Oridathoru Phayalvaan
| Oridathoru Phayalvaan (There Lived a Wrestler) | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | P. Padmarajan |
| Produced by | R Suresh |
| Written by | P. Padmarajan |
| Starring |
Rashid Nedumudi Venu Jayanthi |
| Music by | Johnson |
| Cinematography | Vipindas |
| Edited by | P. Padmarajan |
Production company |
Thundathil Films |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 128 minutes |
| Country | India |
| Language | Malayalam |
Oridathoru Phayalvaan (English: There Lived a Wrestler aka Once There Was a Wrestler) is a 1981 Malayalam film written, edited and directed by P. Padmarajan. The film is a folk parable about the success and failure in the life of a wrestler. The film was inspired from the unusual La Strada, the transitional point views of the movie was critically acclaimed. It stars Rashid, Nedumudi Venu and Jayanthi in the lead roles.
It won the award for Best Script at the Kuala Lumpur International Film Festival,[1] and a Gold Medal at the Asian Film Festival.[2]
Plot
Patronized by a village tailor, a wrestler becomes a local hero when he defeats all his opponents and claims the prettiest woman as his wife. As a story within a story it also portrays how the tailor makes profit out of the illiterate wrestler. He marries a girl only to be revealed later that he has an another wife and isn't interested in her more than a trophy. He abandons his wife and the village when his wife falls for other men in his absence and she acknowledges that she doesn't love him anymore. He leaves her his signature drawing of conch shell. A frog gigging neighbor youth is entrapped by the girl's mother to marry her conceived daughter.
Cast
- Rashid as Phayalvaan (wrestler)
- Nedumudi Venu as Mesthiri
- Jayanthi as Chakkara, the woman courted by the wrestler
- K. G. Devakiyamma as Chakkara's mother
- Ashokan
- Jayadevan as Job
- Kariyachan
- Krishnankutty Nair
- Dhanya
- Mavelikkara Ramachandran
- Said
- Rishikesha Das
- Raju Paakkathu