‘Enikente maranam unarchayillatha urakkam mathram..ini njanenna yathaarthyam avasanichu.. enna arivinte vedanayumaayi baakiyavunna ninaku vendi aanu ente ee kanneer.. Athe varilla ennarinjittum kathirikkunnavarude vedana kadinamaanu.. kanneeranu’
Everything about Kaiyoppu had a poetic touch to it. From the mature romance of the lead pair and the telephone conversations they had to the manner in which all the characters behaved and delivered dialogues to the background score and Jalthe Hai Jiske Liye song , the movie flowed in a beautiful way that had an amazingly soothing effect on its viewers until the director provided you a shocking twist that caught you completely unaware in the climax.
Kaiyoppu told the story of Balachandran and three other persons in his life – one his former girl friend from college who got married to a different guy and separated and with whom he start talking over phone after a gap of several years. Second a publisher who dreams of reviving his company by persuading Balachandran to complete his novel and getting it published. Third a small girl for whose surgery Balachandran promises to pay a huge amount. You might have been thinking all throughout the movie what was the significance of having three different tracks in this story but at the end you realized how Ranjith beautifully connected all the dots and what he was trying to say all the way along.
Any terrorist attack and the resultant calamities not only affect the lives who became part of it. There are a whole lot people outside who were dependent on them and whose lives also gets destroyed. The reach of such brutal acts are so wider and crueler than it appears and that’s the message Ranjith conveys brilliantly in Kaiyoppu. When he finally brings the movie to an end showing the blank faces of Kushboo, Mukesh and the girl in pin drop silence, you had witnessed one of the finest products Ranjith has ever conceived.
There was a time Ranjith got so immersed in movies with larger than life heroes , we forgot that underneath also lied a writer who gave us movies like Mayamayooram and Summer in Bethlehem. It was Kaiyoppu where Ranjith finally decided to bid good bye to such meaningless movies and go to far more thought-provoking territories of Pranchiyettan and the Saint and Indian Rupee.
Ranjith got his entire cast perfect with Mukesh and Kushboo enacting their roles seamlessly. But Kaiyoppu belonged to Mammootty whose portrayal of Balachandran , a man with a golden heart, is nothing short of phenomenal. Like Kandu Kondain Kandu Kondain , Mammootty once again showed that a romance is safe with him if the character is developed in the right manner. The actor’s impeccable ability to be the character he plays is evident in the scene where he exhibits the uneasiness as he holds a mobile in his hand and talks over it for the first time. Finally as always he reserves his best when it comes to emoting on screen.
Towards the end of the movie in the police station after being harassed by the police officer , Mammootty says – ‘Enthu kuttam cheythittaanavane ivide thadavil vechirikunnathennu ariyaan vendi mathram vannavanaanu njan..athinulla avakaasham nishedhikkan mathram ee nattil enthaanu sir sambavichathu… Njan onnum moshtichitilla..Njan aareyum vedanipichitilla.. Njan oru kuttavaaliyalla..Nanmayilum Sathyathilum vishwaasam nashtapetitillaatha oru sadharana manushyan mathramaanu sir njan’ . Well you could try as hard as you could but once again you cant help to avoid a lump in your throat or tears in your eyes as Mammootty does to you whenever his voice stumbles on-screen.
The only disappointment I have about Kaiyoppu is the manner in which it released in theaters. As you see in the above picture, only 15 theaters screened Kaiyoppu on its first day and by the 3rd week , it got reduced to six !. These numbers are shocking for a movie that carries big names like Mammootty and Ranjith. Whose fault was it here – Mammootty and Ranjith who decided not to promote the movie considering its genre or the exhibitors and distributers who were not willing to take a risk with an offbeat movie.
We, the audience, can blame ourselves if good movies get released in a good number of theaters and still fails .But what if the viewers don’t have any theaters near by to go in and watch the movie ! Nevertheless keep aside its box-office fate, Kaiyoppu is a classic. Its one of the purest forms in which Malayalam Cinema has ever been depicted on screen.
