11 Movies That Rightly Portrayed The Essence Of College Life

Poomaram is a journey through the five days of a college youth festival where two rival colleges are vying for the coveted championship trophy. The engaging narrative devoid of verbosity celebrates the simplicity of life.  There is a lot of vigor and optimism in portraying the characters who takes us through the trodden-path and have abundant doses of emotions spread though out the film.

Queen movie has captured the college life naturally, with all the vigor and liveliness. The jubilation has kept the campus mood intact. The movie has brilliantly narrated the story of a lone girl in an all-boys Mechanical Engineering stream without the usual obscenities displayed in most movies. The movie does end with a social message too.

This movie is about the changes the lead characters go through during one of the industrial visits from their college to Hampi. The fun, the problems, the love and relationships have been blended together in a light-hearted manner and does kindle nostalgic feelings. The movie has succeeded in looking at campus life and relationships from the perspective of the youth.

Well, does one need to explain why this movie is in this list? Yes, the prime focus of the college part of ‘Premam’ was the love story of George and Malar miss, but Alphonse made it sure that he carries the true essence of the college life on the big screen. The way in which they showed the intense campus gang rivalry was perfect. Another point here which scored well with the audience was the slang and style of dialogues, which were exact to that we would have used in our college days.

This film is a perfect example for the fact that movies with a different story concept and made well, will attract audience. Vyshak was successful in bringing the modern college life, as it is, onto the big screen. So were Sachi-Sethu, in making us entertain to the fullest with the concept of four middle aged friends going back to their campus as students. The packaging of college life was almost perfect, disregarding the item song sequence in the hostel. Jayaram, Biju Menon, Manoj K Jayan & Kunchacko Boban had a career lift with this film.

‘Chocolate’ was one of the first movies to come in the genre of campus movies, that was opened up after the blockbuster ‘Classmates’. And this might be one of the campus movie, which every boy would love to live in the real life. The college life of the lead character of Prithviraj who is the lone male student in a women’s college connected really well with the youth. The movie was a complete comedy entertainer which became a superhit.

After ‘Sarvakalasala’, ‘Classmates’ might be the first movie which was completely based on a college campus and exactly portrayed the students’ life. In fact, Lal Jose has to be credited to give the real feel of college hostel life in the movie. It is hard to remember of a movie which had the hostel life rolled out screen with such perfection, before this film. This movie was a big career shift to all associated with it, especially to Prithviraj, Kavya Madhavan, Indrajith, Narain, Vineeth Sreenivasan and Jayasurya.

With ‘Nammal’, Kamal launched three new talents into the Malayalam film industry. Late Jishnu Raghavan, Siddharth Bharathan and Bhavana debuted through this movie. ‘Nammal’ was successful in recreating the feel of the college life on the screen and in the mind of the audience. “Rakshasi” song from the movie was a rage among the youth at that time.

This Kamal movie, though was a romantic drama, did capture the campus life in almost all its genuine sense. Adding to that, the superhit on-screen jodi of Kunchacko Boban and Shalini were the lead pair, thus ensuring a golden run at the box office. “Prayam Nammil Moham Nalki” song from ‘Niram’ was so popular that now also many people connect to this movie through this song.

In all probabilities, ‘Sarvakalashala’ is the one Malayalam movie which came most close in capturing the real spirit of a college campus. The movie is still remembered for the classy dialogue by Maniyanpillai Raju, “Intellectual akan ulla shramananu. Chalam akkaruth.” (I am trying to be an intellectual. Please don’t spoil it.) Directed by Venu Nagavalli, this movie had Mohanlal as Lal or Lalettan; and from there did Mohanlal got his alias of Lalettan.

Directed, produced and scripted by Sreekumaran Thampi, ‘Yuvajanolsavam’ was one of the movies that helped Mohanlal attain the status of the Superstar. Though it was love triangle story at the core, ‘Yuvajanolsavam’ was able to capture the complete feel of campus life of 1980s. The movie is also an important film, as it was the first time Suresh Gopi came on the screen after his debut as a child artist in ‘Odayil Ninum’ in 1965.