Return to the campus

If there is a genre that is loved by movie-goers of all time, it is campus stories. Take 10 most popular movies of Mollywood in each era and you would find at least one campus story on every list. From Sarvakalasala to the latest Ananadam, there is something in them that hooks the audience — perhaps the nostalgia factor. Who doesn’t love to walk back to those beautiful days? After a short while, the wave of campus films is hitting Mollywood again. And they are reaping success too.

The trend that was rekindled by Alphonse Puthren’s Premam continued with Ganesh Raj’s Anandam, which is about a group of engineering students going for Industrial Visit (I.V.). Now, there is Ore Mukham, a campus-thriller by Sajith Jagadnandan and two movies — Oru Mexican Aparatha by Tom Emmatty and Poomaram by Abrid Shine — getting ready to hit the theatres.  Looking back, one could see that some of the all-time hits in Mollywood were campus stories. Sarvakalasala, Classmates, Niram, Chocolate and Seniors to mention just a few.

What is the magic mixture behind their success? “Those films are successful because the youth enjoy them,” says Tom Emmatty. “There is no dearth of ideas on campuses. One can keep on telling stories about campus life,” he adds. If the youth take up a movie, it will be successful. That is the mantra. Anoop Kannan, the producer of Oru Mexican Aparatha, concurs. “That is one reason why I took up this project,” says Anoop, who was associate director in the hit film Classmates.

A still from Aanandam

Campuses such as Maharajas College, Sacred Heart College, S B College, CMS College, University College, Thiruvananthapuram and Govt Arts College, Thycaud are some locations that instantly come to a director’s mind, who is planning to take a campus movie. Oru Mexican Aparatha was shot in Maharaja’s College, Ernakulam.  “I have done a campus hunt for the movie but no other campus could match Maharaja’s. It still has the hangover of the 70s. Other campuses have started changing. To know the place better, I virtually stayed on the campus for two years. I have been in constant touch with the students. When the promo video of the movie was released, I got calls from many places. That shows how dear campus movies are to people,” says Tom.

Oru Mexican Aparatha has drawn cues from real-life campus heroes. “It depicts two eras — the 70s and the current generation. The movie is based on some real-life incidents,” he adds. Abrid Shine’s Poomaram starring Kalidas Jayaram is a pure campus movie. The song from the movie has already become a hit among college students. “It is a movie that carries all emotions of campus life,” says the director. “It explores the campus culture through my own memories, things that I understood later and by making inquiries,” he adds. 

A still from Ore Mukham

Abrid has visited various campuses to know the pulse of each campus and its students. “What I realised was that only superficial changes have come, basic emotions remain the same,” says Abrid, who also wrote the script of Poomaram. The shooting of the movie is progressing in various locations. Sajith Jagadnandan, director of Ore Mukham, loves to call his movie first a thriller and then a campus story. “I have chosen this subject because of its thriller part. Besides, I liked the character Zacharaiah Pothen, who bears many shades,” he says. “In the movie, the campus is just a platform where the story unfolds,” he adds.

The movie was shot in Kerala Varma College. The director actually chanced upon it. “We were planning to shoot it in another college but then one day we visited the Kerala Varma College. We immediately liked the campus as it had all elements required for our movie. We got beautiful visuals,” he says, adding that cost is one reason why directors are reluctant to take campus movies often. “Many junior artistes will be required for a campus movie, which will increase the cost. That is one reason why directors rarely attempt campus stories.”