Madanolsavam Movie Review: Political humour that is clever but has a limited impact
Ratheesh Balakrishnan Poduval’s trademark humour strongly makes its presence known in several places, even though the film’s overall impact doesn’t match up to that of his directorial work
Director: Sudheesh Gopinath
Cast: Suraj Venjaramoodu, Babu Antony, Bhama Arun, Rajesh Madhavan
In a pivotal scene of the movie Madanolsavam, Madanan Mallakkara (Suraj Venjaramoodu), the lead character, is questioned by a party member about his knowledge of the subject when he bargains for a sizeable quantity of money in exchange for running as a fake candidate. Madanolsavam is primarily a political satire, but it also tells the story of the transformation of an insignificant guy who discovers his actual value and seeks to exploit the same system that formerly took advantage of him.
The circumstance in Madanolsavam that is the funniest has nothing to do with politics. When an elderly lady rejects a man-woman relationship, which was also brought on by the preceding scenario, it is exploited against her and causes a catastrophic mortality. A situation like that could only be imagined by Ratheesh and made to sound humorous. The movie does not support any specific political party when it discusses the use of proxy candidates to rig elections. Given that both sides engage in ludicrous hijinks to advance their objectives and use Suraj’s Madanan as a pawn, it views both with a critical eye. The movie becomes more intriguing when Rajesh Madhavan and Renji Kankol’s namboothiri quote duet
In the past, renowned filmmakers like Oliver Stone, Francis Ford Coppola, and Quentin Tarantino have written scripts for other directors. In these situations, the cinematography style will never match the writing style. Though the overall effect of the movie falls short of what Ratheesh had hoped for as a filmmaker, fear not since Ratheesh’s distinctive humour forcefully manifests itself in various locations.
