Orkkuka Vallapozhum – Not Perfect but certainly worth a watch!

ORKKUKA

VALLAPOZHUM

Director: Sohanlal

Cast: Thilakan,Shilpabala ,Jagadeesh, Rejith Menon, Krishnachandran, Meera Vasudev, Baby Malavika, Master Dhananjay, Chali Pala
Producer: Vinu Y.S
Lyrics: P. Bhaskaran, Gireesh Puthencherry
Cinematography: M.J. Radhakrishnan

Thilakan in Orkkuka Vallapozhum

I went to see the first malayalam movie of 2009 “Orkuka Vellapozhum” last Thursday in Sree Theater, Thrissur.

It’s a movie worth a watch. A one liner of the movie will be “ An old man, going back to the place where he lived during his childhood in search of his lost love”. The narration method the director adopted is impressive. Script, done by the director himself, has got a good mix of present and the past blending well. From British rule to Indian Independence, from love to lust, childhood to adolescent to old age, student life to retired life, spring to winter, this movie has a lot of elements. There are three parts in this story. One is when the hero and heroine were children and friends. The next is during their adolescent when they fall in love and are separated. And then there is the present when Thilakan is old and is searching for is old love.

There are many positive elements in this movie. The casts are good. Thilakan has done a great job. The child artists who acted in the flashback have done what they were asked to do, look pretty and sweet. The heroine of the movie had two roles to present, one of Thilakan’s lover in his adolesense and also as her grand daughter. She too have done a pretty descent jobs. She is too good at certain scenes and not so good at others. But come from an amateur the mistakes can be forgiven.

There is also a lot of good work from behind the camera. Camera works were brilliant. The locations used to shoot the movie is also great. Each scene of the movie comes in a picturesque locations. The songs are different and they suit the movie. There are a lot of hummable tunes in the movie. Another beautiful aspect of the movie is that it’s well paced and also a comparitively small movie, less than 2 hours.

This movie is not perfect. The movie got a dull colour, which lessens the impact the beautiful location could have made. At times, you feel the movie deviated to unwanted terrains, especially during the after interval scenes. There is a long flashback where the story moves very little. A lot of importance was given to the romantic scenes which didn’t create so much of an effort. The cast except Thilakan and Jagatheesh struggled a bit, especially with their dialogues.

Coming from a debutant director, these mistakes can be forgotten and the positives should be glorified. So another director joins the growing list of new director’s from whom great movies can be expected in the future.

I would rate it 7/10.