Kerala Café (2009)

Language: Malayalam

Actors: Dileep, Jayasurya, Prithviraj, Suresh Gopi, Siddique, Sreenath, Rahman, Thilakan, Jagathy Sreekumar, Salim Kumar, Anoop Menon, Mammootty, Sreenivasan, Navya Nair, Shwetha Menon, Jothirmayi, Rima Kallingal, Nithya Menon & Dhanya Mary Varghese

Directors:

Nostalgia: M Padmakumar

Island Express: Shankar Ramakrishnan

Lalitham Hiranmayam: Shaji Kailas

Mrithyunjayam: Uday Ananthan

Happy Journey: Anjali Menon

Aviraamam: B Unnikrishnan

Off-season: Shyamprasad

Bridge: Anwar Rashid

Makal: Revathy

Puram Kazchakal: Lal Jose

An anthology movie comprising of 10 stories directed by 10 different people and crew. The common thread is Kerala Café, the railway canteen which is the epicenter of all the stories. Credit should go to the producer, Ranjit for bravely bringing together a bunch of talented & acclaimed directors, crew and artists.

There are some standout performances across the 10 episodes in the movie. Some heart wrenching, a few light and some out of the world. The camera work across all the 10 episodes are pleasant and pleasing. Madhu Ambat (Makal) and Suresh Rajan (Bridge) are two standout cinematographers.

It is 10/10 with all the episodes being equally good. Good story, super narrative and amazing acting.

There are 4 episodes that are worth a special mention.

Happy Journey by Anjali Menon: A black comedy with Jagathy Sreekumar & Nithya Menon

Bridge by Anwar Rashid: A heart wrenching drama that has Salim Kumar, Kalpana & Kozhikode Santa Devi. You get to see some amazing acting in this episode, especially the mother-son bond between Salim Kumar & Santa Devi

Makal by Revathi: Probably the darkest of all episodes, the one that will sure move even a stone, very well made too. It is about girl children being trafficked from poor households in the TN-Kerala border. The entire crew deserves a mention here

Puram Kazchakal by Lal Jose: Has one of the most high profile cast among the episodes, Mamootty & Sreenivasan. Again another human drama where you see a completely different Mamootty

There is nothing negative you can talk about this movie, except of course my pet topic of the usage of songs in a movie. There are only 2 songs in the movie. One nice song when the end credits roll by Jayachandran. And there is another bit that comes by the end of the episode titled Off-season, do we really need that bit ? At the end of one good light hearted episode I don’t think we needed the cast to jump up and down strumming a guitar.

Overall, as mentioned earlier this movie gets 10 out of 10. One really nice Indian movie I’ve seen in the recent past.

Very highly recommended