Of films ...

These days cant see films as there are none. A class of male and female directors unroll cameras for themselves, for critics and foreign awards. They make good films, sometimes fine, critics applaud them, bag foreign awards. Something akin to English-language writers in India, keen on Booker and not an Indian audience. Ruskin Bond could be an exception. Also the Indian language writers keen on a local audience. An incestuous square or circle with most ruled out as no theatres screen non-commercial films; all or most of them are box office flops. Wonder a film is made for whom? So what does me do? Me repeat watch old films; Hindi, Malayalam, Bengali, Tamil and sometimes Marathi. Cant view them beyond five minutes. Switch off TV. Guru Dutt, Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand, Amitabh, Rajesh Khanna, Uttam, Sivaji.... do not hold me today as they did yesterday. Honestly, they bore me. But Rama is different. She has watched Lalettan and Mammukka films many times over and still enjoys them. Kiridam of Lalettan she has seen at least a dozen times; me saw it once and today cant. Ganesh can retail old Hindi dialogues of Amitabh and puts on their music. Dakhi recalls every scene of Shah Rukh Khan films. Dont tell her anything critical of King Khan. She will mow you. Some DNA defect in me. For a change, we sat to re-watch Anbe Sivam of Kamal and Madhavan. Relished the first 41 minutes of the slightly over two hours film..... jigged with the song Machchi, Machchi... Suffered the rest. The film clicked with Rama. A day after, late in the evening me re-re-watched the initial 41 minutes. Script is tight, chuckle humour, perhaps Kamal at his best with a surgically, stitched up face making the fellow handsome; no love scenes, thanks be, in 41 minutes; looking into a mirror, Kamal remarks: handsome. The two are caught in a Orissa cyclone in Bhubaneshwar; wind down to a peepal shady, rain drippy Ichchapuram railway station to catch a non-existent train to Madras; Kamal on a stone bench throwing stones at a puddle as we do when Madhavan squats on the stones; Kamal plucks one out from the seat of his pant. Done in style. And switched on to Ottal, a Malayalam film about a grandpa and grandson. Missed out on the needless last 10 minutes of a 90 minute film. The film entirely shot in Rama's Kuttanad is something me will see again and again, when the mood is on to hear the call Valya appachai OOO... airing the backwaters.