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When Lal Jose Brought us These Nice Little Bonds On Screen

Lal Jose and nice little bond in his movies

 I find it difficult to agree with people who say Cinema doesn’t influence us in any manner and rather is only a means of entertainment. Among many other wonderul things that movies can do to us , it amazes me when Cinema portrays people who care for each other without being tied up by blood or marriage. Often these little relations which form only a small part of the story stay with you longer than the main story it had to say .

In Malayalam, one director who has impressed me the most in this aspect is Lal Jose. He even made a movie named ‘Ayalum Njanum Thammil’ on this subject of how a teacher/senior changed a doctor’s life in a big way. The bond between below characters in his other three movies though struck a deeper chord with me.

1. ARABHIKKATHA – Cuba Mukundan (Sreenivasan) and KTC Abdulla:

Arabhikkatha was a beautiful movie and I would even say it is Lal Jose’s best movie even above the iconic Classmates. In the first half of the movie through Cuba Mukundan , Lal Jose so realistically portrayed the difficulties of anyone who reaches a foreign country and struggles without a job. Finally when he reaches a dead end from where he can go nowhere, Abdulla , a hotel owner enters his life like a messiah. He provides Mukundan job, food and shelter.

The scene where Abdulla finally goes back to Kerala , after bidding goodbye to everyone he asks where Mukundan is . Sreenivasan walks in from a distance, comes near him , hugs him tight with tears in his eyes and says  – ‘Ningale njan orikkalum marakkilla’ . This one scene never fails to melt your hearts and remains one of my favorite moments ever in Malayalam Cinema.

2. IMMANUEL – Immanuel (Mammootty) and his previous boss – Joseph (Sunil Sukhada)

A hero with a golden heart , how he helps everyone around him , how he cannot stand the wrong-doings of his boss and organization – Immanuel could have turned out to be just another feel good movie which followed other common cliches in the same genre but it is still one of my personal favorites in the recent years thanks to Lal Jose who packaged it all really well. Particularly pleasant was the relation Immanuel and his first employer – Joseph (portrayed by a terrific Sunil Sukhada) shared. After the press shut down and Sunil absconded, Mammootty was more concerned if anything happened to his boss than the salary he did not receive for 3 months.

Sunil ,on the other hand ,could have easily forgotten everyone .But instead he makes sure that he arranges another job for his most beloved employee and leaves an amount to make up in part for the salary he had not paid  Sunil appears once again later in the movie and then pays the rest of the money too not before comforting and advising Mammootty to stay strong through the difficult phase latter was going through .

Finally at the end of the movie when Mammootty resigns from the insurance firm, he lands himself again in the new press Sunil opened. Sometimes you don’t need heavily packed emotional sequences to warm your hearts – all you need is the belief that its quite possible that there could be such wonderful bonds outside in real the world too.

3. DIAMOND NECKLACE – Arun (Fahadh) and Savithri (Rohini) / Arun and Venu (Sreenivasan)

Diamond Necklace starts off with Fahadh arriving in the hospital in an extremely extravagant and costly four-wheeler and meeting Rohini and another doctor in the parking space. When her collegue remarks the car as an unnecessary show off by youngsters of this generation , Rohini supports her favorite junior for the first time. From there on , you see that it happens at many important junctures in the movie including the time when she makes Fahadh bring her wife to Dubai after seeing his relation with Samvritha going in the wrong direction.

She understands Fahadh’s character well but yet she never stops her sisterly affection towards him which is quite remarkable. For Fahadh on the other hand , this is one person whom he obeys and listens to without a word in back !  Equally memorable is the bond Fahadh develops with his relative from Kerala – Venu ( Sreenivasan now at the exact opposite end compared to where he was in Arabhikatha). The final scene where Sreenivasan comes out of the bank and tells Fahadh on how he convinced the manager to reduce the amount to be paid back , bought more time and paid the first installment is yet another reminder of how skillful Lal Jose is when he comes to handling human relations.

These are just very few instances of how certain bonds in movies leave a lasting impression on us. Do share if any such relations on-screen stunned you and stayed with you for long after watching the movies they were part of.