Brouhaha Malayalam flick wins over random Hollywood flick. That is the rationale I had when coaxing Hari to Aakashagopuram, away from his original plan of Wanted. Aakashagopuram, said to be an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s play The Master Builder, was aggressively advertised on newspapers and Malayalam TV channels prior to its release.
The opening credits and the first few scenes looked very promising, and there were some excellent frames in them which made me think this was going to be a rich big-screen experience. But when the dry, dramatic recital extended from Albert Samson’s (the protagonist) reflective monologue to everyday conversations of the characters, I could sense something was amiss. The cast was reciting supposedly high-brow philosophy through breakfast, lunch and dinner. No, I am not cribbing at some intellectual mumbo-jumbo that I couldn’t comprehend. It didn’t take much to see through the thin veneer of pretension that this movie props itself upon. We quipped that a verbatim Malayalam translation of (the English translation of) the play would read exactly like the script of the film. That is most likely the truth. And there was this particular line that came out devilishly vulgar. Whoa! The perverts that we are, we laughed quite a bit about that. 
The biggest casualty is of course, Mohanlal (apart from the viewers, that is). He tries to look the quintessential brooding, complex hero but comes a cropper with extremely bland acting. Even someone like Sreenivasan who almost always hits the deck with his deadpan sarcasm, was reduced to another dummy. Nevertheless he got to mouth the single meaningful line in the film – Albert utters his characteristic nonsense to which he replies, “Ningal parayunnathonnum enikk manassilavunnilla” (I don’t understand a word you’re saying). Bingo! There might have been a couple of good visuals or lines that I missed in the mush, like the one about “birds that seek only the tallest spires” that I noticed randomly. The bad vibes you get from suffering through the fake speech and the constipated (okay, I’ll give Hari’s more vivid imagery the miss) acting drowns all else in the film.
Ah, yes, the culmination. It looked to me for an instant that the master’s dream building (the titular Aakashagopuram) was CG, but Hari was quick to spot it was el cheapo 2d graphic! And, I swear I saw the thermocol top of the gopuram wobble as the master builder was decking it with a wreath. These might be forgiven, but not in this movie, which claims to be bathing in technical excellence. Not to mention the Albert-Hilda courtship scenes that looked straight out of those two-bit music videos that a bunch of college guys with a handheld camcorder and some cash botch up in their backyards and the nearest beach. First, learn decent production values, then brag.
Of course, this movie too will have it’s share of devotees who would use the classic label (and a hundred other labels) to justify the pitiful product that it is. It has got enough tie-ups with the media (evident from the opening credits) to pad it up with good reviews. My skin crawled as I skimmed through some. Enough said. Go watch Aakashagopuram at your own risk, if you want to know what this is all about. And don’t forget your Dictionary of a Thousand-and-one Pompous Malayalam Words.
