A new lease of life

The success of PK has generated renewed interest in Malayalam films with similar themes.

All the madness of religious fanatics that has helped the Aamir Khan-starrer PK become the highest grosser in Indian cinema history has sparked off a renewed interest in films dealing with subjects related to atheism and rationality.

One of the beneficiaries of this is the Malayalam film Prabhuvinte Makkal directed by Sajeevan Anthikkad. The film, released in 2012, follows the lives of two brothers, one an atheist and the other a believer, and asks the same difficult questions about religion that PK asked. It also uses similar methods to lampoon god-men and expose some of their ‘tricks.’ But the three-hour-long film sank without a trace back then, as it did not have the necessary commercial elements, most importantly a marketable face. Incidentally, none of the fanatics targeted it too.

With the film’s name popping up in various discussions online after the

PK controversy, the film-maker decided to release it on YouTube on Thursday, and it has already been viewed by around 3,000 people. The film could end up finding the intended audience in this second stint.

Another film which was cited in most discussions on

PK is M.T. Vasudevan Nair’s Nirmalyam , which could face the ire of the ‘hurt sentiments’ gang if it were to be released now, especially for that iconic sequence of the oracle spitting on the deity.

(Reporting by

S.R. Praveen)