Exclusive! Dileesh Pothan on Bheeshma Parvam: Amal Neerad’s brilliance is in how he places his movies

Even a week after its release, Mammootty and director Amal Neerad’s Bheeshma Parvam is still running to packed houses. Certain sections and characters of the film are inspired by The Godfather and Mahabharat, and actor-filmmaker Dileesh Pothan tells OTTplay “the brilliance of Amal Neerad is in how he places his films” in terms of the setting as well as the context to make it relatable to the Kerala audience.

In an exclusive interview, the Joji filmmaker, who played politician James in the Mammootty-starrer, tells us, “To come up with a project like this in our industry during the prevalent circumstances, and shape up the characters, their looks and the film’s overall style – these are the areas where his clarity and execution stands out and contributes to the overall quality of the movie.”

Dileesh is also all praise for how Amal keeps changing the visual grammar of his movies. “I believe there’s a visible change in the graph from Big B to Bheeshma Parvam,” says the Maheshinte Prathikaaram director. “He has done films in several genres over the years and the change is evident in all of these. If you take Varathan for instance, it’s markedly different from his earlier movies. In Bheeshma Parvam, the characters have more depth. As I had mentioned earlier, he has that ability to place the film right, by appealing to the mass audience.”

Bheeshma Parvam has Mammootty playing Micheal, a godfather of sorts, who rules his family with an iron first. This doesn’t go down well with the younger generation, who begin revolting against him and those he has a soft corner for. How this impacts the family forms the plot of this gangster-thriller set in 1988.

The film also has Soubin Shahir, Veena Nandakumar, Sreenath Bhasi, Sudev Nair, Maala Parvathi, Anagha and Nadiya Moidu as part of the cast.

Also read: Exclusive! Dileesh Pothan: Acting in my contemporaries’ films has helped me learn, update myself as a director