Pratap Pothen, pan-South India actor-director who didn’t care about his image

Affluent upbringing, rural characters

Born in 1952 in a family of rich estate-owners in Thiruvananthapuram, Pothen did his schooling at Lovedale in Ooty, and then studied at the Madras Christian College.

Despite his affluent upbringing, Pratap Pothen portrayed rural characters well in his early films. He also directed films set in rural Kerala later (Pratap Pothen/Facebook)

“His contemporaries Mammootty and Mohanlal came from feudal, rural setups, and succeeded. But despite his cosmopolitan upbringing and Bohemian life, Pothen, too, portrayed rural characters with ease in his initial Malayalam films,” GP Ramachandran, an award-winning film critic from Kerala, told South First.

Four of Pothen’s initial films in which he essayed rural characters — Aaravam, Thakara, Chamaram, and Lorry (released between 1978 and 1980) — were all directed by the legendary Bharathan.

Varied roles of Pothen

He won a Filmfare Award for his role as a mentally challenged person in Thakara, the first movie in which he had a starring role.

In an interview with The New Indian Express, he said that after he received the award, “Projects and offers kept coming my way from there. Luck was definitely on my side.”

Despite his initial success, Pothen never stuck to a particular type of role and essayed varied characters in his films, said Ramachandran, who has won the President’s Gold Medal for Best Critic.

“Pothen was always open to challenges. He portrayed marginalised characters and even acted as a transgender person in one of his films,” the film critic added.

Primarily a Malayalam actor, Pothen started acting in Tamil after his initial success. “He was a pan-South-India actor,” Ramachandran noted.

‘English-speaking suave guy’

Ashameera Aiyappan, a film critic from Tamil Nadu, told South First that Pothen was “one of the earliest urban-English-speaking suave guys on screen”.

“The kind we associate with Gautham Vasudev Menon now. And Pothen really owned it,” she said.

One of his earliest Tamil films was Moodu Pani. “The first you get reminded of (when you think of Pothan) is the iconic song En Iniya Pon Nilave,” Ashameera said.

‘Can I have sex with you?’

Pothen didn’t care about his image, unlike stars of the order of Mammootty or Mohanlal, and he essayed many negative roles or characters with shades of grey, Ramachandran said.

“In his film 22 Female Kottayam (2012), Pothen’s character directly asks a woman, ‘Can I have sex with you?’ Everybody in Kerala remembers that,” he added.

He was known for essaying eccentric characters very well in Tamil, so much so that people started believing the affable actor had similar quirks too.

“He played even the darker characters with a lot of elegance,” Ashameera noted.

Directed legendary Sivaji Ganesan

Pothen then went on to direct films in both Malayalam and Tamil.

Born in an affluent family and brought up in urban areas, he depicted rural Kerala society well in the movies he directed, said Ramachandran.

Rithubhedam, one such film, was scripted by the renowned MT Vasudevan Nair.

In a nod to his school days, he set his film Daisy in the Ooty-Coonoor area.

In Oru Yatra Mozhi, set in the Tamil Nadu-Kerala border areas, Pothen directed the legendary Sivaji Ganesan and Mohanlal.

Pothen’s friend Kamal Haasan

In Tamil, his films included the hits Vetri Vizha (1989) and Seevalaperi Pandi (1994).

In Vetri Vizha, the protagonist was Kamal Haasan, with whom Pothen had acted earlier in director K Balachander’s Varumayin Niram Sivappu.

About Haasan, Pothen had written on Facebook: “From being a fan … to having had the great opportunity to act with him in a few films and then to direct him and have him as a friend is indeed the best thing that happened to me in cinema. [sic]”

Vetri Vizha was inspired by the Robert Ludlum book The Bourne Identity, and was released long before the Matt Damon films.

“It just so happened that I was reading the book at that time and it seemed terrific. It was basically Kalidasa’s Shakuntala with a lot more action,” Pothen had told Cinema Express.

Tributes poured in for the actor-director, with Haasan praising his friend who directed successful fast-paced films since the days of Vetri Vizha and Tamil star Khusbhu Sundar noting his “zest for life”.

தீவிர இலக்கிய வாசிப்பையும் கலைப் படங்கள் மீதான தணியாத ஆர்வத்தையும் தொடர்ந்தவர் நண்பர் ப்ரதாப் போத்தன். விறுவிறுப்பான திரைப்படங்களை வெற்றிகரமாக இயக்குவதிலும் நிபுணர் என்பதை ‘வெற்றிவிழா’ காலத்தில் பார்த்திருக்கிறேன். அவருக்கென் அஞ்சலி. pic.twitter.com/KL0Whqt93X

— Kamal Haasan (@ikamalhaasan) July 15, 2022

It was wonderful to have on board in my home prod #CoffeeWithKaadhal. Met him when we were shooting in Ooty. Same smile, zest for life, living every moment to the fullest,laughing,cribbing,complaining, happy all at the the same time. #PratapPothen hadn’t changed. Gems don’t. ?? pic.twitter.com/Cp2bTlJazu

— KhushbuSundar (@khushsundar) July 15, 2022

#PratapPothen
Casual, complicated, restless, insecure, talented but unambitious Prathap was a bundle of contradictions. Did not live up to his talent as an actor or director. A 1988 chat. He’d call and say, ‘let’s do a lengthy interview.’ Hope he’s in a more peaceful place. pic.twitter.com/if1FjLpFpU

— s shiva kumar (@sshivu) July 15, 2022

Posts on death, existence

Pothen was active on social media till 14 July, a day before his death.

Among other subjects, he had also touched upon death and existence in his final posts on Facebook.

His last post on Facebook, at 6.38 pm, was a quote by American singer Jim Morrison: “I think in art, but especially in films, people are trying to confirm their own existences.”

A few hours earlier, Pothen, in a Facebook post, said, “When you treat the symptoms of a problem without treating the root cause of it, then you will start to be dependent on the Pharmacy. [sic]”