The good earth
VIJAY GEORGE
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‘Ividam Swargamanu’ deals with a man’s fight for his land.
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Heaven on earth: ‘Ividam Swargamanu’ has Thilakan and Mohanlal playing father and son after an interval.
Film director Rosshan Andrrews (the extra s and r have been added for numerological reasons) teams up with Mohanlal once again for his third film, ‘Ividam Swargamanu,’ the shooting of which is going on in Ernakulam. “It is a realist
ic story without any exaggerations,” says the director. The film has thespians Thilakan and Mohanlal playing father and son after a fairly long interval. The story is set in a village called Kodanad on the banks of the Periyar.
Mohanlal in the lead
The location for the day is the Panchayat Office at Chendamangalam, near Paravur. A crowd watching the shooting are visibly excited when they see Mohanlal in action. He is playing Mathews, a farmer who wants to turn into reality his father’s dream of a farm with cattle and vegetables aplenty. However, Aluva Chandy (Lalu Alex) has his eye on the farms in Kodanad. How Mathews opposes Chandy’s move to take over the village is the essence of the film.
“We are all possessive about the land we own but forget that it belongs to us only for a certain period. The land may have belonged to someone else earlier. Also, we do not know who will own it in the future and yet we fight for it. Our film deals with such a theme,” says Rosshan, as cinematographer Divakar prepares the angles for the shots.
The scene being canned has Mathews visiting the panchayat with a couple of his friends when he finds Chandy there. The shot is canned as Mohanlal delivers some hard-hitting dialogues with élan. The director breaks into applause.
After his shots are over, Mohanlal exchanges pleasantries with those around, waves at the crowd and leaves the location in his car as the unit shifts to a nearby junction.
Three female leads
Betsy (Priyanka Nair), an employee of a TV channel, Sunitha (Lakshmi Rai), a lawyer, and Maria (Lakshmi Gopalaswamy), the manager of a financial enterprise, play the three female leads in the film. “All three of them grow close to Mathews; who wins his heart is part of the suspense,” says James Albert, the scenarist who shot to fame with ‘Classmates’ and ‘Cycle.’
The cast includes Sreenivasan, Jagathy Sreekumar, Innocent, Shankar, Kaviyoor Ponnamma and Sukumari.
‘Ividam Swargmanu’ is being produced by Ashirvad Cinemas and will reach theatres in December. Kaithapram’s lines have been set to music by Mohan Sithara. Still photographer is Shajil Obscura.
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