Malayalam movie rewind: Why Mohanal’s ‘Amrutham Gamaya’ was peak acting

Dubai: Now, Mohanlal has done a lot of strut, swag and mass in ‘L2: Empuraan’. I am sure all that bombast will add up – eventually – to a nice take at the box-office. (Even if audiences in Kerala seem to be taking all that L2 action along political divide lines…)

But I am not here to talk about L2, or whether Mohanal’s character should have been more of Khureshi Ab'raam or Stephen Nedumpally. No, I prefer to go back to 1987, a golden phase for ‘Lal the Actor’ when it came to breathing life into the characters he donned on the screen. It was the time when he could play everyday people, adding pathos and humor into every situation.

And he could play deeply flawed characters too. Check out the 154-minute ‘Amrutham Gamaya’, with the screenplay etched by the incomparable M.T. Vasudevan and directed by Hariharan.

Mohanlal plays Haridas, who on the surface should have it all – of being a doctor, of having a fiancée from a family with ample wealth and the clout that comes with it. And yet, Haridas lives a troubled experience, where the pain of being is a constant companion. Mohanlal ‘lives’ the character through each wrenching moment, but with little of that rippling through his visage. Because Haridas wants to bottle it all up…

Mohanlal brings out such finesse to the role, at a time when he was still living through and learning the finer arts of being an empowered actor. Where he did not have to bother about the trappings of being a superstar, encased in a leather ensemble and a tick beard. Where he gives a performance, a monologue, rather than be the character.

The Haridas of ‘Amrutham Gamaya’ is a performance of a lifetime. The best part of Mohanlal’s output is that his career is built on multiple such films and performances.

But can Mohanlal’s L2 avatars - Khureshi Ab'raam or Stephen Nedumpally – be deserving of such attention a few decades from now?