Film experts say Mohanlal is the best and the finest actor. have you ever thought about it ?
Manichithrathazhu, one of the best classics in malayalam. In which, Mohanlal plays an inevitable role named Dr. Sunny. There is a scene in the movie, where Dr.Sunny challenges Ganga about Nagavalli’s anklet during the time they visit their family temple. For the first instance that stands as Dr.Sunny’s fun factors as he does all along the the film. But when he reveals the secrets he accured from their to Nakulan, that comes to a deep thought.
In that purticular scene, that is lot more than a fun as Dr.Sunny as a psychiatrist. Dr. Sunny already got some psychic vibrations from Ganga in the morning when they come to ‘Thekkini’. During the temple scene he actually confirms that his assumptions are right.
Here we crack the scene. When Dr.Sunny challenges Ganga, for a moment she comes to her split personality Nagavalli. Before she goes to vigorous he has to break it and calm her down.(because he never wanted anybody to know the facts, not even Ganga) When we look closely what he has done in that scene is absolutely clever and wonderful. Because he is there as not only a psychiatrist, but a close friend to them.
As a psychiatrist he challenges Ganga and gets his answers right. But as a friend he has tension and pain at the same time as he realizes his friend is actually insane. Suddenly he calms down Nagavalli and brings Ganga back before Nakulan enters the scene. He has to stop Nakulan smells anything out from there, so he holds nakulan and says something just like a fun but we can clearly see that tension, sadness, hope and his plans reflect on his body. But these are visible to us only when he reveals the secrets at the end of the movie, till then it is just a fun scene. The scene has two meanings back and forth but that is meaningful only when the actors are on the right place.
That’s really a Director’s brilliance indeed. But as an actor how could he do that is always a wonder. Is Mohanlal really ‘acting’ a character or his split comes to the scene and perform just like Nagavalli?
This is an excerpt from discussion with Mahesh Krishnan, who did a dozen of short film with control of Story, Script, Direction, Sound Recording and acting in couple of them. The instance based only one film and only one scene. As per his evaluation, all scenes of Mohanlal’s whole cinema is not required to adjudge him as an unmatched actor not only in Malayalam but in Indian cinema.
