The Lost Treasure - J. C. Daniel

(This is not a movie review)

How far one can go to make the first motion picture in Kerala? How much toil and trouble does it take to cast the first actress ever in Malayalam, that too in 1930? Is making movies always pay you off? Watch the Tamil dubbed movie J. C. Daniel (Original movie title: "Celluloid" in Malayalam) and reboot your perceptions about quality cinema.

The movie begins when inquisitive Joseph Chellaiah Daniel Nadar travels to Bombay to learn the basics of film making. The initial hurdles he faced, in terms of finding cast (especially the heroine), crew and equipment, did not mellow down his ambitions. Despite the fact that it is considered taboo to act in films, the lower caste woman Rosie dared to act in  "The Lost Child"- aka Vigathakumaran - the first ever Malayalam film. When every things gets in place and the movie gets released, the so called upper caste men find it unacceptable to see a lower caste heroine. What comes after is a series of drastic scenes that eventually bankrupts J. C. Daniel who returns to Tamilnadu to become a Dentist.  His second attempt to storm into movie industry did not pay him off either, in fact he loses most of what he earned thus far. While a journalist Chelangatt Gopalakrishnan  painstakingly unearths and tells the world about the immense contributions of the real Father of Malayalam cinema, J. C. Daniel's health slowly deteriorates and he eventually dies.As always, the world suddenly begins to acknowledge the value of the lost treasure. Then, J. C. Daniel award was created to honor lifetime achievements in Malayalam cinema. In the end, it is shown that the film rolls of "The Lost Child"  has been playfully destroyed by J. C. Daniel's son and the world never found out how the first Malayalam movie looked like. Not only that, the first ever Malayalam actress was banned from watching her own movie and was driven out of Kerala!

J. C. Daniel is a Classic where two main actors (Prithiviraj & Chandni) make long-lasting impressions. The movie will be cherished by art lovers for years to come.