As ‘Thankamani’ gets ready for release, here's why you need to revisit P G Viswambharan's ‘Itha Samayamayi’

'Thankamani', directed by Ratheesh Reghunandan and starring Dileep in the lead, is all set to hit theatres on March 7. The film, which also features Manoj K Jayan and Neetha Pillai in prominent roles, is based on the alleged police atrocities on the people of Thankamani, a village in Idukki, in the 1980s. As the film gears up for release, here’s a quick relook of the 1987 film ‘Itha Samayamayi’ directed by the late P G Viswambharan, which was loosely based on the infamous incident.

The plot
The film, which features Ratheesh, Shari, M G Soman, Innocent and Jagathy Sreekumar, among others, revolves around an isolated village Thankamani in Idukki. The villagers are dependent on a single bus ‘St Mathews’ which conducts services between Mundakkayam and Kilipaadi. The passengers are forced to pay the full charge to Kilipaadi, though the bus halts 3 km ahead of the stop, forcing them to walk to their destination. The owner of the bus Mathaichan is a powerful drug dealer and gets away with a lot of illegal activity since he is hand-in-glove with the police. Mathaichan taps the police when the villagers decide to seize his bus as a mark of protest. This leads to a slew of events at the village.

Based on real-life incidents
The movie hit theatres nearly a year after the incident, which was still fresh in people's minds. In ‘Itha Samayamayi’, the police are shown firing at the innocent villagers. The film also depicted police entering homes and raping women. The incident had put the then K Karunakaran-led government in a fix. Though the chief minister suspended five policemen, the incident continues to remain a black spot in Kerala Police's history. The villagers refused to allow a police identification parade due to the trauma the women in the village faced then.

The performances
The performances of all the actors were exceptional in the movie. Soman played the mild-mannered priest of the local church who eschewed evil and spoke for the residents. Ratheesh and Shari played lovers in the movie, with some brilliant performances by Prathapachandran, Karamana Janardhanan Nair and Bahadoor.