It was on the strength of the scripts and stories that Malayalam cinema survived. But of late, Stories have disappeared from Malayalam films. Scripts are not written properly. M Y Vasudevan Nair used to write good scripts and Padmarajan with good show stories. This quality is not inherited. If at all some directors follow the model they hardly put their contributions.

It is the political thrillers that have changed the course of good script writing in Malayalam. With journalistic skills, writers like Ranji Panikkar and Ranjith diverted the cinema. Clones followed. The main source was newspaper cuttings of political happenings. What the directors concentrated was, "how much of blood could be squeezed out of the bad characters?"

Then came the mimicry cinemas. It was true that audience liked these kinds of films. But a good portion of movie lovers stopped going to theaters. They never came back. There was only Sreenivasan who with his simple and lively subjects attracted the audience.

In 2002 one can see only a handful of attempts like DANNY, SESHAM, MEESA MADAHAVAN, KUNHIKKOONAN, KANNAK, NANDANAM, and YATRAKKARUDE SRADHAKKU. These films tried to bring back the subject and narrative style into Malayalam films. 'DANNY' was a serious approach from TV Chadran as usual. 'SESHAM' by T K Rajeev Kumar was a journey into the mind of a lunatic, well conceived. Both may lack entertainment value but we can see an ardent search for artistic truth in them.

'MEESA MADHAVAN' enhanced the entertainment value with simple and direct narration and became acceptable to the audience. Lal Jose and Ranjan Pramod worked hard to achieve this victory. They worked out a successful script out of a subject that had created a sense of belonging to the viewers. The audience felt the story is theirs. The narration was lively with good humorous dialogues and situations all along. Songs were rhythmic and endowed with imagination.

Satyan Anthikad and Sreenivasan jointly brought back the Malayali ethos to the screen in their YATRAKKARUDE SRADHAKKU. Story, main characters dialogues and direction were all in place. The distaste created by the roles of Mohanlal and the light humor wave created by Dileep paved a different path of family sentiments rightly represented by Jayaram and Soundarya. Of late Malayalam screen is witnessing a flow of young heroines but without much talent. Soundarya filled this gap.

NANDANAM was the result of rethinking from the part of Ranjith. Ranjith who was equally responsible for the kind of political mega thriller movies found the empire falling well in advance and smartly changed his ways. He with his typical Malabar romantic mind removed all thoughts of revenge and blood from his scriptwriter's mind and conceived a simple love story. He suddenly dropped Mohanlal and Mammootty from his mind and went in search of young artists. His choice of Prithviraj and Navya Nair was timely. NANDANAM a low budget movie did pick up slow business but before that it earned a good name.

Vinayan was the other director who followed the old formula of narrating tear-jerking stories through OOMAPPENNINU URIYAADAPPAAYAN. But He could retain his hold on the audience in KATTUCHEMBAKAM. In fact it lagged behind NANDANAM in some centers.

Sasisankar, Biju Varkey, Anil babu, A K Sajan are a few directors who escaped unhurt in the box office. KUNHIKKOONAN the next successful movie after MEESA MADHAVAN gave Sasisankar a foothold. Anil Babu with his PAKALPPOORAM came to the forefront of successful directors. A K Sajan with his Violence made a mark.

However none of the present day directors have learned the art of telling stories through this medium. They aped the age-old techniques, often badly. What they were good at was roping in producers. The seniors lost their magic. What happened to Fazil in KAIYETHUM DOORATHU was nothing but understanding of unchanged inherent leanings of human mind in modern social behavior. They all go by their hypothetical estimation of new generation whereas in Tamil and Hindi one sees the youngsters freely mingling with the grandparents.

Balachandra Menon who created a trend in his early years miserably failed in his 'KRISHANA GOPALAKRISHNA'. The subject was contrived and it tried to impose a kind of philosophical shade. ONNAMAN by Thampi Kannanthanam was a thoroughly disorganized film in its subject and treatment. Shaji Kailas on the strength of his past victories never bothered to identify the changes in the audience's sensibilities. THANDAVAM was an irresponsible work especially from the women's point of view. It did not respect the sentiments of women. That was the main complaint raised against THANDAVAM. The dance number of Mohanlal with Anu Sree and Mumtaj was objectionable to many.

The general feeling in the industry is that the audience has become choosier and they cannot be easily entertained. In fact their sensibility had developed into a more receptive nature, which particularly identifies intelligent films with entertainment values. They have started rejecting the mimicry films though they have a high regard for humor. On one side the Malayalam film directors never tried to excel themselves. They were churning out either comedies or thrillers that were imitations of a handful of hits. In fact the very films they make clearly suggests they had underestimated the intelligence of the average Kerala film audience. They had seen brilliant films and performances in the past. They have been chosen to witness the best techniques of filmmaking. They have been trained to see and understand simple and difficult but artistic movies. And what they were offered in the recent past were just far below mediocre films. And that is why the Malayalam film industry is suffering now.