The fall of Fazil- I

Some directors refuse to grow up.They just repeat the same thing again and again without even realizing that their once loyal audience have moved on.Unless you are a ‘SathyanAnthikkad’,this ‘old wine in an older bottle’ type of film making is only going to accelerate the demise of your career as a film maker.Fazil is one such film maker who is still living in the eightees.We happened to see a couple of songs from his latest movie ‘Living Together’ with new comers in the lead role.Though the songs are not that bad ,the visuals are of the kind that would make even East coast Vijayan swoon nasally 'Ishtamalleda,enikkishtamalleda’.

Let’s look at Fazil’s last five  Malayalam movies as a director-

Moss and Cat(2009)-The plot?- We are yet to figure it out.

B.O. Status- disaster

Vismayathumbathu(2004)-A good thought gone terribly wrong.A saucer flying in the air,an over the top harishreeAsokan desperately  trying to make us laugh and an insane Kalpana trying to woo a confused Mukesh.What started off as a mystery involving the missing medical student Reetha (the movie was initially titled as ‘AvalEvideyanu’) turned out to be a disappointing flick.

B.O Status-Flop

Kai EthumDoorathu(2002)-A wannabe ‘Aniyathipravu’.Fahad Fazil (then known as ‘Shanu’) gyrating his hips as though he is some chinese made doll running on a defective battery ,a blue eyed Nikitha struggling to get the lip sync right and  a disinterested Mammootty making a guest appearance to help out his old friend and ‘Mammattykuttyamma’  director,Pachykka. Kai ethumdoorathu was a (boring)love story which should have been made in the eightees.

B.O Status- Flop


Life is beautiful(2000)-Fazil's take on the Robin William's starrer 'Dead Poet's Society'.A bad movie which had some really good songs like 'Valittezhuthiya','Ini enthu nalkanam','Keli nilavoru'.
B.O. Status- Flop

Harikrishnans(1998)- A slapstick comedy disguised as a murder mystery.ThoughFazil could bring together the 2 Ms of Malayalam cinema, after seeing the movie we wished Hari and Krishnan had never said yes to such a lame and mundane script.Produced by Mohanlal’s own production house PranavomInternational,Harikrishnans was a super hit.

Fazil also made a couple of tamil-telugu films in between(which were mostly the remakes of his own yesteryear malayalam hits) .None of them were hits.When you are a film maker, flops are bound to happen but what bothers us is the consistency with which he has been making horrible films,of late.

What has happened to the legendary film maker who has given us gems like 'Manichitrathazhu','Manivathoorile Ayiram Shivarathrikal'? 

(The second part of this post can be read here.A shorter version of the post has been published in varnachitram.com which can be read here)


-nikhimenon