Pranayakalam - Malayalam movie - Ajmal Ameer, Vimala Raman, Balachandra Menon, Madhu Warrier

Uday Ananthan's Pranayakaalam is a simple love story, beautifully narrated and delicately handled by the writer as well as the director, but at the same time it is a film that will most likely fail to attract the crowd.

With story and screenplay by the director himself and dialogues penned by K. Gireesh Kumar, Pranayakaalam tells the love story of young Renjith and Maria, who meet accidentally and eventually fall in love.

Renjith, who is much different from the usual members of present day youth, is a very sensitive and truthful lad, who faces the world with sincerity. And in one of his encounters with the social circumstances of modern Kerala, he happens to meet a girl named Mariya. Their first sight itself develops into a long lasting friendship, which gradually takes the form of love. Even though Renjith has got a bunch of female friends in his college, he found something special with Mariya. As she was also residing in the same town, he creates opportunities to regularly meet her and they became the victims of unquoted love.

Renjith's father Balagopal is well employed in the Gulf and his family is well settled. Renjith's mother Rajani and his younger brother Arjun are the other members of the family. When the story begins Balagopal is back home on vacation and is set to go back to the Gulf. The father and son share a very friendly bond, with both of them respecting each other and each other's individuality.

Maria's father Varghese is an Assistant Sub Inspector of Police and is rather money minded and harsh towards his son Deepu, who is studying. Varghese hasn't talked to his wife Anna for years, though the whole family lives in one and the same house. Considering the circumstances at her home, Maria is not interested in encouraging Renjith and even flatly tells him that she is not interested in being in love with anyone. But she too realizes later that Renjith has occupied a place in her heart and it is not that easy to reject or avoid him. Thus begins their love story.

Very soon Renjith starts visiting her at night. The lovers are one day found out by the hot-tempered Varghese. Though Renjith manages to escape from there, Varghese picks him up and his subordinate policemen give him a good thrashing in the lockup. Varghese also sends some goons to Renjith's house and threatens Renjith's mother and brother. (His father had gone back to the Gulf). On knowing about this, Balagopal comes back and what follows forms the rest of the plot.

The film tells about the twilight zone of morbid realities that lie underneath, which comes in the way of the love and fantasies of Renjith and Mariya.

Ajmal Ameer debuts in the lead role of Renjith, while Vimala Raman is Mariya. The prominent members of the cast include Balachandra Menon, Madhu Warrier, Thilakan, Jithu, Murali, Manianpillai Raju, Baburaj, Seema, Lekshmi Ramakrishnan and Shruthi Nair. Produced by A.V.A productions, the film has scripts by K Gireesh Kumar, based on the story by the director himself. The film is meticulously cinematographed by Lokanathan. Ouseppachan has set tunes to five songs for this film in the lyrics of Rafeeq Ahamed. The film which was shot in and around Kochi is distributed by Central pictures.