VIDHEYAN

 

'Vidheyan' also known as 'The Servile' in english, is a Malayalam drama film directed by Adoor Gopalakrishnan. It is the cinematic adaptation of Paul Zacharia's novella, 'Bhaskara Patelarum Ente Jeevithavum'. I watched the movie with my mother and grandparents because they claimed to be huge fans of it.

The movie revolves around the 'Janmi - Kudiyan' system in early Kerala and shows the amount of power landlords of the time held. It is the story of a Christian tenant named Thommi who works like the slave of his highly oppressive landlord Bhaskara Patelar. Thommi is a righteous man with values whereas Patelar is the exact opposite. There is an instance in the movie where a man says that Patelar used to be a good man and that it was the people who ruined him by offering booze and women. Apart from that, we do not get to know much about his past. Thommi, even though with a little fear, does stand by his master's atrocities because he has gratitude for whatever his master provides. But he also shows comparatively very little hesitation when it comes to questioning him about it. He does keep his head low and words short but nevertheless defends the innocent. 

There are times in the movie where I've felt that it is the goodness inside Thommi that leads to the failure of certain vicious plans of Patelar's. for example, when they go to the temple to catch the sacred fish, not one of the 'thota' blasts. Thommi doesn't want to bring bad fate upon him and ultimately wishes for the fish to not get harmed. Similarly, Thommi also doesn’t want Saroja, Patelar's wife, to get killed and might have cursed himself which is why Patelar misses aim. This was just a notion of mine, it may or may not be deliberate.

The dialogues are partly in Malayalam and partly in what I figured to be Kannada. Mammootty has a Kannada mixed Malayalam accent and the way he delivers it is so on point. Another wonderful aspect is the direction and screenplay. For a movie released in the 90s, 'Vidheyan' has an extraordinary direction. Well, just another work of art on Adoor's long list. 

I am usually the kind of person that gives real attention to the kind of background music played in movies because they have a huge role in portraying the emotion of the scene. But in this movie, it wasn't until the end that I realized that there was absolutely no music throughout the movie except for the opening, closing and the end scene. The background sounds are so perfectly choreographed that you don't even feel the need of a tune to enlighten you about how grave or subtle a scene is. Also thanks to the wonderous acting of all the artists, we didn't have to bother trying to understand. 

This movie has bagged several awards including the National Film Award for the best Malayalam feature film and got Mommootty the award for the best national actor. In the Kerala State Film Awards, this movie claimed to have the best film, actor, director, story, screenplay and also got the Special Jury Award. It is indeed worthy of it all. Vidheyan could easily fall under one of Mammootty's best films ever.

- Fathima Naushad