Ayarthi Thollayirathi Irupathonnu

aka 1921 1988 197’ col/scope Malayalam d I.V. Sasi p Mohammed Mannil pc Mannil Films s T. Damodaran c V. Jayaram m Shyam lp Mammootty, Madhu, K.P. Ummar, Suresh Gopi, Bahadur, Parvathy, Jagannath Varma, Janardhanan, T.G. Ravi, Seema, Balan K. Nair, Tom Alter, Rohini, Bhaskaran, Urvashi

Designed as an action melodrama blockbuster to follow the successful Eenadu (1982). The film addresses the 1921 Moplah rebellion when poor peasants, mostly Muslim, rose against the landowning aristocrats, mostly Hindu, while the British operated their characteristic divideand- rule policy after the defeat of Tipu Sultan. The historical and political contexts of the rising are treated in terms of a catalogue of cartoon-like cliches and stirring nationalist speeches. The meat of the movie is in the rapes, battles and other nastiness perpetrated upon the innocent. The film-makers explicitly stated their wish not to support nor to contradict any possible interpretation of the historical events to which they allude.

Film