Director: Priyadarshan; Writer: T. Damodaran, Priyadarshan; Cinematographer: Santhosh Sivan; Editor: N. Gopalakrishnan; Cast: Mohanlal, Prabhu, Tabu, Tinu Anand, Srinivasan
Duration: 02:58:22; Aspect Ratio: 2.319:1; Hue: 39.828; Saturation: 0.381; Lightness: 0.273; Volume: 0.221; Cuts per Minute: 20.060
Summary: The film is about the lives of prisoners in British India who are brought to Kālā Pānī, the Cellular Jail in Port Blair, Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The name Kalapani is derived from the mode of imprisonment in British India.
In 1965, G. S. Sethu (Vineeth) of the Indian Army goes to Ross Island, Kaalapani to find the whereabouts of his aunt Parvathi's (Tabu) husband Govardhan Menon (Mohanlal), who has been sent to jail in 1916 during the British Rule. In an old room containing record of prisoners held at the jail, Sethu comes across Govardhan's records and learns his story.
Govardhan, a doctor and Indian nationalist, is wrongly accused of bombing a train carrying 55 people, including British officials. On his wedding day with Parvathi, he is deported to a cellular jail at Port Blair, Andaman and Nicobar Islands. There, hundreds of Indian prisoners are incarcerated in the cellular jail, including leading participants of the freedom movement. The extremely inhumane conditions faced by the prisoners in the jail are depicted.
David Berry (Alex Draper) is a sadistic jailor who is of Irish descent, while Len Hutton (John Kolvenbach) is a kindhearted English doctor. Veer Savarkar (Annu Kapoor) is incarcerated and tries his best to keep the spirit of the prisoners going despite unbelievable torture.
Parvathi keeps waiting for Govardhan to come back. Due to Len's efforts, the government decides to investigate the matter of the torture meted out to the prisoners. 14 people are ordered to be released. One of them is Mukundan (Prabhu Ganesan), Govardhan's friend. David and the jail warden Mirza Khan (Amrish Puri) hatch a plan to incite a prison riot and shoot down 13 prisoners while they are escaping. Mukundan refuses to escape and is taken on the pretext of meeting the Chief Commissioner, and is shot and killed. Seeing Mukundan's dead body, Govardhan throws down David from one of the towers and kills Mirza Khan by strangling him. Govardhan is hanged to death.
All this is shown in interminnent flashbacks. Sethu, after knowing Govardhan has already been hanged to death 45 years ago, decides to not tell the truth to his wife as her wait of 50 years would have been in vain. The film ends with Sethu lying to her that he met Govardhan and talked to him about her, indicating she will never come to know about Govardhan's death and will keep waiting for him for the rest of her life.
Kaalapani was released on 12 April 1996 in 450 theaters worldwide, which was the largest release for any Indian film until then.[4] The film won three National Film Awards. including the awards for Best Art Direction (Sabu Cyril), Best Special Effects (S. T. Venky), and Best Cinematography (Santosh Sivan). Along with that it won six Kerala State Film Awards.
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