Meenamasathile Sooryan

aka Midsummer Sun 1985 117’ col Malayalam d/s Lenin Rajendran p C.G. Bhaskaran pc Sauhudra Chitra c Shaji N. Karun m M.B. Srinivasan lp Gopi, Venu Nagavalli, Vijay Menon, Murali, Ravi, Shobhana

Told in flashback, this is the story of how four fine young men achieved communist political consciousness in a peasant rising against a villainous landlord in 1943 in Kerala. The men, played by Menon, Murali, Nagavalli and Ravi, receive the revolutionary word from the schoolteacher (Gopi) and spread the message among the ignorant villagers. They end up as revered heroes condemned to be hanged by the British for treason. When asked for their last wish, they all ask to see their beloved teacher once more. The story was adapted, without credit, from Niranjana’s epic novel Chirasmarane (1955). Director Rajendran later contested two general elections backed by the Kerala CPI(M), from whose viewpoint he tells this tale.

Film