The Malayalam biographical gangster epic, ‘Malik‘, premiered on Amazon Prime Video a couple of days ago and it has had a very good response from critics and Amazon Prime subscribers alike. Mahesh Narayan, the film’s director has been going around, giving interviews regarding the movie and further promoting it. During one such interview, he talks about meeting the veteran thespian, Jalaja, who portrays the lead character’s mother on-screen (in ‘Malik’). The actress had shared her excitement in joining the cast of ‘Malik’, simply because of how she interacted with Mahesh during their first meeting. This interaction also made her notice a major change in the making of Malayalam cinema.
The actress Jalaja was a prominent artist around the times when many progressive, woman-centric films like ‘Yavanika’ and ‘Adaminte Vaariyellu’ were releasing (which was in the 1980s). However, behind the camera, things were still pretty much the same. Jalaja, in her 15-year long film career, never got to keep a copy of a film script until ‘Malik’. That small difference alone is progress (for her) in Malayalam cinema. However, there are other changes that she noticed as well.
The director, Mahesh, himself going to Jalaja and talking to her about the movie and providing the script. Being part of a table read. Actually enjoying the process of storytelling. All of these are new things for the actress who had come back to Malayalam cinema after nearly a two-decade hiatus. During the 80s, period scripts were usually narrated to her either by the associate director or screenwriter’s assistant. They didn’t give the script in advance except to describe a particular scene.
Jalaja’s experience talks about the freedom of a female actress in the Malayalam film industry. Today, times have changed and cinema is a collective product, with women having as much freedom as men to express their opinions. Mahesh Narayanan also added that ‘Malik’ is the result of a collective effort and female characters are not different from the male characters. And after seeing Nimisha Sajayan’s brilliant acting performance on-screen alongside Fahadh Faasil, that statement is starting to ring true.
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