First off, let us be very clear on this.
The actor who debuted along with Monisha Unni in Nakhakshathangal (1986) is Saleema. As in S-A-L-E-E-M-A or S-A-L-I-M-A, depends on how you want to look at it. Not Saleena nor Salina. The emphasis is M, and not N. Vineeth Nambiar had debuted in IV Sasi’s Idanilangal in 1985, so, this ain’t technically his debut film. The one that made him a household name, maybe. Continue reading
Four out of five friends stared blankly when I asked for the actor who played the title role in Bharathan‘s eponymous Vaishali (1988), which is also a telling tale on a starburst which was “ooed and aahed”, and then, got neatly packed away in our cinema’s dusty, moldy archives. MT described the film as one of his “good films, though he felt, Bharathan had over-decorated it a bit, maybe because he was a painter“. Other epithets for Vaishali, the film, includes the “prettiest film” ever made in Malayalam and Bharathan’s painting in Celluloid, but, one has to acknowldege, there has never been a film, visually dense, exquisitely textured and sensually glowing as Vaishali (1988). Continue reading
