71st National Film Awards: Mohanlal receives Dadasaheb Phalke Award — Lalettan's journey so far

In Malayali households, he has always been 'Lalettan,' a cultural icon yet a familiar elder brother figure, a companion through four and a half decades of cinema. Now, with the Dadasaheb Phalke Award — the highest recognition in Indian cinema — Mohanlal has secured his place in history as one of its greatest performers. He is only the second Malayalee to receive the award, after filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan in 2004.

Mohanlal's screen journey began in 1980 with Manjil Virinja Pookkal, playing Narendran, a cruel, menacing husband, a debut that was as unconventional as it was unforgettable. The role was a stroke of destiny, for Mohanlal had been meant to debut two years earlier in Thiranottam, a film that never saw the light of day.

If his arrival was by chance, his staying power was by sheer craft. In the 1980s, Mohanlal won audiences over as the struggling, everyday man in T.P. Balagopalan M.A., the bumbling yet lovable Dasan in Nadodikkattu, or the middle-class dreamer in

Sanmanassullavarkku Samadhanam. His humour was effortless, his vulnerability disarming. Then came Rajavinte Makan in 1986, and with it, his reinvention as an action hero and superstar.

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Mohanlal never allowed himself to be boxed in. Even in his twenties, he was experimenting with complex and tragic roles like Sethumadhavan in Kireedam, Doctor Haridas in Amrutham Gamaya, and Rajiv in Dasharatham.

His National Award-winning turns in Bharatham (1991) and Vanaprastham

(1999), where he learned the nuances of Kathakali to play Kunjikuttan, a performer torn between art and life, cemented his reputation as one of India’s finest actors.

In the early 2000s, he did get trapped in formulaic, larger-than-life roles. But he found a way back through films like Thanmathra (2005), where he delivered a tender portrayal of a man grappling with Alzheimer’s, or Drishyam (2013), a film that became one of Malayalam cinema’s biggest global exports. His more recent successes, including Thudarum and Hridayapoorvam.

Mohanlal’s impact has never been confined to Malayalam cinema alone. He acted in Mani Ratnam’s Iruvar (1997), Ram Gopal Varma’s Company (2002) and Ram Gopal Varma ki Aag (2007). Alongside five National Film Awards, he has been honoured with the Padma Shri (2001) and Padma Bhushan (2019). He also became the first Indian actor to be conferred the honorary rank of lieutenant colonel in the Territorial Army in 2009.

At 65, Lalettan's career has spanned more than 360 films across five languages. The lifetime achievement award is a nod to Mohanlal’s ability to embody, with unmatched fluidity, both the extraordinary and the ordinary. He has been the everyman, the comic and the tragic, the lover and the don.

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