I don’t know how interesting it will be for a non keralite, for the fact that most of the Mammooty, Mohan Lal films are made in Malayalam, but for a Malyalee like me, a good comparison between the two power houses of their contemporary cinema could be as inviting as a traditional Onam Sadya.
So I am more than excited to put my own views on this ‘sensational’ subject, but I am determined to make it good too, but still, it won’t be a tough task for me as I grew up along with their acting careers, watching almost all of their best performances real time, very closely.
Mammooty and Mohan Lal, seen as two artists not individuals or stars, are good material to be compared between as the first thing, though they belong to the same school of die hard realism, on a broader view. They are very comparable in their approaches and skills, in the basic chemical process of artistic expressionism.
Against the spontaneous understand–and-respond style of Mohan Lal’s, Mammooty is a hard working Methodist, to the naked eye, both are gifted with exceptional grasp when it comes to understanding their characters. Both are realists as I put it before, but then it seems Mohan Lal is more at ease with very genuine, cut out of the day today life characters, where Mammooty to me is better in handling high quality drama and classicalism, the cultish, godfather kind of stuff. I used to think that we exactly needed a Mammooty to do the Chanthu of Our Vadakkan Veera Gatha, which he played to utmost perfection and charisma, whereas there wasn’t another actor to interpret the roles like Ahamlike Mohan Lal did.
Talking about roles, together they presented an entire spectrum of experience to their viewers, taking them through the real magic of cinema. One after the next, there was an explosion of quality, I can remember, the average man who went cinemas, was literally stunned those days. They inspired characters, and film makers knew that if they had demanding roles and situations to script and film, they always had the right men to perform them to perfection.
As stars they motivated their fan following too, may not be to the level of fanaticism or religion, but to great adoration. Interestingly many turned their fans for the more artistic performances like Sethuor Chanthu; even now those are the most celebrated characters of Malayalam cinema, compared to the more thrilling dons or cops they’d done otherwise.
Mammooty is known to be a passionate pro; I heard he had worked hard on roles like Ponthan mada and Mathilukal. In fact they are the roles which needed preparation; you cannot do them right out of heart. And work put in, let me confirm, is seen in the output. So when the awards are searching for the right candidate, the otherwise argumentative Malyalee isn’t complaining, he is pretty happy and applauding.
Then Mohan Lal has got a different approach. He acts right out of heart, his acting is very instinctive. The line between Mohan Lal and Sethu quickly blurs, and there is metamorphosis from frame one. You do see Mohan Lal there, but it isn’t any different from Sethu. Mohan Lal the artist’s identity is cleverly manipulated to that of Sethu’s and the outcome is always gripping.
As I put in another review in mouthshut, Based on a purely personal view, I would say that Mohan finds a problem, something like a writer’s block, when he is unable to correlate, like mentioned above, between his individual identity and screen identity, which we might say, is the isn’t really flip, but an artistic constrain, of this gifted actor. His presentation is very first person’s, and he isn’t approaching his roles with a third person perspective. I would say his extension of my persona model, partially failed in presenting the roles like Kalapani and Iruvar; I am not sure how many would agree. I personally found Kalapani as one of the very few films where Mohan Lal’s free flowing responses were a bit less genuine, not always, but at times.
Mammooty too has a similar constrain in a different way, his appearance and the persona makes him fit for a certain genre of roles, I guess it is difficult for him to look like a naturally unnoticeable individual in a film for example. This is because his style of acting is basically powerful, which makes his roles like Oru Vadakkan Veera Gatha and Vidheyan a treat to watch. Even when he did roles like Mrigaya or Ponthan Mada, there was something excelling in the presentation, and yet the realistic accuracy in his role in Ponthan Mada is something which should not be missed for the sheer excellence, something which a man like Naseeruddin Shah is very good at (who also co acted in this film).
Mohan Lal is some kind of a genius in his responses and timing, an area where he can be compared to the masters of the world cinema, along with Indian cinema’s. Among the Indian actors, I would choose Kamal Hasan to be compared to him in this department.
Mammooty and Mohan Lal together are the true masters of Malayalam film acting, whom Malyalees would like to proudly present to the rest of the world. Along with a large pool of talented and trained actors like Gopi (who in a way initiated the culture?) and Thilakan, Nedumudi Venu, Film makers like Bharathan, Hariharan and Sibi, writers of the quality of MT, Padmarajan and Lohita Das, they set up the great quality trend and the Golden era of the Malayalam cinema of the nineties. The impact of this move was such that even under rated actors who joined later like Siddique or Sai Kumar can be seen as very good actors, for the reason that they meet a certain standard all the time.
It isn’t all that possible to pick one ahead of the other from these two great artists, when two towers are too tall, from below, you cannot say which tower is taller, so you may say both stand really tall! Still when I picked my best three from the Indian actors I selected Mohan Lal ahead of Mammooty for the reason that Mohan Lal’s ability to pick up the finest detail of certain characters and respond, that particular aspect, truly surprises me every time, and all the time. And picking two Malayalam actors when Industries like Hindi and Tamil have such huge pool of equally gifted men might make my review look a bit Kerala biased since the reviewer is from the same state! So I had to do a bit of a hard job there.
Finally, If Mohan Lal is my choice for an Indian version of Hamlet; Mammooty would do my ultimate Julius Caesar. When I can see Mohan Lal’s expressive eyes presenting the mind of a man in a ‘to be or not to be’ state with clinical accuracy, I can also imagine Mammooty’s royal expressions fading, sharp voice trembling and breaking to state: You too Brutus? flawlessly.
As Malayalam films aren’t all that unfamiliar with Shakespearian adaptations and all, who knows but we may even get to see them doing those ‘every actors’ ultimate dream roles’ too!
