The red-letter date remarks the 40th Anniversary of the Malayalam movie, ‘My Dear Kuttichathan’ which is the first Indian flick projected in a three-dimensional (3D) picture. The effort was celebrated all over the country with utmost joy and this work is still an inspiration and masterpiece for the present generation. The thought of conceiving such an idea during that time was so daring due to the limited budget, equipment, and support from industry.
Successful collation of all the required paraphernalia resulted in high critical acclaim and a status of gold standard reference among all levels of the audience. Even though the movie primarily focused on children, the economic and technical aspect is a sort of study material for aspiring filmmakers.
Written and Directed by Jijo Punnoose, the movie delves into the concept of mythology, tantric elements, child psychology, and black magic which create amusement and wonder among the audience. The efficient production design and cinematography by Ashok Kumar Aggarwal is the feather on the cap. The soothing and scary music composition by Maestro Illayaraja is just brilliant and able to connect with the storyline. Editing by T R Sekar is satiable.
The movie was produced by Navodaya Appachan for Navodaya Studios with an estimated budget of 45 Lakhs in Rupees thereby receiving a Box-office collection of around Ten crores in Rupees.
The character “Kuttichathan” (Eng. Little Goblin) is formed based on the specialties of a deity goblin popularly known as “Chathan” who is worshiped mainly in the south Indian state of Kerala. The movie also had an ensemble cast of Kottarakara Sreedharan Nair, Master M P Ramnath, Kumari Sonia Bose, Dalip Tahil, Master Aravind, Master Mukesh, Master Suresh, Rajan P Dev, and Surya Kiran respectively.
The movie has received several accolades including the National Award for the best Children’s Film and Child artist shared equally by all four of them.
This was also released in Hindi as ‘Chotta Chetan’ (1998) which included Actors Urmila Matondkar, Satish Kaushik, and Shakti Kapoor which ran for almost 250 days in Theatres of Mumbai. A new re-mastered version with additional footage was released on 25 August 2011.
Even in today’s context, the flick is an inspiration for delivering content-driven works like the recently released ‘Bramayugam’ which is directed by Rahul Sadasivan featuring Actors Mammooty, Arjun Ashokan, Siddharth Bharathan, Amalda Liz and Manikandan respectively.
The movie is streaming on the Disney+Hotstar platform.
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