Review Of ‘Ticket to Kerala: The Story of Malayalam Cinema’

In an amusing scene from the 2025 Malayalam film Hridayapoorvam (Wholeheartedly), the protagonist Sandeep Balakrishnan, played by Malayalam superstar Mohanlal, chats with a young man from North India in Pune. On learning Sandeep is from Kerala, he enthusiastically praises the Malayalam film industry as very sensible and declares his love for the immensely popular actor ‘FaFa’. Sandeep fails to grasp the reference until the young man clarifies that it is the short form for Fahadh Faasil, the poster boy of Malayalam cinema’s ‘new generation wave’ of post-millennial films.  He names films such as Avesham (2024) and Kumbalangi Nights (2019), praising Fahad’s performances in them. An amused and mildly impressed Sandeep replies, ‘‘we have good senior actors also”, in a funny meta-cinematic gesture that implicitly refers to Mohanlal himself. But the young fan insists, “No, no, only FaFa.” Deflated, Sandeep walks away with a wry smile. Conceived as a self-reflexive joke, the scene refers to the sudden, widespread acceptance of Malayalam cinema and its ‘FaFa’ fanbase across India. Malayalees who travel to or live in other parts of India may have heard similar animated discussions about Malayalam films among non-Malayalees, which have become widespread especially after the Covid-19 pandemic, when Malayalam films began circulating widely on OTT platforms.

S.R. Praveen’s book, Ticket to Kerala: The Story of Malayalam Cinema, maps this phenomenon. Praveen studies the ‘new wave’ in Malayalam mainstream cinema and tracks the overwhelming response it receives across the country. He traces how the past and present of Malayalam cinema are interwoven in a complex web of relations that shape this new era of cinema and the broader media ecology that supports its trans-regional spread. The result is less a documentation than a passionate recounting in which past and present overlap in a non-linear fashion, one that invites readers into the Malayalam cinema culture. The rise of these contemporary Malayalam films, praised as ‘content-driven quality films with shoestring budgets’, did not emerge from a vacuum, but signals a response to the shifting socio-economic and cultural landscape of a transforming society. Rather than merely showcasing these films, Praveen contextualises the new wave phenomenon within such a specific historical moment, adding a touch of sociological insight to his analysis.

The book traces how the new generation of films has emerged with the introduction of young filmmakers and technicians, bringing innovative storytelling techniques and audio-visual aesthetics and reconfiguring the star system, drawing on international cinema, largely made accessible to Malayalee spectators through the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) and even the bootlegged circulation of films. It also shows readers how Malayalam cinema managed to bring new discourses of socio-political conscience, related to gender, caste, family and sexuality into the mainstream along with decentralised production practices. This transformation is mapped through a wide array of films from the late 2000s to the present, which also makes an interesting watchlist for readers. Rounding this out are insightful interviews with new-wave filmmakers Rajeev Ravi, Lijo Jose Pellissery and Bahul Ramesh, who speak about their craft and larger outlook on filmmaking.

Ticket to Kerala doesn’t confine itself to the Malayalam film industry’s rich film culture but also provides a detailed account of the exploitation and power structures at work within it. The chapter on the formation of the Women in Cinema Collective (WCC) in 2017 in response to concerns about inadequate workplace safety and gender bias within the industry, and the subsequent formation of the Hema Committee in the same year to investigate the issues faced by women in the industry, throws light on the dark underbelly of the progressive film industry and how the repercussions of these developments are largely felt within the industry.

Instead of recounting only the story of present Malayalam cinema, the cinephile author, in a cinematic flashback, offers the history of the present, tracing the new-wave film’s roots across the broader history of Kerala modernity, Left politics, and literature as well as different epochs of film history itself. This is done not by tracing a one-dimensional lineage of new-wave films, but by offering a broader picture of the industry from its inception. This includes early silent-film endeavors, social-realist movies of the 1950s-60s, the film society movement that began in the mid-1960s, and the rise of parallel cinema in the 1970s. It also highlights the contributions of key filmmakers like Adoor Gopalkrishnan, John Abraham and Aravindan, who helped Malayalam films gain recognition beyond regional boundaries, primarily through the film-festival circuit.

The book offers a more serious take on the middle-cinema convention of the 1980s, which the author presents as the successor to the contemporary new wave, particularly in its diverse subject matter, and which many new-wave filmmakers admire. The films of K.G. George stand out among these, alongside writer-filmmakers such as M.T. Vasudevan Nair, P. Padmarajan and Bharathan. However, the author never downplays the significance of  mainstream films, especially the classic ones of the 1990s, many of which were remade into Bollywood by Priyadarshan such as Hungama (2003), Hulchul (2004) and Bhool Bhulaiyaa (2007), to name a few.

Any discussion of Malayalam cinema inevitably turns to its two superstars, Mammootty and Mohanlal, the names that the new-generation ‘FaFa’ fanbase, especially outside Kerala, largely claims, as sarcastically shown in Hridayapoorvam. Yet, for four decades, their superstardom has remained intact and the book inevitably explores this kind of stardom that is sustained by genuine acting craft.

In a rare gesture, the book devotes a chapter to the gifted spectrum of women actors in the industry from Miss Kumari of the 1950s to Mamita Baiju in the 2020s. A particular highlight is a section on Urvashi, known to a new audience of Malayalam cinema through her character Leelamma in Ullozhukku (2024), whose nearly half-century-long, unparalleled career is captured vividly. This chapter not only highlights these talented artists but also illustrates how women carved out a space within Malayalam cinema, especially during the new wave.

Ticket to Kerala is less a comprehensive history of Malayalam cinema than a gateway into its vibrant present, with the larger filmic and socio-political history of Kerala that has shaped it. While it provides more resources for cinephiles outside Kerala interested in exploring the celebrated new-wave films, Praveen also presents lesser-known facts and perspectives for an audience familiar with Malayalam cinema culture.

(Vijith Meledath is a researcher and PhD candidate in Cinema Studies at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi)