Chanthupottu (2005) : A Controversy

                            Chanthupottu is a Malayalam movie directed by Lal Jose and released in 2005 . It tells the story of Radhakrishn...

Mar 5, 2015

Alif Malayalam Movie Review

Alif stands for boldness in the theme it showcases. A powerful women centric movie questioning a legitimate issue, the movie is a stand out one in terms of storyline as well as how the presentation goes. Already part of various film festivals, Alif is a must watch for pure quality in its content that truly deserves a serious thought and discussion among us.
The movie focus on a conservative Muslim family in Malabar. Fathima (Lena) whose good for nothing husband Abu (Irshad) gave her Thalaaq and she along with her two children are living with her mother Aatha (Zeenath) and ailing grandmother (Nilamboor Aisha). The sole bread earner of the family is Aatha who works as a housemaid and they are literally struggling to make both ends meet.
At a particular juncture in the movie, during a speech by a preacher, Fathima questions his interpretations of Quran. She disputes the Usthad citing that his viewpoint of Quran is biased and is predominantly in favour of male pleasures overlooking women. This create an outrage in the village as people could not accept a young women challenging them leading the village and elders to corner Fathima and her family. Even the little children had to face the brunt of the village. Situation reach a stage where Fathima had to come out of this mess and rest of the movie narrate how she fight against all the odds against her and her family for survival.
There is nothing for a controversy here as the screenplay has been written without hitting the sentiments of any community. Dialogues have been very realistic and the references made from Quran has been presented without any loopholes for questioning. That's the beauty of this script that makes Alif a movie to be watched.
On the acting side, it was actress Zeenath as Aatha who was the most impressive among the lot. One gets a feeling of under utilization of her acting skills by Mollywood after watching her performance in Alif. Lena was very much convincing as Fathima. Joy Mathew, Nedumudi Venu, Nilambur Aiysha, Kalabhavan Mani, Irshad and the two child artistes also complimented each other putting in memorable performances to make Alif a well executed film.
Direction has been done well with good cinematography and not so fine edits. Music was not bad and has been done matching the Malabar Muslim backdrop.
So overall, this is one movie that has very few drawbacks and stands out as a serious cinema, one that can be put under the category of a powerful film with a bold content. The rating for N.K.Muhammed Koya's Alif is three and a half out of five.

Rating - 3.5 / 5

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