Rachana (1983)
“ Creation ” – (Lit. Translation)Rachana was the third and final movie in the Mohan-Bharat Gopy-John Paul collaboration, and turned out as brilliant and critically acclaimed as its previous productions. Bharat Gopy’s lead role in Rachana, as that of an author who attempts an unusual path to touch the soul of his principal character in creation, also helped him win the Kerala State Best Actor Award for the year. For Bharat Gopy, it also brought him his third Kerala Film Critics’ Award for the Best Actor, third year in a row for his performance in Rachana and Kattathe Kilikkoodu!
Rachana also won (and rightfully too!) Srividya her second Kerala State Award for the Best Actress.
| Srividya |
| Nedumudi Venu |
| Bharat Gopy |
| Mammootty |
| Jagathy Sreekumar |
| Vijay Menon |
| Poornima Jayaram |
| Thrissur Elsy |
| Director | Mohan |
| Producer | Sivan Kunnampilly |
| Banner | Thushara Films |
| Story | Antony Eastman |
| Screenplay | John Paul |
| Dialogue | John Paul |
| Lyrics | Mullanezhi |
| Music | MB Sreenivasan |
| Singers | S Janaki, Unni Menon |
| Cinematography | Vasanth Kumar |
| Editing | G Murali |
| Art Direction | S Rajendran |
| Design | S Rajendran |
Sriprasad is a popular, award-winning, highly sought-after author, with a string of best-sellers to his credit. His wife Sarada, gregarious, empathetic and equally independent, shares Sriprasad’s love for letters and his perspectives on life. A chance mention of a new member on her team, Achyuthan Unni, a simpleton who is a stranger to the ways of the urbanite, presents an “opportunity” to Sriprasad – maybe he could develop a new narrative based on this person, his interactions with his new environment, especially with the ones personally and professionally close, around him.
Sriprasad, with his curiosity aroused, encourages Sarada to reach out to him across their professional hierarchies, with minimal social restrictions, just to see how Unni would “behave” to this gradual outpouring of love from his immediate superior. What starts out as genuine admiration slowly mutates into physical attraction, egged on by his friends, and culminates with disastrous consequences.
A Movie Clipping from Rachana (1983)
Kaalamayoorame
Singer : S Janaki | Lyrics : Mullanezhi | Music : MB Sreenivasan
Onnaanaam kaattile
Singers : S Janaki, Unni Menon | Lyrics : Mullanezhi | Music : MB Sreenivasan
Gopy was very involved with the making of ‘Rachana’; he was the one who convinced the producer to make the film and he also chose the actors for the three main roles. I am indebted to Gopy for the way the film’s script shaped up in the second half. I had written the screenplay only till the interval; for the remaining part, I gave Gopy several situations and asked him to act out scenes based on that. And he enacted all the three roles – of himself, Nedumudi and Srividya,” recalls John. He feels that the decline in Gopy’s health played a role in the decline of Malayalam cinema.
– Interview with John Paul, The Hindu ( August 29, 2008 )
Kerala State Film Awards – 1983
Best Actor – Bharat Gopy
Best Actress – Srividya
Kerala Film Critics’ Award – 1983
Best Actor – Bharat Gopy
Nedumudi Venu, Srividya and Bharat Gopy – Rachana Preview
Images credit : Kollam Mohan & P Krishnankutty
Courtesy : www.nanaonline.in
Bharat Gopy as SriPrasad : An Overview
Director Mohan’s films always have taken the viewer on very interesting journeys through the hitherto unexplored realms of the human mind, through a cast of characters in each, that are quirky yet realistic, unorthodox yet so real. Bharat Gopy as Sriprasad is no exception, as the successful best-selling novelist who thinks up a “human experiment” with his loving wife as a voluntary participant in this exciting “relationship analysis.”
It is a riveting watch, as the movie slowly enables the unravelling of the characters’ true selves, especially Sriprasad, who grows visibly interested in this new real-life character, ever-devising plots or situations to get to to deeper recesses of his subject’s mindscape. What Sriprasad disregards in the whole process is that, as a voluntary observer and fellow traveller, the path ahead is devious and mysterious and he has absolutely no knowledge of a way out. The innate gravity of the perilous exercise is lost in the excitement of his supreme self-confidence as a master-puppeteer in control of his character’s emotions. But it is real lives that he is playing around with, especially with the inclusion of his loving life-partner, and the consequences, as they set in, decimates his blissful existence in the sane world as he knew it, without a rudder, for life.
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