Kummatty(1979)

Director - G.Aravindan

*Contains Spoilers*
Saw this movie last Sunday..

IMHO this could have been a 30-45 minute film. The first half is really boring. we cant figure out whats happening. Only thing that's shown is children playing, attending class and all with lots of songs in background. All these are really dragging and makes us wonder where the story is. I was wondering whether there is one. Well there was one and a very good ending.

Set in a village, the film revolves around Kummatty(played by Ramunni) , Chindan and his friends- all around 7-10 years old. The children who are scared of kummaty in the first half of the film later befriends him. He even joins them in their plays .Then one day kummatty decides to leave the place and plays with the children for one last time.Kummatty, who is also a magician converts each of them into an animal for some time.Chindan gets converted into a dog and he runs away while the rest of them stays back. kummatty transforms each of them back to their original form except Chindan who had fled.Chindan has a long journey and reaches a house in nearby town where a girl likes him and keeps him as her pet. Now Chindan is caged and is always troubled by the other dogs in the house. he falls ill and her father offers a Pomeranian instead of Chindan.the girl lets Chindan go who runs back to his home.His mother recognizes him and he is treated the same was as he was a human.His parents try some rituals to transform him back to his old form but in vain. An year passes and Kummatty comes back and immediately transforms Chindan back to human.In the next scene Chindan frees his pet bird from the cage.

Read Aravindan's interview about the movie

Trivia -
According to this link Jacqueline Kennedy happened to see this movie and was impressed by the scenic beauty of Kerala. She soon visited the state

Shaji N Karun was the Cinematographer

Landmarked

It was around 7am on a fine Sunday morning some 7-8 months back when my sleep was interrupted by a phone call. It was my colleague Rajesh and the first thing that came to my mind was "Oh no something seems to be not working". But what he said really irritated me. He was attending something in landmark at forum mall and wanted me to join him at Tuesday evening when it was getting over.

Me: "What is this?"
Rajesh: "Its really amazing. Its going to change your life"
I wanted to say "Why? it seems perfect for me. I don't want a change". but i asked him "how?"
He again said that its something really amazing and you should attend to experience it.
I asked him the timings and he told me its from 7.30 to 10.45 pm
"10.45!!? i don't have a vehicle to come back. will you drop me back?"
"no i have someone else with me"
"oh..let me see..but i don't think i can"
by this time i was almost convinced that he lost his money attending this seminar and wanted to register me so that he can get something back.
he continued persuading me and i cooked up some lie the next day to evade him

Meanwhile i came to realize that this had nothing to do with forum mall or landmark book shop and he is not going to get any money by making me join. it was a programme called Forum conducted by Landmark education

He continued asking me to attend this ever since from then on. almost every two days he used to remind me what opportunity i was missing.This coupled with frequent phone calls from him to all people he knew asking them to do the same made me think that there was something in it. Finally I asked him whether i can attend one on morning? At that time they started having this session on Sunday mornings also and i happened to attend it with my wife.This was in last November

What i saw there was really amazing.We were told what the forum is all about and it really sounded interesting. After that some people started sharing their experience after attending the forum.There was one man who wasn't having good relationship with his brothers for years. After attending Forum he not only had a very good relation but even went on to save one of his brothers marriage which was on the verge of collapse. There was a woman who said that after attending this she started loving her job which she was hating earlier. Then there was a doctor who really didn't want to attend but upon attending this he completed further courses and started a project to treat people in old age home. And a biz man who happened to make amazing profit after attending forum. Naturally we were moved by these experiences and we decided to register for it.

Now after attending the forum , I have only one thing to say "IT'S AMAZING!!". we were quite skeptical before attending this. One main concern was the timings. i really couldn't figure out how to sit from 9am to midnight for 3 days (for us it concluded by 10.30pm on all days) .We were doubtful whether we would be able to sit for such a long time listening to a single person, that too for 3 whole days(they give breaks in between). Our forum was led by Praveen Puri who promised us that by the time forum is over we will be in love with him. Infact we found it difficult to say goodbye when it all ended. as he said all were in love with him.We had 3 days of fun and some real serious thinking.

I would recommend this for all. you will really love this.