Yaathra

This is a Malayalam film critically acclaimed as one of Balu Mahendru's best.

However the film lacks a message as it shifts from one theme and side story to another and tries every form of emotional manipulation on the viewer about the protagonist. At succeeds in the end..

That the protagonist is an orphan who even loses his dear friend unknown to him. And almost sacrifices the love of his life.

There is nothing much to say in terms of storyline.

A lot of legendary side characters including Azeez, Thilakan, KPAC Sunny and Adoor Bhasi and many others are brought in for miniscule roles.

It's disappointing how the police are uniformly shown as all bad guys. Even though every incident of police harshness are shown with justification if looked at in a neutral manner.

Mammootty's performance is good. But the film stands out for Shobhana's bewitching smile, charming beauty and natural performance in one of her earliest roles. Her earnest ways wins over the protagonist, and so too, the viewer.

The more you think of it, given where the film spends most of its theme on, the name of the film is more appropriately "Jail Yaathra".

When I saw this movie years ago, two things stuck out to me. Mammootty and Shobana look like they really have an age difference in a way that irked me and the way that a government officer is misidentified which didn't make any logical sense to me. Now on this rewatch, I notice that the age difference is actually kind of part of the plot, even though both are aged up and down a bit in the movie because the actual age of Mammooty while filming is more than double the age of Shobana. Now, I think that the age difference is the reason they made the cheesy romantic arc as it is here. The police behaving in whatever way is now more clearly part of the 70s Emergency in India and the consequential systematic brutality. These factors made me enjoy this and understand why people of the time considered this great. It still had some problems where the age of the film shows but it's still a pretty entertaining movie that manages to be emotional with the help of Ilayaraja's music and Mammootty and Shobana's acting.

Such an amazing film. It takes you through a mesmerizing journey of how it feels to lose the love of your life and how blissful it feels to have regained it at the end of your journey; a journey we all must take called LIFE!!!!

The best ever Emotional Love Portrayed in the history of Malayalam.

With Brilliant Direction from the legendary BALU MAHENDRA With Stellar performance from the Magnum Opus of Malayalam Movie industry MAMMOOTTY The Poster Caption of this Movie when released in 1985 was "If you haven't seen this movie, you haven't seen the best malayalam movie till date" In short a Visual Poetry of Love.

The movie as a whole was mesmerizing with beautiful visuals songs cinematography was good . the mists and fogs were captured beautifully . mammootty performance was very good this as shobhana s first movie . she acted brilliantly , personally I very much like her character in this film . and the Climax was absolutely beautiful and heart touching