Megastar Mammootty’s four films were competing for this year’s State Film Awards. There was Amal Neerad’s ‘Bheeshma Parvam’, Ratheena PT’s ‘Puzhu’, Lijo Jose Pellisery’s ‘Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam’ and Nissam Basheer’s ‘Rorschach.’ But the Jury picked his performance in 'NNM 'over the others. And Jury Chairman Gautham Gosh had an explanation for that.
“It was a rare and stunning performance in the history of Malayalam cinema. He managed to slip into the duality of two distinctive characters with subtlety and impeccable control over the body language. A genius of a performance in which he could get into the psyche of a Malayalee called James and a Tamilian villager Sundaram and absorb the diverse language and ethnicity of two states with precision.”
With this stunning act, Mammootty has bagged his 8th state award, out of which 6 were for best actors, one each for second best actor and Special Jury mention. But this award came after a long gap of 14 years. His last State award was for 'Paleri Manikyam' in 2010. His first Best Actor award was for the IV Sasi film ‘Adiyozhukkukal’ written by MT Vasudevan Nair in 1985. Mammootty has also bagged the National award for best actor thrice.
2022 witnessed the actor playing mass and class roles with equal aplomb. After a 275-day break owing to the pandemic, Mammootty’s comeback turned out to be momentous. Apart from the films that reached the awards, he also did 'CBI 5: The Brain', a cameo in Priyan Ottathilanu, and 'Christopher'. If he redefined mass with 'Bheeshma Parvam', the actor stunned everyone with his image-breaking grey-shaded characters in 'Rorschach' and 'Puzhu'.
