Bharatham - The Complete Movie
Released in 1991, this musical drama is directed by Sibi Malayil. The plot is about two brothers, Raman(Nedumudi Venu) and Gopi(Mohanlal) who are classical singers. As Raman was senior to Gopi by many years, he taught Gopi to sing from when Gopi was a child; and both were excellent singers with Gopi accompanying Raman on his highly successful concerts. They were also part of a happy family with a deep musical heritage.
But then Raman started becoming an alcoholic. He began singing in concerts in an inebriated state until in one such concert, he lost his voice completely. Seeing the crowd's displeasure and the humiliation afflicted on them, Gopi, who had been under his brother's shadow till now, came to the fore and sung breathtakingly in the concert, leading the newspapers to write smashing reviews about his style of singing. Meanwhile, Raman, who misunderstood Gopi's intentions, started hating him and strived hard to get out of alcoholism. Around this time, their vocally disabled sister's marriage was fixed. Her marriage had been cancelled before and everyone was very happy about the new proposal. Just as Raman was preparing himself for a very prestigious annual concert, the sponsors of that concert requested Gopi to sing for them. This shattered Raman's morale and he became very angry and sad. Seeing his brother's state, Gopi decided to end his music career when Raman stopped him and told him to continue singing as Raman understood his good intentions. Gopi once again sang beautifully and Raman who attended the concert in an inebriated state, could appreciate his brother's singing talent.
When Raman and Gopi's sister's marriage was about to take place, Raman went missing. As frantic searches were made, Gopi saw a newspaper article in which it said an unknown man had died in an accident. The article was accompanied by the dead man's picture who Gopi identified as Raman. Grief-stricken, he decided not to tell his family members as his sister's marriage could not be cancelled once again. With the help of the authorities he secretly cremated the body. On reaching home, he sees everyone in a joyous mood. His sister-in-law shows him a letter sent by Raman saying that he has gone on a pilgrimage to build his will to stop consuming alcohol and that he will be back soon after his sister's marriage. Unable to hold his grief, he walks away in hurry.
The marriage goes on smoothly. But soon after it, his family somehow got to know that Raman had passed away. Everyone except his brother's wife blames Gopi for not telling them earlier and concealing the happenings. But slowly, everybody understands his intentions and the movie ends on a positive note with Gopi inducting Raman's son into the world of classical music.
Bharatham was a movie which did extremely well in all aspects and really touched my heart. Though the movie was sad and in some scenes, heartbreaking, it carries a really strong message on how alcoholism can destroy lives.
The top three reasons why I fell heads on heels in love with Bharatham are:
1. Impeccable acting by Mohanlal and Nedumudi Venu -
Bharatham is a movie blended with the strongest of emotions and there was no actor to carry it better than the superstar Mohanlal. He has acted perfectly in each scene and his face expression and voice modulation was unbelievable. A feature I found incredible was his perfect lip-sync during the song sequences especially since the songs have lot of musical notes patterns and to remember them and being in sync with the rhythm and tune is a different skill altogether. Therefore, there was no surprise when I learnt that Mohanlal won the National Award for Best Actor that year. Nedumudi Venu should be mentioned because he acted wonderfully to support Mohanlal. The thing I liked about Nedumudi Venu's acting was that he performed the scenes in which he was drunk amazingly(even with the occasional round of hiccups!!). Magic is definately produced when two actors share the same screen space together.
2. Beautiful Songs -
As Bharatham is a musical drama, it was necessary for the movie to have amazing songs; and music director Raveendran and lyricist Kaithapram delivered just that. All the songs are classical songs comprising of various emotions. My favourite songs are Sree Vinayakam and Raghuvamshapathe both which are delectably sung by the maestro Yesudas.
3. Stunning cinematography-
If there was one aspect which really took my breath away, it was the cinematography and direction. I loved it as the perfect camera angles were used especially during the song sequences and the movie ran in good chronological order.
If there was one thing which you would have understood by now, is that I just can't recommend watching this movie enough. Even though Bharatham has a melancholic mood, I assure you that if you watch it, you can sit back with the feeling that of having viewed one of the all time classics of Indian cinema forever😀
Comments
Post a Comment