting builds on a classical tradition, which is always a good time!
So, I did something wee bit foolish. After learning a little more about Malayalam films, and watching Ohm Shanti Oshaana, I went into my library system and requested every DVD they have with the word “Malayalam” somewhere in the description. Which is 12 DVDs, and they all arrived at once, and now I have to watch 36 hours of Malayalam films in 7 days. Which may turn out to not be humanly possible and I will end up returning some unwatched. And they are definitely not all getting full reviews!
Over the weekend, I was able to finish 2, start and reject 1, and reject 2 others just based on the box (yes, I judged a DVD by its cover). So only 7 left!
dontcallitbollywood 