rumblestrip

Sudevan – Filmmaker in Our Attic

2011-11-09T23:11:00.000-08:00

Sudevan, whose film ‘Thattumpurathappan’ (Lord of the Attic) was in the competition section for short films in the recently concluded International Short and Documentary Film Festival of Kerala, is the most unconventional of filmmakers to emerge in the video scene in Kerala. He is from a remote village in Palakkad district, and never had any exposure to film ‘classics’, film societies or film festivals. The first film festival he attended was the one which showed his first video! He has been making small video films at regular intervals for the last six years, all of which were noted for their deceptively simple visual treatment and sharp thematic focus. In a way, he is one of those rare organic filmmakers who is firmly rooted in his milieu and surroundings, and weaves his narratives from them. Shorn of all technical fineries, his films are very much visceral and have a captivating intimacy to them. More importantly, he believes in ‘real audience’: he would like to know and converse with them all at a personal level. For instance, more than 1000 DVD copies of his last film – Thattumporathappan - have been sold during the course of one year, which is an indicator of the success of the film. It is also the natural outcome of Sudevan’s relentless commitment to marketing his film, most of which has happened through word of mouth of his own audience.

Till date he has only made four films, all of which were made in association with Achuthanandan, his actor and alter ego, neighbour and producer, all rolled into one. He works with a very limited crew, and uses only the most essential low-end equipments, for want of money and fear of paraphernalia. But he makes elaborate preparations before each film: he develops the story line discussing the film threadbare with Achuthanandan, charts out camera angles and movements, and identifies all the locations. Finally, they garner all the local support and infrastructure for productioon, and do detailed and repeated rehearsals before the actual shooting. ‘I would place my camera and plan its movements in such a way that I perfectly know how it will look at the editing table’. Their post-production work does not end with editing and mixing, but with a detailed plan as to where to show the films and how to reach their target audience.

His first video ‘Varoo’ (2004) is a Kafkaesque take on the theme of ‘finding one’s own way’. Shot with an ordinary videocam by an amateur girl, who was the only person they knew who happened to possess a camera, it charmingly captures the winding country paths and the verdant terrain in all its seeming simplicity and labyrinthine dimensions. In his next film ‘Planning’ (2006), he looks at the flip side of Malayalee middle class family from the point of view of two thieves, who make detailed plans to rob a house when its occupants are away. Eventually, when they sneak their way into the house, they only find a letter which announces the decision of the house owner to put an end to his life and lists out his mounting woes and debts. ‘Randu’ (2008, Two) deals with a very fundamental theme of selfishness, and how it can crop up even in the most unlikely of circumstances. It is about two labourers who are digging a well; one among them chances upon a treasure, which turns out to be the fatal moment where they, who were one in their labour and life, become ‘two’ – each monstrously following his own greedy dream.

His latest film Lord of Attic (2010) takes a bleak but hilarious look at the whole phenomenon of spirituality business that is thriving in India today. Here is a young man, who while running away from the police, takes refuge in the attic of a house, and gradually works his way out by assuming the role of god and using the gullible devotee living below. In the end, we find that the same house turns out to be the hottest spiritual destination in the locality. What makes the film interesting is the way in which Sudevan works through the tenuous and almost uncanny relationship between god and devotee, both dependent on each other, and yearning for ‘liberation’.

Interestingly, in all his film till date, Sudevan has worked with a duo at the centre – seeker of the path and the one who shows it (Varoo), the two thieves (Planning), the manual labourers (Two), and the ‘god’ and devotee (Thattumporathappan). Having gained enough experience and confidence, he is planning to venture out to work on a larger canvas and format.

Taking around and showing his films in all possible venues, Sudevan has already assiduously built a network of Malayalee audiences across the world. But he would like to avoid the mistake of the hero of his first film and would like to find a way of his own, without falling for the lure of empty offers and trodden paths.

Mullanezhi – The Lyrical Rebel

2011-11-09T23:08:00.000-08:00

‘The verdant dream land of ours
Where did it fade away,
That promised land?’ asked Mullanezhi in a song in the film Lakshmivijayam by K P Kumaran. For, his was a lifelong romance with lyricism and radicalism, despair and optimism, his deep love for nature and the awareness about the inevitability of change. One can see all these conflicts and themes providing the form and flesh to his plays, poems and songs. So too, was his commitment to hope. For instance, one of his last poems goes like this: It is dawn, and opening their eyes/ here comes fresh blossoms, / Leaving the brow of the blue sky /The little crescent is fading away.. Throughout his life Mullanezhi wrote poems in which he was able to create a curious and fascinating blend of traditions: he belonged to the ‘old school’ and had a firm grounding in the Sanskrit and the folk traditions in music and literature. In his writings, this rootedness comes into vibrant contact with the new and the radical. He didn’t deride his past or tradition in order to embrace the best of modern currents.

Mullanezhi Neelakantan was born in 1948 in a traditional Nambudiri family in Trichur. Though he began to write poems from his childhood, it was Vyloppilly, who discovered the poet in him and guided him in his life and career. Vyloppilly was also instrumental in prompting him join for Vidwan course, and thus to become a school teacher.

He became a film lyricist in 1976, by penning songs for Njavalpazhangal by Azeez (Karukaruthoru pennane..) and Lakshivijayam by K P Kumaran’s (four songs: Pakalinte Virimaril, Ravurangi thazhe, Manathu tharangal punchirichu, Nayaka manuja snehagayaka). If one looks at his oeuvre, both as a lyricist and actor, one can see that from the beginning, Mullanezhi was more comfortable with offbeat films and filmmakers like Azeez, KP Kumaran, Pavithran, Shaji N Karun, MP Sukumaran Nair, Priyanandanan, and Madhu Kaithapram. The mainstream filmmakers, barring a few, were uneasy with his unconventional ways. Yet, whenever he penned for the mainstream, he consistently produced memorable lines, like ‘Pavizhamalli poothulanja neelavanam’ and ‘Kanninu pon kani, kathinu then kani’ in Sanmanassullavarkku Samadhanam by Sathyan Anthikkad, 'Manasoru Manthrika Kuthirayayi’ in Mela, ‘Swapanam kondu thulabharam’ in Veenapoovu by Ambili and in films like Vellam, Chora chuvanna chora, Ayanam, Kayyum thalayum purathidaruthu, and lastly, in Indian Rupee (‘Ee Puzhayum’). More than film songs, Mullanezhi’s forte was writing of songs for albums: his songs in Grameena ganangal by Vidyadharan (Thiru Thakruthi Thirumuttam, Thekkunnu Vannalum, Punchavayal Cherayurakkana Thottampattu) and K Raghavan’s Thoranam ( Punchavayal Punchirikkana Nerathu, Panchara Kunnathu, Thrikkakkarappante) are both very popular and memorable and they freely mix folk, traditional and lyrical-modern themes, tunes and imageries

He was also a theatre activist, leading the Agragami Theatres and wrote many plays, some of which have been collected in the anthology, Samathalam. In theatre, he was inspired by the social reformist movement inaugurated by the likes of VT, MR Bhattathiripad, and Premji. He came to cinema late in his life, but essayed some very striking roles in films like Piravi, Uppu, Kazhakam, Swam, Garshom, Neythukaran and Neelathamara.

An active political worker before he became a teacher, his passion for arts and progressive politics never left him; he was part of all the progressive initiatives that took shape in Kerala in politics and arts, like Peoples’ Science Movement, Literacy Movement, Progressive Writers’ Movement etc. The songs he wrote for the Kalajathas of Sastra Sahitya Parishad and his translation of Brecht poems (Enthinnadheeratha.. ippol thudanganam... ellam nammal patikenam.../ Pattiniyaya manushya nee/ pusthakam kayyiledutholoo etc) were very popular with the activists and one would rarely find a sensitive youth in Kerala who has not sung a line of his. In that sense, Mullanezhi was a true ‘midnight’s child’, someone who lived and voiced the angst and concerns of our land, relentlessly upholding progressive and democratic values throughout his life.

One can never forget his disarming smile and the glint in his eyes. With his departure, we lost a very warm and kind human being who celebrated his life, and always quarreled and engaged with the world with the creative resources at hand. As he himself wrote,
Only a wee bit of time
Do we have, here
But the life that mother gave us
We ought to nurture with goodness.

Ravindran aka Chinta Ravi

2011-07-14T19:49:00.000-07:00

Departure of a Radical Pilgrim

If one were to identify Raveendran a.k.a. Chinta Ravi (1946-2011) with any single characteristic, it would be that of a traveller. Throughout his life, he was fond of journeys – both inward and outward. Shunning all bonds and boundaries, he journeyed across various spaces – all along Kerala, the tribal belt of India and abroad, across genres – journalism, art criticism, film review, cultural studies, travelogue, stories, narration and commentary, and across media – print, film and television. And the ideal traveller that he was, he travelled light: with his commitment to Marxian ideals, concern for the downtrodden, and passion for art .

Midnight's Child

A typical ‘Midnight's Child' of Kerala, born in Kozhikode, Ravi was part of progressive movements and made his mark as a writer by publishing a novelette ‘Athiranipookkal' when he was a student. After completing a journalism course in Mumbai, he came back to Kerala and began penning political articles and features on art and cinema in publications such as Searchlight , Chinta (the ideological mouthpiece of the Marxist party), and Kalakaumudi .

Ravi catalysed critical writing in Malayalam by introducing New Left ideas and ideological criticism. Both in life and writing, Ravi followed the struggles and crises in Marxian ideology and aesthetics, globally and locally. ‘Kalavimarsham: Marxist Manadhandam' (1983), the path-breaking anthology he edited, was a qualitative leap in critical thinking in Malayalam that brought together an array of eminent thinkers to address vital issues relating to politics, art, literature, film, and spirituality. He was always adept at developing apt theoretical terms and concepts in Malayalam, he imaginatively drew words, phrases and usages from local dialects, everyday speech, and Sanskrit, freely mixing them to create a fresh idiom that was simple yet intense.

His travelogues opened up the sensualities of alien lands, evoking our senses through minute descriptions of sights, noises, scents, people, places, and events around him, peppered with a keen sense of history. And all his journeys were to the margins. His best writings are undoubtedly about the tribal people of India from Andhra Pradesh to the North-East, which are rich in ethnographic details and insights.

The three films he made also resonate with the same energy of critique and resistance that charge his writings. Ironically, if his life and writings were all about relentless journeys, his films deal with social and political stasis and the efforts to break away. His first film ‘Harijan' (Telugu) was about downtrodden communities in rural Andhra in the cusp of a political crisis and rebellion. ‘Iniyum Marichhittillatha Nammal' (1980) was about a group of radical youth caught within an oppressive social system that envelops them. Ravi described this film as a ‘film essay,' a treatise that grapples with the dilemma of contemporary youth torn between thought and action, dreams and reality. ‘Ore Thooval Pakshikal' (1988) set against the historical background of the last days of British Raj, is a film that excavates the origins of class consciousness in a remote rubber plantation in Malabar.

Pioneer of art criticism

Ravi was also the pioneer of art criticism. He was fellow traveler of the Indian Radical Painters and Sculptors Association during their show at Kozhikode in 1989. This show, under the leadership of mercurial sculptor Krishnakumar, challenged the art establishment up front , and was the first one of its kind in the country that brought together a number of young artists, who were to dominate Indian art scene in the next decades. Many artists such as Ganesh Pyne, Laxma Goud, and C.N. Karunakaran were close to Ravi, about all of whom he wrote with great sensitivity and detail.

In the 90s Ravi turned to television and made several innovative programmes on art, history, and culture for Doordarshan, Asianet (‘Ente Keralam'), and later, for Real Estate Television (about the architecture and habitat of various South Indian communities). ‘Ente Keralam' (1994 to 1999) was a meandering journey through the everyday life and culture of the State. By introducing people from various walks of life, obscure institutions and events, Ravi held up a mirror towards the often forgotten facets of Kerala's pluralistic culture and its inexorable transformations.

The rich and varied oeuvre of Ravi also follows the radical paradigm shifts in Malayali life, culture, and politics during the last decades, whether it be the tremors of the Naxalite movement, theoretical forays of cultural/art criticism, counter aesthetics in filmmaking, or television programming. A leftist to the core, Ravi never pontificated or sloganeered in his writings and always shunned the vulgarity of the mainstream. Throughout his life, he assiduously kept away from positions of power of all kinds. Ravi revelled in friendship and camaraderie, exuding a certain lightness and vigour in his carriage and demeanour, and in all his exchanges and engagements with the world.

In a way, every traveller shuns destinations, fearing it would end the journey. And like a typical traveller, Ravi too was acutely aware of lands not-yet-visited and destinations unrealised. Towards the end of his life, a feeling that his generation never realised its potential seemed to haunt Ravi. He said in one of his last interviews: “Personally, I think my interests were fragmented; I could never achieve completion in my writings or cinema, nor did I persist long enough with any. I was driftwood of sorts. It happened with many people in my generation, we were caught up in too many flows...” Obviously, it was such frankness and courage to introspect that made and continues to make Ravi dear to all.

adieu chinta ravi

2011-07-13T03:09:00.001-07:00

"Knowledge depends upon travel, upon a refusal to respect boundaries, upon a restless drive toward the margins" Stephen Greenblatt

in 2002, i along with manilal and aslam had done a long interview with ravi at his house, the colour stills are from that footage..

homage to chidananda dasgupta

2011-06-16T00:14:00.000-07:00

Upperstall profile by: Shoma A Chatterji

The film critic in India is marginalized within the world of journalists in general and critics in particular. The investigative journalist, the political commentator, the environmental reporter and the rural explorer lead the hierarchy of journalists with their 'hard-core' writing. Chidananda Dasgupta has changed the scenario forever. Film criticism is now as 'hard-core' as mainstream journalism, though it does not command the space and the platform in the print media the way it used to when Dasgupta was a practising critic. Rather, it is Film Studies that is now a much-in-demand discipline in several universities in India. In this sense, Dasgupta is a pioneer in the movement towards serious writing on cinema, stressing time and again, through his writings, that the distinction between art house cinema and mainstream cinema is a myth. He made history with the Lifetime Achievement Award bestowed on him for Best Writing at the Sixth Osian''s Cinefan Festival of Asian Cinema in July 2004. This is the first ever Lifetime Achievement Award to have been conferred on a film critic and scholar. "I am getting this award at a time when film criticism is almost dying out in India. We spent our lives teaching people the value and worth of cinema. When we first asked for government help to form the first film society, the official at the ministry said, "Film society, what's that?" Thankfully, lots of things have changed since then," he said in his response to the award.

To label Dasgupta only as 'film critic' however, is unfair because he pioneered the film society movement along with like-minded friends Satyajit Ray and Harisadhan Dasgupta in 1947. "A comment from Cyril Connelly, editor of Horizon, who said, "Calcutta is a city which has no film society" set off the trigger, more because Bombay had already laid the foundation for two film societies, one in 1937 and another in 1942. Neither of these evolved into a movement. Nor did they bring about changes in Indian cinema. We decided to change all this. With 50 members at a membership fee of Rs 5.00 per month and Prasanta Mahalanobis as our first President, the membership looked like a veritable Who's Who ofhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif the Calcutta intelligentsia." Dasgupta suggested the forming of a Film Federation and along-with six others. "We met Krishna Kripalani in 1959 and in 1960, the Federation began to function," reminisces Dasgupta.

read more at http://www.upperstall.com/people/chidananda-dasgupta

“It seems death never passed between us..”

2011-06-14T01:44:00.000-07:00

A Conversation with T V Chandran on his new film Sankaranum Mohananum

C S Venkiteswaran

Your new film Sankaranum Mohananum seems to mark a fresh phase in your oeuvre. Compared to your other films, it seems to have a totally different take on life and death. If earlier films were about the all too real yearnings and desires of the here and now, this film is about them outliving death..

Yes. If you look at my earlier films closely, you can see that their narratives were always very much embedded in and sensitive to their historical and sociopolitical atmosphere. In Ponthanmada, Danny, Mankamma, Ormakalundayirikkanam etc you can see this. But in this film it is a sort of trip into the mindscape of a sensitive young man, Mohanakrishnan, whose life is loveless. The storyline goes like this: Sankaran, Mohanakrishnan’s elder brother, a school teacher in his 50’s, suddenly decides to marry his colleague’s young daughter, in order to help him. But once he gets to see Rajalakshmi, he blindly falls in love with her. Tragedy strikes when on the morning after the wedding night, he is bitten by a snake and dies. Though the official funeral is over and done with, Sankaran refuses to leave the world and appears before Mohanakrishnan in various guises, pleading with him to talk to his wife and inform her that he is still around. At first Mohanakrishnan is scared, but he slowly comes to terms with this strange situation. To add to the confusion, Sankaran is visible only to him and he has a tough time convincing others about his existence and his brother’s pleas. Their efforts to block Rajalakshmi’s re-marriage lead to various bizarre and hilarious situations in the film. Mohanakrishnan himself is a man living a lonely life, away and estranged from his wife and child. In the end, his brush with the undead brother and his travails lead Mohanakrishnan back to life and to look at it afresh..

What was the inspiration behind this theme about the dead haunting the living?

Actually, I wanted to do this film around 2000, after I finished Danny. At that time I even discussed the story with Mohanlal. But it didn’t work out, and I moved to other projects. Through years the film grew in me to take its present shape.

The film draws a lot from my personal experience, especially from the sudden and painful death of two persons who were very close to me, my elder brother Madhavettan, and friend and filmmaker John Abraham. Madhavettan, was my elder brother, but he was very much senior and like a father to me, also my guardian and guide. A lecturer by profession, he tried to ‘reform’ me in various ways, weaning me away from ‘bad influences’ and persuading me to pursue my studies. Later he went to Uganda and during a vacation time when his family was about to fly to meet him, he met with a car accident there and died instantly. We never got to see his body; he was cremated there. After that, Madhavettan began to visit me regularly in my dreams, telling me he is not dead, and also about a lot of other things. I could never come to terms with his absence and still can’t believe he is no more. Similarly, the sudden and accidental death of John Abraham was a shock to me. I just can’t imagine him as a dead man; he too appears before me from time to time trying to tell me something, and reminding me he is not dead. “People are lying I am dead” he says.

This film is my attempt to come to terms with the absence of these dear ones. In fact you can see the portrait of John in the film in Mohanakrishnan’s studio, when his wife asks him, “How did he die?” It is my question too: how did he die? Did he die at all? So, this film is also a homage to these two people.

The theme of absence and death is a universal one. Everyone around us will have someone dear who is no more, and about whose absence one has not been able to come to terms with. But the treatment of such a theme can be very bleak and brooding…

This is where this film differs from the usual style. Though this film deals with death and ghostly presences, the story is told in a humorous manner. Even though Mohanakrishnan’s various encounters with his dead brother are macabre in its essence, those scenes will evoke laughter in you. The film is structured around this dual presence - the visible and live Mohanakrishnan who only can see his brother and the invisible presence of Sankaran. There are a number of desperate attempts of Sankaran to make himself visible and present to the others, especially his young bride. But he fails in that and it leads to further and more desperate attempts. In fact, there is a long sequence where the duo plan and attempt to block the re-marriage of Sankaran’s bride that verge on the slapstick. That sequence ends with the image of Chaplin – from the famous poster of The Kid, where the face of Chaplin suddenly turns into that of Sankaran. Adding to the hilarious surface of the macabre undertones of the movie, is the presence of actors like Jagathy Sreekumar, Kalpana and V K Sreeraman.

Q The film also has a very interesting structure, it is like a letter to the undead..

Yes, the film is structured like a letter addressed to Madhavettan and John. It in fact begins my addressing them, and ends with the line from a poem, “it seems death never passed between us…” In between is the shifting and tumultuous mindscape of Mohanakrishnan. Jayasoorya has done a splendid job in the totally different roles of the brothers, with the dead one appearing in different guises and costumes. While one is real, the other is unreal and doesn’t leave any footsteps or traces behind. In one scene, we find them both trying to take a photograph. But the camera fails to capture Sankaran: he is just an absence in the picture. Jayasoorya lived up to the challenge playing these contrasting roles, that of the real Mohanakrishnan and the apparition of his brother.

Later in the film, he begins to see and hear the voices of several people who are dead and have many desires, needs, wants and yearnings, which they want to fulful through him. At the end, there is an indication of his return to the world of the living. We see the protagonist sitting below a peepul tree and gradually removing his make up. His image also gradually disappears from the mirror, and we are left with a make up box and a collection of spectacles – which Sankaran wore in his different guises throughout the film. So, there is a sense of exorcising the undead and a positive return to life and its affirmation at the end, all accomplished through a journey with the dead.

Q Like in your other films, this film also pays homage to your favourite authors, this time Saramago etc..

Later in the film, he begins to see and hear the voices of several people who are dead and have many desires, needs, wants and yearnings, which they want to fulful through him. At the end, there is an indication of his return to the world of the living. We see the protagonist sitting below a peepul tree and gradually removing his make up. The image of Sankarettan also gradually disappears from the background, and we are left with a make up box and a collection of spectacles – which Sankaran wore in his different guises throughout the film. So, there is a sense of exorcising the undead and a positive return to life and its affirmation at the end, all accomplished through a journey with the dead.

Q Like in your other films, this film also pays homage to your favourite authors, this time Saramago etc..

Yes, after I completed the script, I happened to stumble upon Saramago's The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis where he quotes the lines of his poet: “it seems death never passed between us…” This line struck me, because it was exactly the feeling I had about the deaths I was also grappling with. I have used an adaptation of this line at the end of the film.

rain in malayalam cinema - a note

2011-06-06T05:43:00.000-07:00

Only a drizzle, not a downpour

C S Venkiteswaran

Borges, the Argentinian writer, responding to the question why there are no camels in Quran says, “Mohammed, as an Arab, had no reason to know that camels were particularly Arab; they were, for him, a part of reality, and he had no reason to single them out, while the first thing a forger, a tourist, or an Arab nationalist would do is bring on the camels, whole caravans of camels on every page; but Mohammed, as an Arab, was unconcerned; he knew he could be Arab without camels” I think one could say the same about rain in Malayalam cinema. How come we have a very few striking or memorable visual passages of rain in Malayalam cinema? Is it because of its overwhelming presence our lives? Does that limit its metaphorical charge?

Yet, whatever presence rain had in our cinema, it has undergone transformations through time. Till the late 60’s or during the claustrophobic studio-bound decades of early film production, picturisation of rain must have been a technical challenge. In most of the rainy occasions in the narratives of that period, it was mainly to drench the heroine and provide voyeuristic pleasure to the audience; many a time it was a narrative ruse to make the lovers scamper to a lonely shelter away from the eyes of social mores, where it is an all too divine intervention invariably benign to the male. But there were rains of other kinds too. Neelakuyil opens with a heavy rain that lashes outside Satyan’s house; in a way, it is nature’s fury that vainly knocks at the doors of that false messenger of culture and eventually drives the dalit woman Neeli into his hands. In that period rain either re-vealed women for men or accentuated human tragedy, as world’s tears.

It was since the 70’s, when outdoor production and location shooting became more popular that the visual and metaphorical potential of rain were explored. I think there is not a single Adoor film without a rain – it drizzles and pours over human foibles, agonies and angst. In Shaji N Karun’s Piravi, the looming clouds and relentless downpour provide the bleak setting to the protagonist’s vain search for his son. The rain that pours over Mankamma’s dead body in TV Chandran’s Mankamma, is also one that tragically interfaces human fate and the indifference of the world. In Kamal’s Perumazhakkalam too, it has tragic dimensions, while his Azhakiya Ravanan has a song sequence that literally romances with rain, and the final, much awaited downpour in Bharathan's Vaishali has mythic as well as orgasmic dimensions.

I think one of the most romantic and lyrical of rains in Malayalam cinema in Thoovanathumpikal by Padmarajan, where rain stands in as the metaphor for love, in all its unpredictability, physical charm, and yearning.

But one feels that there is a lot more layers and nuances, drizzles and downpours waiting to be explored by Malayalam cinema visually, aurally and thematically

2011-06-03T00:53:00.000-07:00

On a Great Actor

A Thespian Leaves The Stage

The departure of the thespian Ammannur Madhava Chakyar (1917-2008) marks the end of a long, tumultuous yet glorious era in the classical art performance of Kerala. An all time great of Kudiyattam*, he was the one remaining vibrant link connecting the present generation of viewers and artists with the brilliance and also the rigours of a past that had endured many a moment of highs and lows. For, his life spanned the entire history of modern Keralam. Coincidentally, he was born in the year of the Russian Revolution, a historic event that was soon to have deep repercussions on his own society, community, life, and vocation. Spending his childhood during the last heydays of an economic system – the temple economy that sustained and sponsored art forms like Kudiyattam and temple-dependents like Chakyars – he had the fortune to get early training under the tutelage of his uncle the legendary Ammannur Chachu Chakyar, one of the all-time-greats of Kudiyattam. By the time he grew up into an able and noted performer, the temple economy that sustained his art was in shambles. Moreover, the social changes that were sweeping Kerala had other concerns and priorities, and naturally, classical arts like Kudiyattam were not at the top of the list. With the spread of secular art forms, the once elite and popular art forms - both classical and folk – entered the 'endangered' list. Even with the establishment of Kalamandalam, it was Kathakali that got more prominence and international visibility, and not a 'difficult' art like Kudiyattam. Ironically, many of these rich traditions of performance survived through sheer conservatism, and the total commitment and dedication of the practitioners who went on performing (most of the time ritually) despite the shrinking material support and an indifferent audience. No wonder, for Ammannur, performance was like prayer, while he performed, he never saw an audience in front of him, he instead played to the flame of the Nilavilakku lit in front of him. It is this intense and exuberant belief in oneself and one's art, and the understanding and realization of that art as a 'medium' (in the real sense) that must have sustained the likes of Ammannur through those difficult times.

From the early days, Ammannur was noted for his talent that was burnished through training under scholars like Kodungallur Kochunni Thampuran. By the 60's he was considered one among the trinity of Kudiyattam, along with Painkulam Rama Chakyar and Mani Madhava Chakyar. But unlike the other two, Ammannur's career spanned the very history of Kudiyattam across 20th century. For, he entered the scene in its glorious days, spent his youth while it began to be derided, even ridiculed and marginalized, then later, was witness to its gradual resurgence and ultimately, its growing international and local recognition when he reached old age. His life encapsulates the history of the art in many ways; it was a journey from the elite confines of the koothambalam into the open, secular spaces, from obscurity to worldwide renown, from the local to the universal, from the select or condemned few of performers to the secular-many.

Among the trio, though Ammannur was known more for his vacika, and for his mercurial vidusaka, he also shined in other departments, immortalizing characters like Ravana (Thoranayuddham), Bali (Balivadham), Arjuna (Subhadradananjayam) etc. Who can ever forget his performance of the extended death throes of Bali, and the dillydallying Siva, a Lord torn between his love for Parvati and Ganga?

Like his legendary ancestors, he too was vitriolic in his humour; and for him, humour was not just drawn from local scandals as in the case of many of his contemporaries, or mere buffoonery. He brought his deep knowledge of the puranas, mastery over language, and more importantly, understanding about current affairs, into his humorous discourses.

I still remember those dark days of Emergency, when during his performance at Irinjalakuda as Vidusaka, he deliberately wove the political context looming large into his performance, reminding and warning the viewers of its monstrosity, subtly yet very pungently. Thus he in fact re-claimed the essence of being a chakyar today, that of being a critic of the powers-that-be and of speaking truth to power. As he aged, his mastery over all departments blossomed, his angika-abhinaya was graceful and chiseled, and his command over vacika also attained a matured beauty. He was an artist for whom his art was the be-all and end-all of everything. He continued performing, totally engrossed with himself and that enigmatic flame in front.

Actually, the credit for taking Kudiyattam out of the confines of the koothambalam goes to the progressive and daring Painkulam. And it was later popularized by the charming presence of Mani Madhava Chakyar. In the case of Ammannur, it was the very same conservatism that sustained the rigours of the art through the ages that prevented him from coming out. He was the last to come out and perform outside the koothambalam, but once he came out, his brilliance was readily appreciated and recognized all over the world. He not only carried the art to the next century, he was also instrumental in rearing a new generation of Kudiyattam artists and honing the skills of some of the best talents in the art today like Kochukuttan Chakyar, Usha Nangiar and Margi Madhu. His brief but influential stint at Margi School inspired a generation of viewers and disciples.

Now the great thespian has left the stage leaving behind memorable performances and a great legacy.

* Koodiyattam[kutiyattam], meaning 'combined acting' signifies Sanskrit drama presented in the traditional style in temple theatres of Kerala and is the only surviving specimen of the ancient Sanskrit theatre. It has an attested history of a thousand years in Kerala, but its origin and evolution are shrouded in mystery. It seems that Kutiyattam is an amalgam of the classical Sanskrit theatre of ancient India and the regional theatre of Kerala. It is believed that Kulasekhara Varman Cheraman Perumal, an ancient king of Kerala, who ruled from Mahodayapuram [modern Kodungallur] reformed Koodiyattam, introducing the local language for Vidusaka and structuring presentation of the play to well defined units. He himself wrote two plays, Subhadraharana and Tapatisamvarana and made arrangements for their presentation on stage with the help of a Brahmin friend of him called Tolan. These plays are still presented on stage. Apart from these, the plays traditionally presented include Ascaryacudamani of Saktibhadra, Kalyanasaugandhika of Nilakantha, Bhagavadajjuka of Bodhayana, Nagananda of Harsa, and many plays ascribed to Bhasa including Abhiseka and Pratima. The Kutiyattam performance was confined to the temple precincts of Kerala in specially constructed theatres called Kutambalams.

sajith paintings

2011-05-31T20:41:00.000-07:00

Mapping The Neural Networks of Civilisation -

On the Paintings by A.S. Sajith

C S Venkiteswaran

The Terrain Named Diamond White -

According to Sajith what he is attempting to do in this series of paintings and drawings titled The Terrain Named Diamond White is "to observe body through a different faculty which is "neural" in nature. Sense organs furnish only the external in body. We approach the internals through the faculty of consciousness, which is lauded as a thing capable of seeking itself. We think that we think therefore we are." And he places himself outside the usual binaries that we are fond of and seek refuge in. For he is not "a romantic who believes that human being is miniscule before infinity. The capability of human to destroy and construct, to bring about dramatic changes to the environment are rendered in the Terrain series . The paintings unfold repetition, growth and transformation rather than a clear cut preplanned visual."

If his earlier show 'Kari' tried to sketch these intensely and overwhelmingly multiplying details in charcoal, here he breaks out in colour. In these canvases you encounter sights that one could describe as 'out of the body', as they look at our life-world, life and civilization from a perspective or angle that one could term aerial, one that reveals us in our fatal contexts – physical, natural as well as civilisational. Sajith's paintings thus attempt to map the neural layout of perception as well as human condition.

These canvases are an invitation to a maze; they invite you into an engrossing yet dispassionate journey, full of enigmatic encounters and discoveries, and traverse extremes - the most miniscule and the gross, the organic and the inorganic, natural and man-made. While the organic realm teem with flora and fauna – miniscule and proliferating – the other, the man-made yet impersonal realm is busy engrossed in their seemingly repetitive activities and motions. These oneiric images drenched in dull yet luminous hues, are populated by monocultural forests, both of vegetation and urban habitat. Sometimes you find upright phallic structures and formations – a mount, a flag pole - rising up against the teeming and pullulating mass that envelops it. Other times, the growing mass is ruptured by chasms and openings that gape into the void. One encounters such stillness and silence in the middle of the tumultuous animation, like stark and silent reminders of the dark potentials of life and civilization, as it were. Like hope or despair, they persist against the abundance of presence around it, as if mediating between life and death, organic and inorganic. On the other, you also have the crystalline lilac mount rising up from the fluid oceanic vastness that surges around it, a huge yak-like figure submerged in water, its hump and horns sticking out, and a bluish forest of entwining branches with snake-like proliferation below it. All his images place the explosive presence of life and living against the ominous presences of its other.

These paintings encounter us with visions that are somehow freed from our everyday corporeal selves and its perspectival bounds. Accompanying it is a certain sensation of extreme involvement and also non-attachment, a willful duplicity that privileges us with disturbing yet clinical insights into our-selves.

The all-pervasive desolation that arises out of perspective offered by these paintings reminds us of the baffling complexity and boundedness of our life-world – both of body and consciousness, the most subtle and the atomic, the gross and the big. Thus these images follow and map the neural networks of our civilization, one that is simultaneously inside and outside.

On the Exhibition of Paintings by A.S. Sajith at Lalit Kala Akademy Hall, Vailoppilli Sanskriti Bhavan, Thiruvananthapuram in January 2009

on videos

2011-05-31T20:39:00.000-07:00

Videos - Against the Pace of Television and Glitter of Cinema

As a medium, videos exhibit an immediacy, vigour and spontaneity that go beyond both television and cinema. While television frets and fumes, trying to keep pace with the world, these video documentaries pause and pose disturbing questions, pry into the interstices, contemplate upon the uncanny and the 'ordinary' in our life and polity. If cinema is all about spectacles and melodrama, these video features do not conceive or address a passively consuming mass audience, but consider spectators as fellow-travellers in this unpredictable journey of thrilling experiences and troubling thoughts. In other words, these works look at things from below, and are astounding in their diversity.

What distinguishes them is the keen sense of history and location. They are firmly rooted in their space and time, and excavate angles, viewpoints and layers of experience that we often miss in this supposedly 'media-saturated' world. Lalit Vachani's The Salt Stories revisit Gandhiji's legendary Salt March to map the legacies and memories it has left behind in Narendra Modi's Gujarat today. This journey gradually turns into one through history, even while revealing how fragile and deceptive stuff like memories and 'History' are. Here video becomes yet another tool to fight forgetfulness and to reclaim history and memory. Likewise R V Ramani's Nee Yaar? (Who are you?), a film about Sundararamaswamy, the eminent Tamil writer, gradually unravels the conflicting facets of his life – domestic, literary, social and political. Here the video is as unobtrusive as a friend, moving through reminiscences and reflections of his contemporaries and relatives like fish in water. One could describe Sourav Sarangi's Bilal as a searing attempt at 'video neorealism'; this film plays an unflinchingly witness to the life of Bilal the adolescent son of blind parents who are struggling to make a living at the fringes of a metropolitan city like Kolkata. Here, the video camera is a witness to the grind of the everyday, with all its frustrations, violence, and also hopes and dreams.
Ranjan Palit's Forever Young is an enchanting human document about Lou Majow, a rock singer from Shillong, and a great admirer of Bob Dylan. Tracking his life and following him in his nomadic adventures, the film brings out the enigmatic power of music that transcends all barriers. . Anirban Dutta's 'In for motion' is an interesting look at the IT industry in India, its lineage, trajectories of development and the dilemmas it is mired in now, with the personal narrative of the director woven into this 'historical-analytical' narrative. M R Rajan's Cinemayude Kalpadukal (Footsteps of Cinema) looks back at a vibrant period in the history of Malayalam cinema, through the experiences of Sobhana Parameswaran Nair, a producer. For this, it uses film songs along with first person narratives and evocative visuals. Ramachandran's Saamam traces the legacy of an enigmatic singer like MD Ramanathan, where his biography meshes with comments and reflections.

Similarly, in the fiction category also, the videos have a different take on various themes and formats. Most of them do away with 'cinematic' conventions and search for narrative structures that challenge the viewer. A film like Many Stories of Love and Hate (Shyamal Karmakar) weaves a very complex narrative about human relationships, in a very contemplative manner, composing his images and monologues poignantly to create drama. Sherry's Last Leaf is a very daring attempt portraying the love between two nuns that swings between the divine and the carnal, the spiritual and the physical. Murali Manohar's Karna Motcham (a student film) takes a very simple and mundane situation, but succeeds in finely juxtaposing the traditional and the contemporary. Tony Sukumar's When This Man Dies is a dark satire on middle class urban poverty and aspirations, while Shyam Arjun Salunke The passion of cricket takes a hilarious look at how a collective frenzy like cricket sucks us into its vortex turning everyone into a player. If Vishnu Shyamaprasad's A Writer's Affair tries to probe into the very process of script writing, Sreejith Remanan's Yakusha Co Ltd sketches the despair of an actor at the fag end of his career.

The strength of these videos is the easy and effortless use of the camera, which is employed like a pen (a la Astruc's camera stylo), innovatively and freely mixing monologues, texts, multiple screens, chapterisation and commentary. Unlike the documentaries we are used to in its Films Division and Television avatars, these are intensely introspective, and never pose the author as invisible or omnipotent, instead they are very much present and active in the unfolding narrative, hence the prevalence of intimate autobiographical voice-overs in many films.

Ironically, despite the huge audience for film festivals in the state, films from Malayalam seem to be working in isolation from the rest of the country. Most of them seem to be obsessed with the big screen format and tend to use video as its apologetic substitute and not as a medium in itself. This gets reflected in treatment styles also, which is more often very stilted and self conscious, instead of being self-reflexive. One hopes that festivals like this will inspire them to break conventions about the technologies of narration and the fear of bringing oneself into one's work.

(written for SIGNS 2009 Video Festival Book)

BHOOMIMALAYALAM – A Budge Forward

2011-05-31T20:35:00.000-07:00

TV Chandran talks to C S Venkiteswaran

about his filmBHOOMIMALAYALAM

All the films of TV Chandran explore and map the plight of female life in Keralam. Films like Alicinte Anveshanangal, Mangamma, Susanna, Padam Onnu Oru Vilapam, etc look at malayalee women and their lives during the last decades in Keralam. In his latest film, Bhoomimalayalam – literally, Malayalee perception of the world – Chandran weaves together the lives of several women whose lives are struggles for existence and survival, if not, expression and exuberance to excavate the world we inhabit. Bhoomimalayalam received John Abraham award for the Best film this year.

How did this film first occur to you? Was it an image, an incident, a person or a thought?

This film was actually in my mind for a long time. In a way it springs from my film ‘Kathavaseshan’ in which I wanted to use the song of a Pakistani singer. It went like this: “At night, when alone, why are women scared?” (Rath mein andhere mein, ladkiyam kyon darthi hei?). Due to copyright issues, I couldn’t use that song in that film. Instead I gave these lines to Gouhar Raza and created songs for that film. It is from this song that this film sprang, this image of the fear of women when alone. In that way, this film is a continuation of Kathavaseshan in many ways. So, when you say that my film is ‘female-oriented’ it doesn’t make sense, since there are many common elements recurring, and certain moments and characters finding their place in all my narratives..

The issues dealt with and the structure of the film is not something that I ‘thought up’ or developed through research. There are several things happening simultaneously in my mind. For instance, in the film though there are references to many real incidents, none of them are shown in the film. They do not appear as such in the film, but the film is ‘about’ those incidents. More than the incident itself, what becomes important is those who are affected by it. They stand within it and it triggers nightmares in them. Maybe that boy didn’t get drowned like this or that brother was not exactly beaten to death in front of his mother. Maybe these things happened in a different way. And that girl is actually dreaming about a suicide that never happens. The past events in Thillankeri are actually recollected by the daughter who was not even born then. So these incidents are in the background and what the film explores is the aftermath, the effects and affects.

All your films have looked at the plight of women, but Bhoomimalayalam is structurally different from the earlier attempts. Can you elaborate on that?

I think it is a transformation from one to many. In earlier films, I placed one single individual at the centre of the narrative. In this film there are several women. This film weaves together the experiences of seven different young women from different walks, times and parts of Kerala. All of them share something between them - fear – something that pervades their lives. And they all have nightmares.

What I am trying to do is to map the consciousness of a region through the lives, experience, dreams and anxieties of these women. In this narrative, the conscious and the unconscious mesh together. That was what I was trying to explore

I have also tried to map it in time and space; you have incidents and places of 1948 and then the present; likewise you can also find the narrative stretching geographically across Keralam. It is also a rumination upon our present ‘state’ – a stocktaking of sorts through time. This, I think is a shift from my earlier films.

In a way it is history, history as nightmare..

But each woman experiences, understands and faces them differently. In the film you find that one girl accepts the murder and then the death of two men in her lives, another one escapes a rape attempt, yet another one survives a divorce, while one girl is pregnant and alone, she is helpless. Finally one girl triumphs and makes a leap, out and away, from this nightmare. This is how the film is structured. And I don’t end the film on the girl who wins. Instead it ends with the other girl who is witness to it, who for me represents all the others. Maybe they all desired that triumph, like her, the winner. So again, more than the incident itself, it is the look and experience triggered by it that the film follows..

Where does this film find a place in your oeuvre?

I consider the words of Mani Kaul, who was the Jury chairman for the John Abraham Awards about the film a great recognition. He said we are nobody to judge a film. So what one can do is to see whether a film is able to move the medium of cinema a bit forward. Judgment is all about this and not comparing one with another and placing one against and above the other.

I found those words of Mani Kaul very important and inspiring. For I believe that through each and every film, what I am trying to do is to move an inch forward from where we are, to make a budge..

Producer of a Film Era in Malayalam

2011-05-31T20:33:00.001-07:00

SHOBHANA PARAMESWARAN NAIR

“Our cinema should not be like what it is now. The characters should speak like the way we speak and eat the way we eat. And they should wear the same clothes as we do” said Shobhana Parameswaran Nair in an interview about how they made Neelakuyil (1955). Along with other pioneers of the time like Ramu Kariat, P Bhaskaran, A Vincent and KS Sethumadhavan, Vayalar and Devarajan, TK Pareekutty, Sathyan and Kumari, he was one of those persons who was instrumental in giving Malayalam cinema a body and soul of its own.

The departure of Shobhana Parameswaran Nair marks the end of an era in Malayalam cinema, one that was marked by camaraderie and cooperation, one in which a fledgling industry was freeing itself from its several dependencies, and finding its own form and voice. But for a producer and visionary like Parameswaran Nair, Malayalam cinema would have been poorer by several towering legends.

In Cinemayude Kalpadukal, M R Rajan’s 3-hour long documentary on Shobhana Parameswaran Nair, the latter reminisces that it was after watching B N Reddy’s film Devata (1941), that he fell in love with the medium. Devata was a landmark film in the history of south Indian cinema that attempted to break away from the loud theatricality of the times and to find an ‘indigenous’ idiom. The period in which Shobhana Parameswaran Nair entered film production (early 60’s) was also one when Malayalam cinema was breaking away from the claustrophobic studio sets and melodramatic modes to rediscover itself in local soil and idioms. The period witnessed a spate of films that were realistic in approach and progressive in their concerns.

Shobhana Parameswaran Nair, a still photographer by profession, represents that fraternity that ushered in radical change in Malayalam cinema, and it included actors and actresses, scenarists and lyricists, producers, technicians and musicians. He associated with some of the best works of the period like Neelakuyil, Bhargavinilayam and Rarichan Enna Pouran before becoming a producer. Though he produced only a handful of films – the most significant of them between 1963 and 1978 – he represents the spirit of his times in various ways. Through these films he led the way to virtually transplant Malayalam cinema to Kerala, both physically and thematically. It was not just the discovery of locations like the surroundings of Bharathapuzha, but was also through symbiotically linking cinema with our literary, imaging and musical traditions. Suddenly, our cinema began to vibe with our longings and belongings.

An ardent reader, he was close to many creative writers of the period like Vaikom Muhamed Basheer, M T Vasudevan Nair etc with whom he had lifelong association. It was he who persuaded the latter to write film script – Murappennu in 1965 which was his first, and then Nagarame Nandi in 1967, thus virtually inaugurating a new age in Malayalam cinema. The film scripts of established writers like MT and Uroob, firmly placed cinema in contemporary space, time and culture. In their commitment to realism and reality, they rediscovered and literally re-located Malayalam cinema in local spaces, communities and locales. For instance, Bharathapuzha and its surroundings, and Valluvanadan slang which became the norm in Malayalam cinema in the decades to come, were identified and celebrated first by MT Vasudevan Nair scripts; regional slang, milieu and ways of life, folk music and rustic comedy thus became part of cinema. If till then, Malayalam cinema industry as well as its themes and even storylines and musical scores were drawn from Tamil and Hindi, this period saw a new self-awareness and consciousness about one’s own tradition and surroundings. And Parameswaran Nair was in the forefront of that transition, catalyzing and facilitating it.

His films are landmarks of Malayalam film industry and they map the emotional and thematic concerns of the period. For each film, Shobhana Parameswaran Nair chose different writers and directors. For his debut film Ninamaninja Kalpadukal he chose a novel by Parapurath. It was directed by N N Pisharoty and won Silver medal at the national level. If his next two films were written by MT Vasudevan Nair, he chose the story of Perumbadavan Sreedharan for Abhayam, which was a film about a female writer, and was directed by Ramu Kariat. For this film, he used a bunch of original poems by legendary writers like Vallathol, Changampuzha, Sugathakumari, G Sankara Kurup etc. His next film Kallichellamma was based on a G Vivekanandan novel and was directed by P Bhaskaran, and Ammuvinte Attinkutty, children’s film by Ramu Kariat was based on a story by DK Pottekat. Apart from their deep sense of milieu and emotional intensity, his films will also be remembered for unforgettable songs of haunting quality and charm.

What makes Parameswaran Nair different from other producers – even of that period – was his ability to play the role of a catalyst to the whole process of filmmaking. For him filmmaking was not just about finance and profits, because his capital was not money but passion, and he wanted to make films that were really contemporary and timeless. As a producer, his involvement and commitment was total in all departments of the art. Whether it be the identification of the story, choice of actors (artists like Madhu, Jyotilakshmi etc played their first major roles in his films), scenarists, lyricists or directors (Ninamaninja Kalpadukal was N N Pisharoty’s debut film), Parameswaran Nair followed his own tastes and hunches, most of which proved to be trendsetters later. And it was a period when filmmaking was a celebration of friendship and creativity. It was this quality that endeared ‘Paramu Annan’ to filmmakers and films lovers of his generation and of the future.

- The Achani of ‘Art’ Cinema

2011-05-31T20:28:00.000-07:00

K Ravindran Nair

K Ravindran Nair, fondly called ‘Achani Ravi’ or ‘General Pictures Ravi’ could be described as a single-man army who sustained the ‘art film’ movement in Malayalam. From the late 70-s to the mid-90’s, he produced some of the most significant films that won national and international acclaim and put Malayalam cinema on the world map. The most important films of the two great auteurs of that period – Aravindan and Adoor Gopalakrishnan – came out under the banner of General Pictures.

What brought Ravindran Nair, a cashew producer and exporter, into cinema was his lifelong passion for literature and arts. A successful businessman, he was able to hit the right combinations from the beginning. His first film ‘Anveshichu Kandethiyilla’ (1967) based on a novel by Parapurathu and directed by P Bhaskaran was an instant hit. It told the story of a woman fighting against all odds to make a life of her own. It was a passionate story that raised troubling questions about the role of women in our society. He followed it up with two more films by P Bhaskaran in 1968 (Lakshaprabhu and Kattukurangu) which were also successful. His next film Achani (The Axle) directed by A Vincent was a big box office hit and` eventually became his first name. From then on he was known as “Achani Ravi”. Achani was about a self-sacrificing elder brother who toiled all his life for others in the family. The theme definitely touched some raw nerve in the Malayalee psyche and had several ‘remakes’ in Malayalam cinema in the coming decades. And it marked a turning point in the career of Ravi also.

From the beginning Ravi was committed to the quality of films that he produced, which was evident in his choice of themes and directors. He never considered cinema as a means for money-making alone. In cinema, he sought expression for his ‘non-commercial’ dreams. And he entered cinema when well established producers and production houses dominated the scene. So, from the beginning his aim was to carve a niche for himself, not just through instant and local commercial successes, but through quality and experimentation, and in creating brand equity of his own.

During the next one and a half decades, he produced films that broke all norms and transformed the very idea of cinema in Malayalam. Before him, no other producer would have given such free rein to his directors, and that too, with absolutely no pressures to conform with any norms – commercial, aesthetic or formal. And his was not an intervention that was half-hearted or half-baked. He consistently produced films, year after year. Aravindan’s most memorable films like Kanchanaseetha (1977), Thampu (1978) Kummatti (1979) Esthapan (1979) and Pokkuveyil (1981) were produced by General Pictures. Kanchanaseetha, one of the most poetic films in Malayalam, was a freakishly free adaptation of a CN Sreekantan Nair play; it had no stars; nor did it even have a ‘proper’ storyline or follow any narrative conventions. Likewise, Pokkuveyil was a film that used a young poet and his poetry to weave a tragic narrative of the creative and political hallucinations of the time. It still remains one of the most haunting films of the period. Interestingly, for this film, music was recorded first (Hariprasad Chaurasia in flute and Rajeev Tharanath in Sarod, both elaborating upon Rag Shubha Pantuvarali), and then visuals were rendered to suit those musical scores

In the following years, Ravi went on to produce a series of films with Adoor Gopalakrishnan: Elipathayam (1981) Mukhamukham (1984), Anantharam (1987) and Vidheyan (1993). These films, like Aravindan’s, are some of the best cinematic works of Indian cinema. The first two films look at men caught within the traps that systems raise around them. While Elipathayam excavated the claustrophobic world of a man caught within a decadent feudal system, Mukhamukham is one of the most introspective of films on the degeneration of communist movement in Keralam. Anantharam, most enigmatic of love stories on celluloid, dwelt upon the splintering inner world of a man yearning for love. Vidheyan, the last film produced by Ravi, is an adaptation of a Zachariah novelette, an intense portrayal of a sado-masochist relationship between a ruthless master and his ‘self-less’ slave. In 1982, Ravi also produced Manju (1982) directed by MT Vasudevan Nair based upon his own novel.

It was because of visionaries like Ravi that the tradition of ‘parallel’ cinema still survives in Malayalam cinema. It did not die out like it did in other languages with the retreat of state agencies. What makes Ravi different is his vision and commitment. According to him, “I did not make ‘experimental’ cinema. I only made good cinema.” He was a producer that any filmmaker would dream of. He dared to make films that he believed in and would outlive their times. And for that, he put full faith on his directors, and they made works that gave a sense of pride and identity to Malayalam cinema. Those films are sure to inspire generations of cineastes. This year’s J C Daniel Award is a fitting recognition of his contributions to the spirit of good cinema.

Fear and Freedom –

2011-05-31T20:16:00.000-07:00

Exhibition of Photographs by Shaju Subramanian

Photography is the most frustrating of occupations in today’s world. When everyone is a photographer happy clicking on digital cameras and mobile phones, how does a professional photographer find space and seek the attention of others with what is one’s bread and butter, and also life, blood and tears? In a world that is inundated with photographic images, can yet another image hope to signify something? Shaju Subramanian’s photograph exhibition at Trivandrum Press Club – Fear and Freedom – addresses this challenge by inviting the viewer to ponder and reflect upon that primal object of all imaging – the human body. Obviously, Shaju is not a photographer who revels in excess, but an intense observer who waits for the right light and moment and all the attendant risks and surprises. Placing the human body against our vision, these photographs invite us into a dialogue with the human form, one that is increasingly being devalued both by mental and physical intrusions – through the excess of digital/ized images that assault our minds and eyes, and the various prosthetic devices that invade our body.

At the centre is the body, our only and ultimate prison, only means for expression and exuberance, and the only vehicle to freedom as well as fear. These images of the naked male body celebrate its corpo-reality, as the world grinds its way through it, leaving its marks and signatures all over. Here, the body stretches, squirms, and writhes, as if engrossed in itself and creates abstract forms revealing the world in its bodily affects and effects. Pure and resplendent in its nakedness, the world is inscribed on it and the body itself becomes the eye and the object for the eyes of the beholder. Shunning the digital and its ‘post-shoot’ techniques, these images are moments of that enigmatic encounter between the lens and the body; and they work through variations in colour temperature, lighting and tonalities, mapping the most visceral and the abstract, or, History and his-story.

These images - often contorted, partial, and enclosed upon itself - are also an invitation to the freedom and exuberance of nudity; they open our vision into ourselves through our own bodies, naked and direct, plain, unmediated, freed and abstracted from its various shackles – of attire, backgrounds and settings. They are never placed against anything except the light that burns it and the darkness that looms all over. In their pristine solitariness, these images celebrate the body and its image, and in the process, the possibilities of freedom and also that of fear.

RAAMANAM – ON ADAPTATION AND REVELATIONS

2011-05-31T20:11:00.000-07:00

MP Sukumaran Nair talks about his new film Raamanam

Raamanam is an adaptation of ‘Smarakasilakal’ the celebrated novel by
Punathil Kunhabdulla. What were the challenges in making a film out of
a much-read novel that was written decades ago?

It was a daunting task and there were difficulties at different
levels. The novel is actually set in the 1940’s as can be guessed from
its reference to the Onchiyam incident. When you take up such a story,
one cannot mechanically reproduce it today. After Babri Masjid
demolition, one cannot conceive of the Muslim society in Keralam or a
character like Thangal in such a manner. Maybe one can take such
liberties in literature, but in a visual medium like cinema, it’d look
totally apolitical and retrogressive today..

What about the narrative style followed by Punathil?

Punathil has his own style that is very readable. But though he is
descriptive in a sensual way and very articulate about sensual
aspects, he does not give us many visual clues. Moreover, I had to
visualize a milieu with which I was not very acquainted.His
descriptions about life in the Thangal family indicate a big joint
family, but character-wise, it looks like a small family. Thangal’s
relationship with Neeli itself is very ambiguous. All this made the
task of fixing the visual coordinates arduous. But Punathil’s novel is
rich with stories about people, places, incidents etc. I have drawn
this aspect into the film.

still from Raamanam

You’ve placed your narrative in the period between 1970 and 1990’s.
How and why did you’ re-historicize’ the narrative?

The novel is apparently set in the 1940’s when independence struggle
was raging all over. But the only indication of this is the mention
about Onchiyam incident. Historically, I begin the narrative of the
film in the 1970’s when a split occurs within the Muslim League with
one faction moving closer to the left. You can see that Thangal
belongs to the pro-left faction, and so, the film traverses that
historical trajectory followed by two other historical moments: the
Emergency and Babri Masjid demolition. That is how I structured the
narrative time of the film.

Thangal is more of a libertine in the novel and his sexual escapades
are numerous and dominant…

One cannot possibly portray him like that now. If I do so, it will
distort the very image of the community and can lead to dangerous
readings in the present context. For instance, a scholar who had done
research on the novel told me that the violent death he meets with in
the end was in a way a punishment to his actions in life. But my
attitude to this character was different; I didn’t want to portray him
like that, especially now. Despite everything, he has a certain kind
of eccentricity in him, which prompts him to give refuge to Neeli,
adopt her son as his own, educate him and his daughter, and teach the
latter an art like Nangiarkoothu etc. He is not a normal person in
that sense. All this places him in a very different manner in the film
narrative.

But there is a strong thread of goodness running through the novel.
For instance the personal care he takes for someone like Eramullan,
the horse, Neeli etc. It is something that defies any kind of
stereotyping. I took that element too from the novel.

In all your early films, you have worked with other contexts and
communities. How was your encounter with this milieu?

During the shooting of the film, I had the opportunity to mingle with
many people there, both men and women. I met a lot of old women who
were active in the communist party and had taken part in street
processions etc. But in the present, I felt that there is a certain
sense of insecurity running deep within the community. I don’t know
whether it is fear or anger or suspicion. This was evident in the way
local people interacted with us. Majority of them earnestly wanted to
help us in the shooting by finding locations etc but were reluctant to
do so; they seemed to be afraid of something. I felt very sad about
it, because it is not at all a healthy. It indicates the positions
into which we’ve driven a progressive community like the Muslims in
Malabar. Evidently, the Babri Masjid demolition has affected the
community in a very profound manner. So, I think its inclusion in the
film was also justified by my experience during shooting. I never
thought its repercussions were so deep..

This is also being telecast as a television serial, isn’t it?

Yes, but I shot the film and teleserial in different formats and with
two different camera setups. The serial dwells much more upon details,
subplots and other characters in the novel. But a film can’t afford
it.

A Film and A Time

2011-05-31T20:05:00.000-07:00

Njatadi – The Film and its Time

Films follow curious lives. While some films are remembered for their
memorable story, character or acting, certain films stand apart for
their radical otherness and refusing to play to the dominant tunes of
the time. The latter kind are rediscovered as moments in history. The
case of ‘Njatadi’, debut film by Gopi made in 1979, is one such story.

Gopi, director of Njatadi at the sets

Literally ‘njatadi’ means the bed of seedlings in a paddy field; it is
the site where fresh seedlings are weeded, sorted and kept for
planting. Thought njatadi itself does not result in any yield, the
tender plants in it provide the future harvest. In that sense,
‘Njatadi’ the film could be seen as a metaphor of sorts. Most of those
who were part of this venture went on to make significant
contributions in cinema and other fields: Gopi, its director, actors
like Murali, K R Mohanan (now Chairman of Kerala Chalachitra Academy)
and Aliyar, cinematographer Vipin Mohan, etc. It featured several
other first-time actors like veteran journalist V R Korappath,
Kalamandalam Girija, MK Gopalakrishnan etc. It was also entirely shot
and processed in Keralam.

Paradoxically, the film was screened only twice and its print still
untraceable. For a film like that, which was seen only by a few, there
is every chance of it being relegated to the oblivion. But in the case
of Njatadi it was not so. On September 24th , after 30 years, the
group of youngsters who made that film possible got together to
refresh their memories.
They paid homage to the stalwarts who departed during this long
interregnum: director Gopi, Murali, Korapath, producer-organiser Dr KN
Sreenivasan etc.. In that sense, Njatadi is more than just a film.
Though the film in its physical form is irretrievable, the spirit
behind it survives.

A Still from Njatadi

To mark the occasion, a book and a video documentary on the film was
also released. The book – Njatadi Smaranakal - edited by K Bhaskaran
contains personal memoirs of those who took part in the making of the
film. Apart from such reminiscences, the 20-minutes video documentary,
pieces together the narrative of the film through poignant stills from
it. The book and the documentary, unique in their mission, are earnest
attempts at recapturing a lost film, and in the process, memories,
incidents and experiences that such an experiment involved in the late
70’s. What transpires through these personal flashbacks, are the sheer
joy of doing something new, the exhilaration of collective, selfless
action and also its attendant frustrations.

As one of the main organizers and the scenarist of the film, TK
Kochunarayanan recalls the period: “All over the world, 1970’s mark
radical changes in political thinking. Naturally it had its resonance
in India and Keralam too. There were fresh sprouts of an ideology that
was committed to providing the villages a new life and vigour. In
Keralam, it had the resonances of a rural wake up song and was the
indigenous version of an ideology that inspired the youth and rattled
the old. Caught in its tune and rhythm were some young minds, who were
ready to take up that arduous journey to achieve lasting peace.”
According to him, this was the background that made ‘Njatadi’
possible.

Any act of remembering is also an act of defiance against forgetting.
By keeping memories alive, we make vital links not only with the past,
but also to the future. Such remembrance is sure to inspire the
njatadis in the present too.

Another Great Actress Leaves the Stage

2011-05-31T20:03:00.000-07:00

ADOOR BHAVANI

C S Venkiteswaran

Acting in cinema is not like any other vocation. Appearance in films and the ‘recognition’ that invariably follows transports the actor/actress into a magical world where nothing else matters. It holds a fatal attraction despite umpteen disappointments, ups and downs all along - in the form of one’s role being editing out, films bombing at the box office or never getting released, and almost invariably, bounced cheques that never get realized or even regretted. But the lure of the tinsel world is such that once there, one is doomed for life. In the case of artists who survive by doing ‘side roles’ this can be an especially frustrating experience. For even while one floats over the tinsel froth and tides, there persists a certain emptiness within, a lurking feeling that one hasn’t been able to play a fulfilling and challenging role that is equal to one’s talent and experience. Many an artist fades out and dies with this feeling, neither making it big personally or financially.

The demise of Adoor Bhavani augurs such sad thoughts in one’s mind. She had been a very impressive presence in Malayalam cinema for at least five decades (1953-2003). Yet she never got a real break like some of her colleagues, like for instance, Premji in Piravi, Adoor Bhasi in Cheriyachante Kroorakrithyangal, Bahadoor, though very late in his life, in Thilakkam, Oduvil in Oru Cherupunchiri etc. She had to remain at the margins throughout her carrer like many other stalwarts of her generation: S P Pillai, Paravur Bharathan, Alummoodan, Kuthiravattom Pappu, Meena, Philomena etc. Yet they all firmly etched themselves into our memory through small roles yet striking performances.

Adoor Bhavani virtually stumbled into films with Sariyo Thetto in 1953. From the beginning, she had a style of her own, for she was neither a conventional ‘beauty’ nor was she known for her dancing skills. But her persona had a rustic charm and vitality that immediately vibed with the audience, an unassuming style that was intimate and neighbourly. As she could effortlessly transform herself into the character, her very presence added a certain rootedness to the ambience of the narrative. In that sense, she was a ‘milieu actress’; all her impressive performances were of characters belonging to a definite milieu, for eg. as a fisherfolk woman Chakki in Chemmeen, the self-effacingly loyal Nair sister to her brother in Koottukudumbam, the friendly Muslim neighbour in Kadalpalam, Chellamma’s guaradian-neighbour and fellow street vendor ‘Valliakkan’ in Kallichellamma or the proud but caring mother-in-law in Kodiyettam

No wonder her gradual sidelining within Malayalam film narrative coincided with the retreat of such milieu-based narratives, and its withdrawal into male-dominant, upper caste/middle class homes, where aged people and women were mere appendages. If actresses like Kaviyoor Ponnamma and Sukumari graduated to motherly roles and those like Meena and Philomena tried their hands at comedies, Adoor Bhavani persisted with small but serious roles. Though she was often typecast, she was able to handle all such roles with equal charm and ease. Like many of her contemporaries, for whom acting was never just a career, her last days too were spent in loneliness and penury: another instance of our utter disregard for art.

Adoor Bhavani was one of the last representatives of a generation of actors who came to cinema from theatre; their acting style drew its energy from stage experience. With the varied and direct encounters they thus had with spectators all over Kerala, they could make their presence felt in film too without resorting to any kind of antics or exaggeration, even in very small roles and brief appearances. They easily became part of the narrative milieu and merged perfectly with its ambience. Sadly, Adoor Bhavani was one such actress, of whose talents Malayalam cinema could only capture a few glimpses.

Raoul Peck

2011-05-31T19:56:00.000-07:00

RAOUL PECK – FROM AFRICA TO THE WORLD AND BACK

C S Venkiteswaran

“I am not interested in avant-gardist narrative form, but rather in ideological deconstruction. The idea is by multiplying angles and superposing layers of narrative, you can create a different perception, closer to reality. I advance step by step, trying all possible combinations.”

The Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck’s oeuvre deals with some of the most troubling questions of contemporary Third World politics and life: the exploitation under the new global economic order, lack of visionary leadership within and fragmentation of the socio-political fabric, and the haunting memories and the harrowing present of diasporic life. All these themes recur in Peck films, though they are set in various milieu, cultures and nations.

The life of Raoul Peck also traverses a very curious path. Born in Haiti, his parents fled the Duvalier dictatorship when he was 8, and found asylum and a new life in the recently independent Republic of Congo. He was educated in Haiti, Zaire (Congo) and later studied engineering and economics at Berlin University, worked as a journalist and photographer from 1980 to 1985, and received his film degree from the Berlin Academy of Film and Television in 1988. For a brief period, he was also the Minister of Culture in Haiti. His oeuvre includes short experimental works, political documentaries and features. His first feature film feature The Man by the Shore (1993) was nominated for the Golden Palm at Cannes in 1993. His later films, Lumumba: Death of a Prophet (1992) and The Man By The Shore (1993), Lumumba (2000) Moloch Tropical (2009) etc have received international acclaim.

It was indeed a very strange journey for an African filmmaker like Raoul Peck, who is always haunted by his roots and frustrated by its historical trajectories. For Peck, it has always been a struggle of discovery and reinterpretation. Though his films have been consistently criticized by his opponents for its ‘partisan’ views, he has never relented. Film after film, he has dug into the very roots of the condition of Africa today. Haitian Corner, the film which first drew international attention to him, is about a Haitian in New York who, like his parents fled Haiti during the Duvalier dictatorship. One day in the street the protagonist thinks he recognises someone who tortured him and from then on, he is obsessed with the idea of revenge. It is a film about the conditions to which the dispossessed are driven. In The Man by the Shore Raoul Peck takes up the complex relationship between the victim and torturer, and the diabolic dimensions of violence in sociopolitical life. His most well known film is on Lumumba, first a documentary and then a feature, which chronicles the events surrounding the leader’s assassination - an event that shattered of the great hope of African unity and self-determination. It has been hailed as a heartwrenching film both for cinematic and political reasons, as it depicts a visionary leader caught in the crossfire of colonial economic interests on the one side and African ethnic intrigues on the other.

In Desounen: Dialogue with Death, is a fantastic dialogue between Death and a peasant, interspersed with interviews with Haitians from different walks of life. Formally, this film uses an open, dialogic format where fantasy and reportage converge. Sometimes in April, another landmark film, deals with the traumatic events surrounding the massacre in Rwanda, the fatal procrastination of justice and the criminal indifference of the international community. Raoul Peck's most recent work Moloch Tropical is an clinical examination about the workings of the mind of a tyrant, ruler of a country but ultimately a petty human being caught between personal-psychological and global-political forces. His documentaries also have probed the same themes incisively. His Profit and Nothing But! is about another dictatorship - that of global capital that has devastated "developing nations" like Haiti. In Haiti, Silence of the Dogs, he returns to the theme of political intrigues and the eventual betrayal of the people.

television and malayalee

2011-05-31T19:52:00.000-07:00

Television and Malayalee Life

C S Venkiteswaran

Television is an ubiquitous presence in Malayalee life. Within a brief period, it has emerged as the most popular and influential medium in our society and polity. Setting our political agenda, voting patterns, culinary preferences, and even our personal tastes, this omnipotent medium virtually wields the power to create, sustain and destroy. Many an issue has been raised and erased by it, and many a politician and public personality made and demolished by it, throwing all notions about the private and the public into disarray,. Nowadays, it also creates singers or performers out of all of us, through its umpteen ‘reality’ shows.

The televisual experience of a Malayalee household is a multilayered affair and functions at least at four levels: the local cable television channel that beams local news, events and programmes, the language channels that now address Malayalam-speaking population across the globe, the ‘national’ channels in Hindi and English, and the international channels. And these channels together provide an astounding variety of programmes - news and entertainment, education and spirituality, movies and sports. It is impossible to imagine how anyone could wade his/her way through this maze every day.

If one takes the Malayalam telecast by Doordarshan in 1985 as a beginning, Television, has never since ‘looked back’. The new economic policies of the 90’s and the ‘opening up of the sky’ brought in its wake, the cable TV revolution, which virtually opened the flood gates of images, information and narratives into our homes. In 1993, the first non-Hindi satellite channel in the private sector in India, Asianet, came and transformed the entire scene; Sun (1998) and Kairali (2000) soon followed. Yet another major initiative came in the form of 24 Hours news channel, Indiavision in 2003. If anyone thought that for a narrow strip of land with a media-hungry population of around 30 million, this was too much, they were proved wrong. Still more channels entered the scene: Jeevan, Amrita, Manorama, People, Kiran, and Yes, apart from the umpteen spiritual channels. Yet another important sector that often goes unnoticed is the overwhelming presence of cable TV networks and their local channels. The cable TV networks in Keralam are not mere distributors of electronic signals but producers as well. Many of them have regular news bulletins and telecast local events live to their audience. The ACV and its Rosebowl (the only metro channel worth its name in Keralam), and Kerala Vision, which is a state-wide channel, also beam programmes round the clock. As for the economic model that sustains such proliferation of channels, one is left clueless, for this has not happened in any other language in India. Of one thing one can be sure, the size of total television ad revenue has definitely not grown in proportion with the increase in the number of channels. Yet, the channels manage to survive! That is Kerala Model in television for you. Obviously, such proliferation is driven not only by economic and political interests, but also by communal, regional and other interests. Surely, it also has to do with the insatiable media appetite of Malayalees.

When television sector was opened up for private players, it was feared that it would lead to ‘MTV-isation’ of our culture. But when one looks back, what one finds is not an one-way flow, but a complex process of acceptance, rejection as well as adaptation. But has proliferation actually led to diversity in content? Sadly, no. If one flips through these channels one is struck by similarity rather than difference. Channel after channel follow the same patterns, formats and even time schedules. The crucial question is, despite this massive expansion of media time and space, whether real issues and the marginalized in our society find a place there.

One significant change that has occurred during the past decade is the capture of television by the people. Till recently, spectators were passive consumers of television content: they watched serials, news programmes and live events, heard professional singers and enjoyed trained performers. But now, the roles are reversed. With the reality shows, all hitherto avid viewers of television have become performers with the ‘professionals’ watching and judging them. With citizen journalism, anyone with a mobile is a potential TV journalist.

So is the case with news. Every other issue becomes ‘Breaking News’ and issues often reduced to mudslinging. If people discussed politics in tea shops and reading rooms earlier, now they discuss about TV news and reports about it. With television’s overwhelming emphasis on the local, are we losing sight of the national and the global and its perspectives?

Anyway, television is here to stay and very much part of our lives. What comes of it depends upon what we make of it.

Master of the Realm of the Senses

2011-05-31T19:44:00.002-07:00

P Padmarajan - Master of Realm of the Senses

C S Venkiteswaran

I am my beloved’s, and his desire is for me

Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the fields, and lodge in the villages;

Let us go out early to the vineyards, and see whether the vines have budded,

Whether the grape blossoms have opened and the pomegranates are in bloom.

There I will give you my love”

- Song of Solomon, VII:10-12

It is unbelievable that two decades have passed since Padmarajan left us! It may be because of the fact that he and the enchanting words and images he created never lost their charm and are still close to our heart.

Though his life was short, Padmarajan (1945-1991) was very prolific as a writer and filmmaker. He was one of the youngest authors to receive Kerala Sahitya Academy Award for his very first novelNakshathrangale Kaval at the age of 27. He went on to publish around 17 books of fiction, wrote as many highly successful scripts for filmmakers like Bharathan, KG George, IV Sasi and Mohan, and directed 18 films during the brief period between 1979 (Peruvazhiyambalam) and 1991 (Njan Gandharvan), apart from editing many of his own films! And even when he was busy making films, he continued to write till the end.

In literature, he belonged to a generation of writers who were in many ways the midnight’s children: born into a period of great hope they matured into a bleak era of utter loss of belief. Devoid of the baggage of ideologies or legacies, they vociferously quarreled with everything, though they were not sure about their dreams. In their works was a virtual and ‘literal’ explosion of sensuality. Padmarajan’s works of fiction like Nanmakalude Sooryan, Shavavahangalum Thedi, Manjukalam notta Kuthira, Prathimayum Rajakumariyum, Pukakkannada, Syphilisinte Nadakkavu andRithubhedhangalude Paarithoshikam belong to that tradition and charged with existential angst and carnal yearnings. Even the very titles suggest an earthy otherworldliness about them.

In the mid-70’s, Padmarajan started writing film scripts, and established enduring partnerships with directors like Bharathan, Mohan, and IV Sasi, whose films ushered in a new sensuality in Malayalam cinema. Even after becoming a director himself, he didn’t stop writing for others. Starting in 1975 with Prayanam for Bharathan, Padmarajan went on to write scripts for other directors till the end: his last script was Eee Thanutha Veluppankalathu in 1990 for Joshi. And all his screenplays invariably dealt with his favourite themes: desire, passion, memory, love, sex and violence.

He was basically a storyteller par excellence. Though apparently, his stories and films teem with ‘ordinary’ men and women, and very ‘local’ cityscapes and villages, these people and places are charged with a raw and explosive kind of passion and desire; they lie dormant within them and is aroused at the slightest instance: it can be the arrival from outside of a man or woman, an unexpected turn of events or an accident. At the centre of all his films is this sudden intrusion of the ‘real’ that leads to the eruption of tempestuous passions lying behind the placid surface of these lands and mindscapes.

His first film Peruvazhiambalam (1979), one of the finest films in Malayalam, is an incisive examination of how violence or totalitarianism works in our society that dealt with disturbing questions relating to masculinity and how people adore and dread it at the same time. Very few people resist it directly; some exile themselves in space, while others do the same in time, hoping for better times. It is the meek who are forced to resist and rebel, but once the act of violence is perpetrated, the mantle of ‘heroism’ is thrust upon them too, which is nothing but another invitation to domination.

In Oridaththoru phayalvaan (1981), which won an award at Asian Film Festival, it is the arrival of a wrestler that creates ripples in the village, and sets passions in motion. His towering body is an alien object that triggers desire, admiration, jealousy and also avarice. In the end, the village spits him out, and regains its calm, but in the process, several hearts have been wounded and minds set aflame. Both Kallan Pavithran (1981) and Arappattakettiya Gramathil (1986) are voyages into another world. While Pavithran, a smalltime thief is accidentally transported into a world of wealth and luxury, in the latter, the casual sexual escapade of the group of youth all of a sudden turns into a nightmare of sorts. Transgressive love is a recurring theme in Padmarajan. Both in Prayanamand Rathinirvedam (both directed Bharathan) love breaks the barriers of age and caste. In Thoovanathumpikal (1987) and Desadanakili Karayarilla (1986) Padmarajan explores the polymorphous dimension of desire, always placing the female at the centre of the narrative. In Thoovanathumpikal, one of the most romantic of Padmarajan films, it is Clara who enters the hero’s life like a rain and exits it as easily to break away and seek freedom. Similarly, Desadanakili Karayarilla deals with two school girls who elope from school to seek their own freedom – social and sexual. Though the normative, heterosexual regime catches up with both the eloping duo and Jayakrishnan in Thoovanathumpikal, the taste of freedom and difference is destined to mark their future lives.Namukkuparkkan Munthirithoppukal (1986) revisits the theme of sexuality in both its forms – that of inhuman lust and romantic love, weaving the evocative Songs of Solomon into its narrative.Innale (1990) deals with the ultimate male fantasy: that of the sudden gift of a dream girl sans memories; without a past, she can take any form that love wills.

In Padmarajan’s narratives, male and female sexualities, though fatally attracted towards each other, follow different trajectories, often to tragic effect. While male sexuality easily tends towards violence and aggressive possession, female sexuality is almost always enigmatic and mysterious, breaking out into freedom and exuberance. Characters like Clara or Shali, Sophia or Savitri, Chakkara or Gouri portray the wide spectrum of female desires that can never be pigeon-holed or cast into the moulds of male desire. They rebel and provoke, yearn and splurge, never afraid of taking control of their lives and destinies. It is men who come in the way, coercing them into violence, like in Novemberinte Nashtam (1982) and Koodevide (1983), or force them to run away to freedom like in Nombarathipoovu (1987) and Parannu parannu parannu (1984). More than relationships themselves, what Padmarajan films deal with is the havoc that these fatal attractions wreak upon the person. And it is female desire that stretches the narratives into a triangle, as they almost invariably break out of their prisons (Prayanam, Arappattakettiya Gramathil, Namukkuparkkan Munthirithoppukal, Thoovanathumpikal, Oridathoru Phayalvan). Aparan, Thinkalazhcha Nalla Divasam, Season and Moonam Pakkam are films that stand apart in his oeuvre; these films focus on death, loneliness, longing, old age, revenge and the fascinating theme of the double.

kochin haneefa

2011-05-31T19:42:00.000-07:00

Adieu, Kochin Haneefa

C S Venkiteswaran

The departure of Kochin Haneefa is like the sudden and unexpected exit of a character in the middle of a play. He was at his prime and in the middle of so many things. As a noted actor, director, scenarist and producer, he was very active both in Malayalam and Tamil for more than three decades. In his own words, “I played several roles in life: actor, writer, scenarist, director and politician. But I loved acting above all. I appear before you, changing through time and your tastes. And, upon seeing me, if your mind is aroused and whispers ‘Kochin Haneefa’, my life is fulfilled.” He was also one of those rare artists from Kerala who made a mark in the South Indian film industry.

Salim Ahmed Ghoush alias Kochin Haneefa was many things at the same time. Though he was one of the first products of Kalabhavan to enter films, his acting was not defined by ‘mimicry’ style. He entered films playing villain roles, but ended up as a comedian. And even when he shifted to comedy in Malayalam, he was an acclaimed villain in Tamil films. Till the end, he went on producing, writing and directing, not comedies, but films dealing with serious issues, social and familial.

Even as a college student, Haneefa had made his mark as an actor, and like many others he too was lured by cinema and went to Madras to pursue his dreams. He yearned to be an actor and did manage to get some minor roles, but he was more successful in script writing, something he literally stumbled upon. His acting debut was in Azhimukham in 1972 as a boatman, followed by a handful of films in the 70’s. He couldn’t find a niche for himself in that period and had to be satisfied with supportive roles. The first break came for him when he became a script writer of Aval oru Devalayam, which starred major actors. He went on to write Irumpazhikal (a remake of Sholay), Raju Rahim, Adimachangala etc. followed by commercial successes like Kadathanadan Ambadi, Lal Americayil, Inakkili and Puthiya Karukkal. Meanwhile he continued to appear in villain roles. The second turning point in his career was Kireedom (Siby Malayil, 1989) in which he played the role of a village ruffian, who is a coward. This role that combined the villain and comedian, in a way encapsulates his career till then and also of his future fame. One can never forget the hilarious characters in films like Punjabi House, Narendran Makan Jayakantan Vaka, CID Moosa, Meesa Madhavan, Thilakkam, Mannar Mathai Speaking, Harikrishnans, Friends, Suthradaran, Ee Parkkum Thalika, Sundarapurushan, Kunjikoonan, Swapnakkoodu, Pulivalkalyanam, CI Mahadevan 5’ 4”, Chathikatha Chanthu and Udayananu Tharam.. He was a noted actor in Tamil also, with films like Annyan, Pattayan, Mahanadi, and most recently Vettaikaran. In Mahanadi he plays a crafty villain who traumatizes the life of the hero (Kamal Haasan). He was at ease with both the film worlds and loved to switch roles, languages and styles. Like many actors of his kind, who constitute the magic of cinema but are not rewarded by recognitions, Haneefa too had to satisfy with public adulation rather than official recognition. The only state award that came his way was as Second Best Actor for his performance in Soothradharan in 2001.

His directorial ventures in Malayalam include Bheesmacharya (1994), Valtsalyam (1993), Veena Meettiya Vilangukal (1990), Aankiliyude Tharattu (1987) Oru Sindoora Pottinte Ormaykku (1987),Moonnu Masangalkku Munpu (1986) and Oru Sandesam Koodi (1985). Most of these films did well at the box office and dealt with social and emotional issues.

Though his acting career spanned more than three decades from Azhimukhan (1972) to Bodyguard (2010), and he made notable contributions in various fields, what made him a popular figure were his comic roles. In comedy, he was able to create a style of his own. His acting was situational rather than something that emerged from himself through mere idiosyncrasies or dialogues. It had more to do with the dynamics between his body and the context in which it found itself. For instance, like many of his contemporaries and competitors, his comic identity is not fixed onto or one arising out of his regional slang or mannerisms. It was his body as a whole that was at the centre: one that stands out, never accommodated by the ‘normal’/normative system that envelops it. Haneefa character is always a ‘misfit’ and the comedy arises out the mismatch between body and mind, appearance and reality, words and deeds, status and ability. For instance, in several films, he plays the role of a police officer, but he is invariably a coward, a stooge or corrupt to the core. In Kaliveedu, he is a psychiatrist, who hypnotizes people, but in the end he himself falls prey to a smarter woman, who becomes his wife. In Oravadhikalathu, he is a physical trainer, but has to send letters addressed to himself to prove his worth. In Swapnakoodu, though he is a distant relative of the hapless family that includes two beautiful girls, in the end we find him trying to sell them off in the flesh market. In films like Punjabi House, Pulivalkalyanam, Narendran makan Jayakantan vaka etc, he plays hilarious roles where humour arises out of a body that is out of place, one that can’t neither flaunt nor hide itself from public gaze. In film after film, he celebrated this state of being that is always caught between the rhetoric heroism on the one side, and the sheer necessity to survive on the other. Like any comedian, his roles stand apart and above the narrative, never seeking closures and finales but always bursting forth with mirth and laughter in the present. These comic characters had no axe to grind or point to prove, they were neither nostalgic about the past nor worried about future goals, but always lived here and now to light up our lives in unexpected and uncanny ways.

One of his most striking his qualities was that he knew his role really well; small or big, central or marginal, he always played it to the hilt and with total commitment. Most importantly, never in his life, art or career was he parochial or partisan in any way, the reason why he was dear to all. The Malayalam film industry will surely miss him very badly, especially in times like these when any sense of camaraderie is sorely lacking.

Departure of a Master

2011-05-31T19:39:00.000-07:00

C Raghavan - A Translator par excellence

C S Venkiteswaran

C Raghavan, one of the finest multilingual translators from Keralam, died on 20^th February 2010 at Kasargod. He was 79. Raghavan ‘Master’, as he was fondly called, was a very lively presence in the cultural scene of Tulunad, and was an integral part of all the progressive social and literary movements in the region during the last several decades. His contributions as a teacher, writer, historian and translator have inspired and shaped a generation of literary enthusiasts, writers and students.

A true polyglot, he was at ease with several languages. He was an expert in Tulu, Kannada and Malayalam languages and was very well at ease with Tamil and English. Raghavan Master was one of those rare translators who could translate from and into more than one source and target languages. He translated a number of notable literary works from and into Malayalam and Kannada, and has ‘literally’ been an ambassador between the two languages.

Throughout his life he lived in Kasargod or Tulunad, as he would describe it, which is a virtual confluence or melting pot of cultures- Tulu, Kannada, Malayalam, Konkani and English. In more than one way he was the son of Tulunad, and his magnum opus is about it. His book ‘Tulu Language, Society, Culture’, is an encyclopedic work and the result of decades of research - a unique one of its kind that delves into the diversities and confluences that define Tulu culture.

Soon after graduation, he got a government job in Madras as a clerk in Southern Railways. But, to the shock of his family and well wishers, he decided to return to Kasargod to take up the job of a school teacher. He was indeed answering a call. For, since then there was no looking back for him. A committed educationalist, he went on to hold several important positions in Education department, and received the award for Best Teacher. He was also active in Bharat Scouts, teachers’ training programmes and curriculum development.

It was the translation of the Kannada novel Chirasmarana by Niranjana, based on the lives of the communist revolutionaries and martyrs of Kayyur, that brought Raghavan into the limelight. According to Niranjana, when Chirasmarana was originally published in Kannada, it did not receive the attention it deserved but it was the Malayalam translation that gave it a new lease of life. In the coming decades Raghavan translated several celebrated works from Kannada like Bharatipura, Divyam, and Avasthe by UR Anantamurthy, Chidambara Rahasyam by Poornachandra Tejaswi, Kulothe Chinkaramma by Chandrasekhara Kambar Baduku by Geeta Nagabhushan (which received Sahitya Akademi Award for translation), and other noted works of masters like Masti and Bendre. Another master work of his is the translation of the Kannada epic Pampa Ramayanam.

Raghavan Master was also instrumental in bringing several authors into limelight. For instance, the novels of Sara Abubacker, a writer living in Kerala and writing in Kannada, became popular through his translations. Similar was the case with writers like Boluvar Muhammedkunji and Fakir Muhammed Katpadi. He also introduced to Malayalee readers the poetry, plays and writings of another polyglot and scholar of his region, Manjeswaram Govinda Pai.

Some of the major works he translated from Malayalam to Kannada include O Chandu Menon’s Indulekha, which received Kendra Sahitya Akademi award in 1998, Kesavadev’s Odayil Ninnu, MT Vasudevan Nair’s celebrated novel Randamoozham, Sukumar Azhikode’s philosophical treatise Tatvamasi and a selection of poems by Ayyappa Panicker. He also wrote the biographies of Malayalam writers like Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai and Vaikom Muhammed Basheer in Kannada.

For him, translation was not a technical or literary affair. While introducing the best of works in one culture to another, it should also engage them in a cultural dialogue with each other. Taking up this cultural mission, Raghavan Master always selected works that dealt with the oppressed and the marginalized sections in these societies. According to him, translation was not just ‘bhashantara’ (language to language) but was also ‘bhavantara’ (emotion to emotion) and a tool for fostering deeper understanding and fresh synergy between cultures. And what distinguishes his translations is such complex and sensitive understanding of culture.

C Raghavan was one of the last among a generation of great translators in Malayalam that includes stalwarts like Nalappatt Narayana Menon, Ani Thayyil, P Madhavan Pillai, MN Sathyarthi and Ravivarma, for whom translation was a mission. While the entire Tulunad mourns his demise, the writers and readers in Kannada and Malayalam will deeply miss his warm, gentle and stimulating presence.

a pestering journey

2011-05-28T02:54:00.000-07:00

Quest for ‘the pest'

C.S. VENKITESWARAN

Festering wounds:A scene from ‘A Pestering Journey'.

K.R. Manoj's documentary ‘A Pestering Journey,' which won the best investigative film award at the 58th National Film Awards, begins with some seemingly simple questions: ‘What is a pest? Is it you? Is it me? Or is it the way you look at me?' As the film progresses, one is constantly confronted with the diabolic dimensions these posers can assume in our life.

Obviously, this is not just a film about endosulfan or pesticides, but about how the very notion of ‘the pest’ orders our ways and means of life and builds a system and logic of immutable power around us – an order that condemns certain organisms
to death and tampers with the designs of nature.

The use of pesticide, in the larger sense, is also a process of
‘othering’ where the powers-that-be decides over what the ‘other’ is and abrogates upon itself the right to liquidate. This manifests in the relationship between men and ‘pests’, between certain professionals in power vis a vis the farmers/residents, between the gigantic machines of industry against the culture of agriculture, or between the chemistry of Science against alchemy of human life.

Though the desperate struggle of the people against the use of
Endosulfan has been raging in Kasargod district for decades, it was only a few months ago that the issue suddenly attained critical mass and assumed life-or-death immediacy. All this eventually led to its ban, or at least to a decision to phase it out. Better late than never; but the damage it has already wreaked upon human lives and environment is unimaginable and unpardonable. How does one account for the massive suffering it has engendered? The film ponders over this
question, by journeying to the sites of pain and suffering. The film begins with the ‘cancer train’ that embarks on a pilgrimage of death everyday at 9.20 pm from Bhatinda town for Bikaner in Rajasthan, and continues through the ruins of the lives of cotton farmers in Punjab, who have paid with their lives for Green Revolution. The second part of the film travels back to Kasargod to portray the festering wounds that this pesticide has left behind in the form of human beings,
lives, and ecosystem.

Obviously, the new ‘science of linkage’ is only beginning to realize the after-effects of a pesticide that transcends our normal frameworks of space and time. As Ravi Agarwal observes, ‘though all pesticides are poison by definition, some like endosulfan are particularly toxic. They persist in the environment for a long time, accumulate over the food chain and travel long distances globally, contaminating the food
in distant lands.. In all such cases, chronic human health impacts are difficult to prove, since they occur over long periods of time, and in very low doses of exposure”. It is this very elusiveness of a poison that masquerades as medicine that makes the struggle against its use extremely frustrating. The film is also about the struggle between the time horizons of ‘scientific’ interventions vis a vis the evanescence of human life and ‘historic’ struggles.

Any film about an issue like this and about ‘victims’ can end up as yet another kind of victimization – making ‘them’ into objects for ‘our’ vicarious visual consumption. Pestering journey, in contrast tries to be reflective about the whole process of othering and victimization, by bringing in several perspectives – a montage of ‘pests’ that form part of our houses and farms, the visuals of earlier attempts like archival photographs and a documentary footage, and also play with texts and words - all attempting to liberate the heart-wrenching linearity of the journey and the searing personal
testimonies with other presences and complexities.

A Master Narrator

2011-05-28T02:36:00.000-07:00

K S SETHUMADHAVAN – Master Narrator

C S Venkiteswaran

This year’s JC Daniel Award for lifetime achievement in cinema goes to K S Sethumadhavan, the veteran director whose contributions were foundational to the evolution of the language of Malayalam cinema. None could be more deserving and coincidentally, this year also marks the 50^th anniversary of his entry into Malayalam cinema; his first film Malayalam, Jnanasundari was made in 1961.

Born in 1931 in Palakkad, K S Sethumadhavan took to the world of films like fish to water. And his lineage runs back to the beginnings of Malayalam cinema: he began his career in films under TR Sundaram of Modern Studios who produced the first Malayalam talkie, Balan. After a brief apprenticeship under K Ramanathan, he made his debut with a Sinhalese film, Veeravijaya, which became a commercial success. It earned him the reputation of being a responsible director and before long, he moved to Malayalam. From his very first film in Malayalam till the end, it was a long and fascinating engagement with literature. He was virtually a ‘writer’s director’ and almost all the major writers of the period like Muttathu Varkey, Kesavadev, MT Vasudevan Nair, Thakazhy, Malayattoor Ramakrishnan, Pamman, KT Muhammed, Thoppil Bhasi, Vettoor Raman Nair and Parapurathu feature in his oeuvre that spans more than four decades.

K S Sethumadhavan was a prolific filmmaker and in the first two decades of his career, he made more than 50 films. There were times when he used to make five to six films in a year. What made him different from the rest was that amidst this steady flow of work, he managed to produce some of the finest works in Malayalam cinema at regular intervals. His early films were all social melodramas like Kannum Karalum (1962, which introduced Kamal Hasan to cinema), Suseela, Nithyakanyaka (1963), Omanakuttan, Manavatti, and Anna (1964). The year 1965 marks a turning point in his life with two landmark films Odayil Ninnu, and Daham Odayil Ninnu was the screen adaptation of a celebrated novel by Kesavadev which dealt with the life and struggles of a rickshaw puller. It was a commercial success and also received critical acclaim for its raw energy and the acting performance of Sathyan in the lead role. Daham, set in a hospital, was about a murderer, who gradually wakes up to the feelings of love and compassion. A few films later, Sethumadhavan made another Sathyan-starrer, Yakshi (1968), based on a psychological thriller by Malayattoor Ramakrishnan, which inaugurated the genre in Malayalam cinema. It was about a college lecturer, who is disfigured during a scientific experiment, and whose erotic life is even more deeply scarred by it. Other significant films to follow were Kadalpalam, Adimakal, Vazhve Mayam, and Mindapennu. In 1970 he made six films, among which Aranazhikaneram, which was based on a novel by Parappurathu stands out as one of the finest works of the period. Following the novel closely, the film adopts Biblical themes and captures the moral rot within a middle class Christian family. The narrative is about the last days in the life of Kunjanechan, who, as his life ebbs away, becomes a helpless witness to the various deadly sins his offsprings succumb to. Anubhavangal Palichakal (1971) based on a novel by Thakazhi, is yet another landmark film that starred Sethumadhavan’s favourtie actor, Sathyan (he met with while doing this film). A rare and reflective film about communist movement in Kerala, it is a disturbing and emotional look at the question of belief and faith - in two crucial institutions – the communist party and the family. Both institutions seem to push the individual into deep conflicts, demanding huge sacrifices to sustain them, and the institution and morals of the party is conflated with that of the family. formally, like in Aranazhikaneram, here also one finds the prevalence of night shots; as if the characters occupy a twilight, liminal world, caught up in its web and groping to find a way out.

Some of the significant films in the next years include Panitheeratha Veedu, Kanyakumari, and Chattakkari. Oppol (1980) based on a story by MT Vasudevan Nair, which received several awards at the state and national level, returns to the theme of Oedipal conflict. It is an emotionally intense story about an illegitimate boy, his unwed mother, and her new husband, who is a soldier. The rustic charm of the performance of Balan K Nair won great appreciation and Sethumadhavan once again proved his mettle in bringing out the best in his actors with the help of a tightly-knit story. By the 1980’s, the film scene had undergone radical changes both in terms of thematic concerns as well as in technical and stylistic vocabularies. Between 1981 and 1990 he made only few films and some of which were in Hindi. But in 1991 he made a come back with Marupakkam which won National Award for Best Film. Based on a story by Indra Parthasarathy, it is a chilling film about marriage and scholarship. It is about an aged traditional vedic scholar, at the fag end of his life, being haunted by the memory of his teenage love. She is finally brought to him by his estranged son, and the film ends with the vacant and devastated stare in the face of his lifelong companion and wife in the face of that final rendezvous.

Always working from within the hub of commercial film industry, Sethumadhavan has made films belonging to different genres and also languages – apart from Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Hindi and Oriya! As for official accolades, he has won the Kerala State Film Award for Best Director 4 times: Vazhve Mayam (1970), Karakanakkadal (1971), Pani Theeratha Veedu (1972) and Oppol (1980). In 1973, he won the Nargis Dutt Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration for Achanum Bappayum and in 1966, his Telugu film Sthree won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Telugu.

Sethumadhavan belongs to a period when Malayalam cinema was trying to find a narrative idiom and language of its own. Sethumadhavan firmly anchored it by weaving intense film narratives by symbiotically linking it with literature, and drawing out impressive performances from his actors. When one looks back, it seems that one of the recurring motifs in Sethumadhavan’s oeuvre is the crisis of the patriarch or the male hero, which sometimes assumes Oedipal character. In many of his films, the masculine centre of the narrative is under severe crisis. Many of his male heroes are loners who are disfigured or impotent, nurse compulsive doubts about the fidelity of their wives, or fight futile battles. In Odayil ninnu, for Pappu the rickshaw puller, life is a constant slide to helplessness and self denial, in Kadalpalam the blind patriarch who stays upstairs and rules over his sons, finally finds himself powerless, and Aranazhikaneram is about the final days of another father figure, whose moral world is collapsing around him. If in Oppol, it is a virtual Oedipal battle between the illegitimate son and the new husband of his mother, in films like Yakshi, Anubhavangal Palichakal, Punarjanmam, and Vazhve Mayam one can sense a strong undercurrent of castration complex.

We often dub Sethumadhavan as a ‘literary’ filmmaker. When one looks back, one can find that the film narratives of this auteur par excellence are animated by certain deep ambivalences about a period that on the surface, seemed to be driven by political idealism and a sense of mission in life and polity. These celluloid portrayals of the deep conflicts of masculinity and male agency marks him off as the cartographer of malayalee male psyche of a particular period in our social and political history. As far as cinema was concerned, it was also a period that was prior to the advent of super stars and macho, one dimensional heroes.

2011-05-28T02:29:00.000-07:00

Werner Herzog on Himself and his films

C S Venkiteswaran

We met Werner Herzog at his hotel just after the Session ‘In Conversation with Herzog’ at the Festival venue. During the event, as the conversation was progressing, there was a commotion outside the theatre. The audience outside were impatient to get into the hall to watch the next movie. So, we started apologizing for the mix up at the theatre.

Herzog: No, I didn’t know there was a show at that time. And people outside actually wanted to see film, and there I was, talking about films! It is a good sign that people really want to see movies. They mean business here!

Q. Your films have been widely shown and appreciated here, and there are many booklets written upon you. It is also one of the reason why you are conferred the Life Time Achievement Award here. Let me begin the interview by recounting a scene from your film Land of Silence and Darkness where a blind man is trying to ‘look at’ or understand a ‘tree’ by feeling it with his hands. His hands feel through the trunk of the tree stretching as far as he can, and then the camera tilts up the huge long trunk of the tree and the foliage etc. This scene I think in a way captures what you have been trying to convey through your films too. All your films are a kind of journey into the unknown, the limits of human perception and endurance etc.. whether it be Fitzcarraldo or Aguirre, Kaspar Hauser or Nosferatu..

Herzog: He is actually blind and deaf. Land of Silence and Darkness, I believe, is my deepest film, though it is one of my early films. And it is one of the most defining moments in the film. Suddenly one realizes that it was not a moment that was ordinary; one senses that it is something momentous. Maybe for another filmmaker it could be something very ordinary where a blind man walks from the bench and touches a tree. For me, all of a sudden the context of the entire film changes with an incredible amount of death and tragedy. It is related to the entire context of the film.

Q.You were one among the group of filmmakers along with Alexander Kluge, Fassbinder, Wim Winders etc who brought in a new sensibility to German cinema and defined German cinema to the world in the following decades. In the post-war context, it was almost like starting from the scatch..

Herzog: Actually, I didn’t start with a ‘group of filmmakers’. In a way, we were all on our own. In fact I was almost on my own and separated from the rest. But of course, there was an understanding between us and an amazing solidarity..

Q: did you have manifesto or something like that?

Herzog Yes, there was one, but one in which I didn’t sign it.. But there was a strong solidarity between us to create our own distribution system, to create a film subsidy law which was proposed and pushed through polemics.. In fact, we had to create our own cinema and industry, especially distribution system.. So, we all formed our own production companies, we were our own producers. Fassbinder, Schlondorff all had their own production companies.

Q: What was it like to make film after the Hitler era?

Herzog: For us, it was obvious that continuity was disrupted. Such a thing has not happened to filmmakers in India, United Kingdom or elsewhere. They all restarted immediately after the war, whereas for Germans there was a gap of 25 years. So we were a generation without fathers. We didn’t relate to any fathers, we could only relate to our grandfathers, for instance, to someone like Murnau. It was not a coincidence that I made a remake of his Nosferatu. For me, it is the greatest of all German films, that silent film. So ours was a strange situation where we had to bridge a gap in our film culture which was not related to our fathers but only to our grandfathers. From the beginning till now, there is a distant echo of those films in me.

And we had to invent cinema all over again. In fact I had not seen films till I was about 11; cinema was nonexistent for me in childhood. So, it was like rediscovering it

Then the second important thing was that we had to show to the world that there was a legitimate German cinema and a film culture that did not side with barbarism. And it was difficult to find acceptance. For at least two decades, my films were not accepted; there was some sort of aversion to ‘German’ films in places like America. It took 20 years until we got accepted in America.

Q: You had said that among your contemporaries, you were more close to Fassbinder than others..

Herzog: Yes. We liked each other a lot. And we had a lot of similarities: both of us were very productive, both of us were Bavarians, both of us grew up without the presence of a father. There was something Bavarian about us. One can describe it with a metaphor. The last Bavarian king Ludwig II, who was mad, was famous for building castles. He was insane but built fantastic castles; he spent all the money of the state in building incredible castles and millions of tourists now visit them. At that time the Prussian emperors in Berlin spent all their money waging wars. So, that is the Prussian side and this is the Bavarian side. The Bavarians were always baroque in their approach to literature, music, and filmmaking. In a way, Fassbinder was similar to me, in the spirit of just going and doing it, in spite of all the obstacles.. Much of our communication was non-verbal, we had deep understanding of each other’s films though personally we were very different.

Q: That you relate more with grandfathers than fathers is an interesting observation. There is an absence of the immediate present and surroundings in many of your films. They are more about pursuing certain dreams and breaching the limits of human endurance, imagination and capability, the protagonists often do not achieve their ends. For Fitzcarraldo, as he recounts that story about the explorer who saw Niagra falls for the first time, what is important is that you tried and made the journey, rather than reaching.Somebody said that your films are metaphysical while being very materialistic..

Herzog> I don’t know about metaphysics, nor do I think about such things while I make films.

Q Your characters seem to be set in certain elemental or fundamental or I would say ‘pre-ideological’ situations in such a way that more than psychological issues, what your films seem to pursue are very elemental ethical questions about the crossing territories: between the human and the non-human, possible and impossible, dream and reality etc. You have never bothered about psychology or psychological realism in your narratives

Herzog: I never liked psychology. It is one of the major mistakes of 20^th century. Of course it started by the end of 19^th century, but it is basically a 20^th century phenomena. It was the monumental mistake of the 20^th century: to dig too deep into the human mind, which I think you should not. Human beings have to have dark, unexplained corners. It is like living in a house where every single corner is lit with neon lights. Then it becomes uninhabitable. Likewise, human beings become uninhabitable if they are explained, scrutinized and analysed too deeply. It is not healthy. And this is only one of the huge mistakes of the 20^th century, there are many other mistakes. Because of all that, I think 20^th century in its entirety was a big mistake. My films are living proofs of that

Q. Most of your protagonists are in a way ‘overmen’ or larger than life figures, who defy all logic and pragmatism to pursue their dreams. Take Fitzcarraldo or Aguirre for instance, they do not or do not need to belong to any place or culture in that sense..

Herzog: I don’t want to dig too deep into my characters. I have always avoided it.

Q: Another feature unique to you as a filmmaker is the kind of position that you take towards ‘intellectualism’ in cinema. You are known for your contempt for filmmakers like Tarkovsky and Godard who according to you “try so hard to pass on a heavy idea to the audience.. Someone like Jean-luc Godard is for me intellectual counterfeit money when compared to a good kung fu film… Film is not analysis, it is the agitation of the mind”.

Herzog: It is not contempt. I would say it is something that does not belong to cinema, nor does it belong to music either. You can’t intellectualise music; it just comes out of you and that is it. It is inexplicable and you can share it with everyone in this planet. Cinema has similar qualities, it is close to music. When we walk into a movie theatre, we open all our senses. It is different from reading literature.

Q You have done a lot of documentaries in different parts of the world. It is almost as if there are no boundaries between fiction and documentary in your films.. Take for instance a film like Lessons of Darkness about the ravaged oil fields of post-Gulf War Kuwait, is almost like a film made from the perspective of an alien observer, the film is an exploration of the

Herzog: That film pretends to be a science fiction film. In the 60 minute film there is not a single shot where you can recognize it is our planet earth. There is no shot where you can say, yes, this is our planet. So, it is a science fiction film. I was accused about why I didn’t condemn Iraqi aggression etc. I said, for an entire year, the media has done that. But I am after something bigger. For me, it has to be for the remembrance of the human race, for it was not a political crime, but a crime against human race. It was bigger than politics. It was so big and so strange, it was science fiction for me. So I declared it to be so.

Q. Among others, one of the famous episodes associated with you is your eating your shoe when one of your young friends Errol Morris managed to make his first film. It is an incident that could inspire young filmmakers all over the world. Now with digital technology, imagemaking has become easier, or affordable. Has it really made filmmaking any easier? Or, has it created a situation where you don’t have to eat your other shoe?

Herzog That is about a certain attitude towards life. I would say any grown up man should have certain basic experiences in life. You should at least one pair of shoes, when you are a young man, you should know what it means to be in prison, you should know what it means to be hungry, to be in complete solitude, to be in a situation where your life is in danger. I don’t see this in other filmmakers. There are filmmakers who have not been shot at, who have not shot a film above a volcano that is about to burst.. I lead a different life

Q True, there is something very physical about your films and filmmaking. You have said you write your scripts and do your editing in a very short span of time. For instance you wrote the script for Aguirre in three and a half days, that too in a feverish pace, where you could see everything..

Herzog: Yes, I wrote it in two and half days. That too most of it in a bus traveling with a group of drunken football players. I even wrote one or two pages during the intervals while I was playing football matches.

Q where does your films originate? Is it an incident, an image, or a character?

Herzog; I do not really know. I only know that it is my activity and my destiny. When I was young, at the age of 14 or 15, I knew this was what I wanted to do. The decision was always there; the question was can I shoulder this duty? And I knew I was going to lead a complicated life, a difficult life. And it was clear for me that there was not much to decide but only to accept. I tried to keep abreast of all the projects that came at me. Like other filmmakers, I don’t check which is in the bestseller list and who will write a screenplay out of that for me and then transform it into a film. I never worked liked that. So it was never a career for me, where you are entering a career and pursuing certain goals etc Instead, I have been pursued by the films. It is a strange thing because, I never felt I had a career, I only have my life. And I leave some tracks in the sand..

Q. Do you think the age of cinema as a euro-centric phenomenon is over? Even in Europe, if you look at films from France and Germany, most of the films are made by or about diasporic communities and elsewhere, a lot of small countries in Asia and Africa have entered the scene? How do you look at this shift?

Herzog:

I only welcome all those fellow filmmakers from all the small countries, filmmaker from a village in Burkina Faso who comes barefoot from there and makes his first film. Cinema is such a wonderful tool because it connects us and it is not like anyone should dominate it whether it be Europe or Hollywood. We need cinema from Kerala, Burkina Faso, Korea, Taiwan..

Q What are you working on now?

Herzog: I have already finished two films this year and am doing a film on the death row. It is about inmates in jails in Texas, Florida in US who are in the death row. It is a very very dark and grim film, and one that is very difficult to make. Because we have so many restrictions, but I have managed to shoot part of it already, I get only 50 minutes with one inmate, and I have to obtain a lot of permits and undergo a number of security checks before I could shoot. And after all that, all of a sudden I am before someone who is facing execution. Of course, I am not an advocate of capital punishment..

Q: How do you speak English so well?

Herzog It is all self-taught, everything is self-taught: moviemaking, English, you just name it.

Q: Finally, how do you find this festival? You are in this film festival for the first time?

Herzog It is really astonishing. I haven’t seen any other festival with this kind of attendance. People really want to see films here. Another thing is the amount of films that are being shown; you have films from all over the world. It is a formidable achievement. The real astonishing thing is the cultural connection of the festival; I have never seen a festival that opens with such dances and poems that connect with the local culture. I was all of a sudden transformed into a different world. The festival has a very strong rooting.. and that is Kerala for me..

Auteur par excellence

2011-05-28T02:26:00.001-07:00

G Aravindan (1935 – 1991) – Auteur par excellence

C S Venkiteswaran

Aravindan films invite us to return to them time and again for their haunting visual quality and open-ended narratives; they constantly transgress all kinds of boundaries – that of the cinematic medium, form, aesthetics and sensibility. Their symbiotic links with music, painting and spirituality - Aravindan was passionate about all these - animate them with a sort of meditative energy.

If one closely looks at his oeuvre that spanned one and a half decades (1974 – 1990), one can see at least three Aravindans. The creator of Uttharayanam, his first film, was an extension of the cartoonist of the celebrated ‘Cheriya Manushyarum Valiya Lokavum’ (Little People, Big World) which he did for Mathrubhumi Weekly in the 1960’s. Working with various contrasts - black and white, past and present, idealism and degeneration, memories and experience – this film portrayed the disillusioned youth of the 70’s – an outsider and a rebel who is caught between the past of idealism and the degeneration of the present, a present where power has overcome ‘movement’ – in the external/political as well as internal/spiritual realms. The film ends up with the protagonist setting on fire his mask and disappearing into the forest (wilderness?). It is definitely a gesture of transcendence, an attempt to go beyond the stultifying polemics that life, and sometimes art, gets trapped in. Thampu, one of the most lyrical of Aravindan films, is about the arrival of a circus troupe in a sleepy village, and the ripples it creates there. It is all about the here and now, the transient thrills and excitements that arise out of the interface between the little worlds inside and outside the circus tent. It brings into subtle contrast the incessant journeys of the circus troupe as against the idiotic rootedness of the village, the evanescent ‘society’ that a troupe is vis a vis the permanent ‘showmen’ going through their motions at the village, andthe yearning for the beyond as against the exigencies of the mundane. It is a break from this stagnation that the local youth makes as he joins the troupe when they leave his village.

The second Aravindan explored the ‘beyond’ in film. In Kanchanaseetha, Kummatti, Esthappan and Pokkuveyil one finds Aravindan at the peak of his imaginative abilities. Thematically diverse, all of them are intensely poetic and painterly overtures into the beyond, always stretching the cinematic medium and its aesthetic possibilities. Kanchanaseetha is a contemplative film that strips the timeless story of Ramayana to its bare essentials. Based on C N Sreekantan Nair play, it sets the epic narrative amidst the Ramachenchu tribe of Andhra Pradesh, who considers themselves as descendants of lord Rama. Here the godly Rama is a simple tribal chieftain in the midst of his all-too human desires, conflicts, follies and sorrows. The ethical conflicts of the masculine Rama, embodiment of the Law, runs parallel to that of Sita, embodied in nature and the feminine principle whose justice finds no place in his kingdom. Kummatty is an exploration into the imaginary world of childhood fantasy. One of the most charming of children’s films, Kummatty is about a village bogeyman who inadvertently forgets to transform a local boy back into a human being after turning him into a dog. For the dog-boy, it leads him to a rediscovery of life. His next film Esthappan is about the stuff legends are made of, about how we, transcend the everydayness of our lives by weaving tales out of memories, dreams and imagination. It is about Esthappan, who turns into a mythical figure in the minds of the local Christian fisher folk, and weaves into itself local myths and legends, folk play and songs. Pokkuveyil is a haunting film that rises to the level of music, a jugalbandi of images and sound where the visuals, in long, meditative shots, try to transform themselves into a sort of accompaniment to the haunting Subhapantuvarali in the background (Hariprasad Chaurasia on flute and Rajeev Tharanath on Sarod).

In the third Aravindan one witnesses a growing concern with the linear narrative. In Chidambaram, Oridathu and Vastuhara one finds him grappling with narratives about people in the throes of history, socio-economic changes and also basic instincts. Chidambaram is a wrenching portrayal of a man and a woman who commit adultery and the traumatic events it triggers in their lives and of those around. The original sin or act of breach of trust has fatal consequences: it destroys people’s lives, and throws the man and the woman into an abyss of guilt and into an endless pursuit for redemption. Chidambaram dramatises the eternal conflict between basic human instincts and the institutions of belief, morals and ethics that envelop us. Oridathu is about the arrival of electricity in a village and is imbued with a deep sense of apprehension about the idea of ‘progress’. The narrative strings together little anecdotes and incidents triggered by the arrival of this alien technology, and culminates in a cataclysmic vision. In the final sequence, we see a human-like figure afloat in the sky, having lost all connections with the earth and humanity. Vastuhara, his last film, is about the human yet inexorable forces of history and the havoc it wreaks on human lives and relationships. Based on C V Sreeraman’s story, the narrative is set between two traumatic dispossessions in Indian history - the exodus of people from East to West Bengal following partition of the country in 1947, and the 1971 exodus from Bangladesh to West Bengal following the war and the formation of Bangladesh. It is also a rare film on partition and refugee-hood made from a Malayalee perspective, and it weaves the subtext of malayalee diaspora into its ‘national’ narrative.

Being himself a painter, singer and theatre person, it is not a coincidence that films of Aravindan, in one way or other, draw upon and work with other art forms like classical and folk performance art forms and music, drawing, painting and dance etc. In in Pokkuveyil Aravindan explored synergy of cinema with music, in Esthappan with chavittunatakam and folk songs, in Kummatty with folk art and storytelling, in Kanchanasita with epic literature and theatre, in Uttarayanam and Oridathu with cartooning. In Marattam this synergy reaches a crescendo: kathakali, folk music and dance, mixing with fiction and reality. Here, fluid camera movements combine with the body movements of performers to create a rare cinematic experience. Based on the work of noted Malayalam playwright Kavalam Narayana Pannikar, Marattam deals with the various dimensions involved in the process of performance and spectating, where the actor identifies and plays out a role, and the audience ‘falls’ for the character through the medium of the performer. Various folk-music forms of Kerala like Thampuran Pattu, Pulluvan Pattu and Ayappan Pattu etc are used to accompany the various narratives threads within the story.

Aravindan’s films follow an minimalist aesthetics, where ‘excess’ and exuberance is created within the mind of the spectator, like when contemplating a painting or feeling the laya of music. Each Aravindan film is like a raga-vistara of a particular mood, sensation or emotion – if it is wonderment in Kummati and Esthapan, it is guilt in Chidambaram, disillusionment in Utharayanam and Pokkuveyil and movement against stasis in Oridathu and Thampu. With regard to their spatial dynamics, Aravindan’s images try to capture or evoke reflectiveness and also demand it from the viewer, always inviting participation to unfold their intensity.

Filmography:

Uttarayanam -(Throne of Capricorn) 1974
Kanchana Seeta - (The golden substitute) 1977
Thampu –- (The Circus Tent) 1978
Kummatty - (The Bogeyman) 1979
Estheppan – (Stephen) 1979
Pokkuveyil - (Twilight) 1981
Chidambaram – (Chidambaram) 1985
Oridathu - (At a Place) 1986
Marattam - (Interchange) 1988
Vasthuhara - (The Dispossessed) 1990

2011-05-28T02:26:00.000-07:00

book review

2010-11-26T00:58:00.000-08:00

Bhojpuri Cinema – Celebration of the Local

C S Venkiteswaran

… at a time when regional political parties continue to assert their identity, the rise of Bhojpuri films is only part of the remodeling of Indian cinema. The availability of cheap technology has allowed dozens of ‘little cinemas’ to flourish in dialects such as Chattisgarhi, Kumaoni, Gharhwali and Khariboli. Even Ladakhis have begun making films in their local dialect. Avijit Ghosh, Bhojpuri Cinema (p 94)

Within a few years of its inauguration at Grand Café, Paris, cinema had cast its magical spell over people in all continents luring a number of showmen and entrepreneurs who made it the most massive mass art ever in the history of humankind. Though cinema has such an international history, enthralling people and drawing them into its global network and idioms, it also has ‘national’ and ‘local’ histories with its own specific characteristics. The latter exhibit a great variety as they followed trajectories of their own depending on local narrative traditions, existing conditions of performing arts and appreciation, openness to new forms, and of course, the socio-economic environment that enveloped all these.

One can see that the new magic of cinema illuminated several hitherto unrealized/unrealizable desires of ‘seeing’ as well as ‘making visible’. In this process of seeing and making visible, the medium – as an industry with a mass base/market – had to necessarily contend with existing or constantly evolving global formats on the one hand, and on the other, the narrative and scopophilic desires of the local. Moreover, it was not just a question of making oneself visible to the world outside; it was also an attempt to make oneself visible to oneself – something that unleashed many a hitherto repressed facets of social and psychological lives in the public domain. Ironically, they were largely played out and imagined within the idiomatics of the national/global, as an assertion of the marginal/regional vis a vis the centre/national/global. And to imagine into being its ‘pure’ untrammeled self, it more often resorted to imitations and ‘remakes’, and brings into play interesting discourses about ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’. When films flop, the blame is put on the avaricious producers from ‘outside’. When they succeed it is due to the verve and vigour of the land and its indigenous culture. But like any cinema of the local, even while it celebrates one’s own ‘culture’, its thematic concerns are with its discontents – casteism, class exploitation, dowry system, illiteracy etc.

The film histories of cinemas in India have a tumultuous history of competition between the ‘vernaculars’ and the national marked by the constant rediscovery and assertion of local identities. Avijit Ghosh’s Cinema Bhojpuri is a very interesting account of the same in the Bhojpuri context. The book narrates the history of Bhojpuri cinema, which virtually turns out to be an account of its encounters with the national-popular – the Hindi cinema that threatens to subsume all sub-nationalities that constitute its market-hinterland and also catchment area of themes and locales. The rise of Bhojpuri cinema in that sense is also a moment of pride and a new sense of selfhood, against the all-consuming tide of the national. Avijit Ghosh quotes a newspaper article written in 1965 about the perception of ‘outsiders’ about Bhojpuri people: ‘A few years ago the rest of the country considered Bhojpuri as the language of the rustic people of east Indian villages. In Bombay, it was known as the language of the ‘bhaiyas’. In Calcutta and other cities, it was known as the language of labourers of north India and Bihar.’

The book tracks Bhojpuri cinema from its beginnings in 1962, when Nazir Hussain, at the behest of Dr Rajendra Prasad, made Ganga Maiya Tohe Piyar Chadhaibo(O Mother Ganga, I’ll offer you the Yellow Cloth). Obviously the offering was indeed a very auspicious one, for since then, there was no looking back for Bhojpuri cinema. This is something really astounding if one takes into consideration other ‘vernacular’ cinemas that constitute Hindi cinema’s market, which have grown more and more marginal and almost non-existent.

Avijit Ghosh follows an episodic style and summarizes major trends in the history of Bhojpuri cinema, which he divides into three major periods. The first period (1962-68) begins with Ganga Maiya..; and the next extends from 1969 to the beginning of 21st century, and is a volatile one of crests and troughs. But the last one starting from 2001 marks the advent of ‘a new, confident Bhojpuri cinema’ with a big boom in production (with around 275 films between 2004 and 2008), and ‘the fledgling cottage industry of the 1960s’ turning into ‘a bustling regional film industry’. In the chapters that follow, the author provides brief sketches of the major personalities – actors, musicians, producers, exhibitors and critics - who made all this possible.

Obviously, the major thread is the relationship with the other – Hindi cinema – which is one of love and hate, and absorption and imitation. Storylines, themes, music, songs, dance and action – all resonate with the ‘other’. For instance, Mother India turns into Dharti Maiya, Sholay into Gabbar Singh, Judaai into Saiyan Se Solah Singaar, Hum Paanch into Pandav, and eventually Bhojpuri cinema having its own stars similar to the trio of Khans. Evidently, we find here the local celebrating the same old clichés that the qasbah and small town audience enjoys everywhere: ‘the rich-poor conflict, urban-rural differences, tradition-modernity contradictions, a good-as-gold brother-bhabhi relationship, lustful villains, stupid comedians and a class-conscious father-in-law’ (p 60). As character actor Brijesh Tripathy observes ‘the scenario has changed completely from the days when we started out. Now we have film parties, premieres and awards. We get interviewed like Bollywood actors do.’

Yet, despite this overwhelming ‘sameness’, Bhojpuria is asserted over and over again, most loudly through its rural locales and rustic themes. (The promo for a Bhojpuri film Hamar Sansar announces: ‘A ground-breaking Bhojpuri film where you’ll see India’s soul – the village environment, the fields, a glimpse of the real life of a farmer’). But the most important of all is music: the 1990s witnessed a virtual revolution in terms of the rediscovery of local folk tunes and lyrics, singers and musicians.

This expansion of local cinema is not without resistance from the ‘other’. The book provides glimpses of brewing tension that is triggered by the success of the regional. Elsewhere, Bhojpuri films have been the target of some sectarian groups like Maharashtra Navanirman Sena and Babbar Khalsa in Maharashtra and Punjab. In urban centres like Nashik, Mumbai, Thane or Ludhiana, cinema halls become virtual congregations of minorities as they are thronged by labourers from Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh. It is an instance where ‘local’ cinema becomes a vulnerable ‘locality’ that can be easily targeted.

What is most interesting from a film-theoretical point of view, is Ghosh’s attempt to explain the phenomenal rise of Bhojpuri cinema in the last decade. According to him, “One should rather view it as a process with various interweaving strands which at certain points are complimentary and, on other occasions, contrast with each other. At one level, the resurgence of Bhojpuri films could be construed as a reaction to the way Bollywood refashioned in cinematic language and landscape after the arrival of satellite television in 1991. With the growth of the dollar-rich NRI market and multiplexes becoming urban India’s new temples of entertainment, young gel-and-cologne film-makers with Hollywood sensibilities found a formula to bypass ‘India Unhappening’. Soon, Hindi commercial cinema’s alienation from vast snatches of middle India was complete…It was this fissure in aesthetics that the region-specific Bhojpuri cinema adroitly filled.’

Avijit Ghosh also hints at the predicament of the regional identity of Bhojuri cinema now. Growing confidence resulting from geographical widening of locations and expanding storylines, it has stepped out of its comfort zones and experiments with the larger world, which is increasingly blurring the distinct identity of the regional film. A paradox that leads to questions like the one raised by Arti Bhattacharya, first woman director of Bhojpuri cinema: ‘When we watch a Hindi film, it feels like a Hollywood film. When we go for a Bhojpuri film, it is like watching a Hindi film. Where’s our film?’

One major gap in Indian film studies is the lack of writings in English about the history of regional cinemas. Such lack has often led to the preponderance of Hindi films in film studies about Indian films. Ghosh’s book – about one of the youngest cinemas in India - is a significant contribution in this direction – and one that reminds us of the absence of similar attempts about other cinemas in India.

VENU NAGAVALLY – THE MELANCHOLIC HERO

2010-11-26T00:51:00.000-08:00

Venu Nagavally was not the conventional hero Malayalam cinema was used to till then. He was neither ‘handsome’ like the lyrical-romantic Prem Nazir, nor had Sathyan’S idealist, big-brotherly masculinity. Venu Nagavally belonged to an in-between period in Malayalam cinema, one that came after the era of Sathyan-Nazir duo and before that of Mammooty-Mohanlal. His characters were also never black or white, but endless varieties of grey in between. His screen persona was that of a melancholic hero, that also stood out from the rest of the popular male heroes of his time like Sukumaran, Jayan, Soman etc who exuded a machismo that was totally alien to him.

Another aspect of his personality was versatility and success in many fields: he came to films as a singer (and continued to sing occasionally), and then turned to acting, directing and script writing. Later, he also led the production wing of a television channel.

Though he entered films as a singer in Chottanikkara Amma, it was the late 70’s that Venu Nagavally essayed his major roles, especially in ‘youth/campus films’. It was also a period when Malayalam cinema was at its peak – both economically and thematically. Politically, it was a turbulent and disillusioned period, one that followed the national emergency. In these early films, the narratives of which almost invariably ended tragically, he played the role of the brooding, romantic hero, one who was vulnerable and lovable (Ulkkadal, Shalini Ente Koottukari -1978, Yavanika, Chillu, 1982, Lekhayude maranam oru flashback 1983). His was a persona that reflected the existential and political angst of the post-70’s Kerala youth, who were finding themselves in between many things. The feudal certainties and the idealistic anchorings of the earlier era were already behind them, yet they had not been able to find a new sensuality and expression of their own. Obviously, he was never a ‘hero’ in the conventional sense of the term – one who was extrovertly courageous, handsome and athletic. He was the opposite of all this. He was a desperate lover who had only himself to offer to the world. He was not the one to fight and agress, but to suffer, not one to rave and rant, but one who is brooding and silent, not the lover who fought his way to win his love, but one who would rather suffer his way to the end and never forget. A fatal streak always ran through the love-relationships his characters got or found themselves in. Sometimes the presence of an intimidating father inhibited their being, or they were too self-engrossed and drank themsleves into a stupor. But they were always ready to sacrifice their lives for others. Such total self-denial seems to have had its resonance in his personal life too..

His acting career ran parallel to that of ace directors of the 80’s, especially K G George and Mohan in whose films he played major roles. Their retreat from the scene was also the demise of the kind of ’middle’ cinema that found in Venu its alter ego. Other significant roles in his acting career include those in Vartha (1986), Oru Katha Oru Nunnakkatha (1986) Sunil Vayassu 20 (1986), Adhyayam Onnu Muthal (1985), Ente Ammu Ninte Thulasi Avarude Chakki (1985) ,Meenamasathile Sooryan (1985), Uyarukm Njan Nadaake (1985), Arante Mulla Kochu Mulla (1984), Adaminte Variyellu (1983) and April 18 (1983)

It was only natural that his acting career reached its apogee with the lead role of the eponymous hero of Devdas (1989), which was a sort of rounding off of a period in his career. From there, he moved on towards playing ‘senior’ roles and to direction and scripting. The superhit Priyadarshan movie Kilukkam stands testimony to Venu’s success as a script-writer and prove that beneath the veneer of melancholy ran a strong current of humour.

Venu's first directorial venture was Sukhamo Devi (1986) which was based on his own experience. He went on to direct successful yet sensitive movies like Sarvakalasala, Ayitham(1987), Swagatham (1989), Lal Salam, Aye Auto (1990), Kalipattam, Aayirappara (1993), Agnidevan (1995), Rakthasakshikal Zindabad (1998)and finally Bharya Swantham Suhruthu (2009). All his films were about love and friendship, its confrontation with different kinds of barriers, and the aftermath. In many a film, one can find strong male bondings; right from his first film it continues on to his ‘communist’ films.

His oeuvre also had a strain of his left leanings – apart from acting in films like Meenamasathile Sooryan about the Kayyur revolt, and heading the production wing of a pro-left television channel, two of the films he directed - Lal Salam (1990) and Raksthasakhikal Zindabad (1998) – were an introspective look at the rise and fall of communist ideals. It is the story of a movement gradually becoming a party and getting embroiled in power politics. Venu examines these issues by dealing with the cracks that political movements, its hopes and later degeneration, create in human relationships.

One significant aspect of Venu Nagavally’s screen persona is that, despite the fact that he acted only in a handful of films during the span of two decades, his image tends to stay in our minds unlike many of the other male heroes of his time. In a way, he is more of a haunting presence, rather than an actor per se. Obviously, there was something about his persona that was essentially ‘educated, middle class, malayalee’ that struck a deep chord within us. It combines within itself a curious mix of enchantment as well as resignation, yearning as well as withdrawal, all adding a peculiar charm or charge to his melancholy.

Watching Movies, Reading Subtitles

2010-11-25T23:52:00.000-08:00

Watching Movies, Reading Subtitles

“Every film is a foreign film, foreign to some audience somewhere..”

-Atom Egoyan

Watching a ‘foreign’ movie had always involved great deal of ‘reading’ along with seeing. Words have accompanied images from the very beginnings of cinema. Once the initial fascination for the sheer magic of moving images had had its run, words gradually began to creep into the frames in the form of inter titles to introduce, explain, make sense and sometimes as continuity props from one image/scene to another.

If silent cinema was truly global in nature, it was the coming of sound that made it ‘regional’. In the beginning, there was only ‘cinema’ pure and simple, but with sound, suddenly there were several cinemas like the ‘English’, ‘Korean’, ‘Japanese’ or ‘Hindi’. The speech and orchestra that till then ‘accompanied’ cinema from outside the screen, entered the frame. Even before sound, the text and sound were added to the images on the screen through the inter titles that explained or sutured the images onscreen, and in most places, there were the professional narrators who mouthed the dialogues and explained the situations, with the orchestra adding music to it. But reading inter titles of silent films is a different experience altogether, and has to be seen as distinct from subtitles.

In films like that of Charlie Chaplin or Bustor Keaton, DW Griffith or Edwin Porter, the inter titles worked as transition tools from one scene to another (many inter titles started with: ‘Meanwhile….’) apart from giving crisp indications about the narrative context. Interestingly, most of the dialogues onscreen were left out by the inter titles as they were self explanatory – both due to their contextual obviousness and the gesticulations that accompany action. Obviously, these films were conceived as silent films and hence its mis en scene and action/acting followed a pattern that was intended for universal and instant communication across the globe.

But Inter titles were not always mere ‘explanatory notes’ but often worked up a different kind of dynamism vis a vis the image as in Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin. There, inter titles in fact punctuate the tempo of the film and thus becoming part of the montage. And titles like the cry of ‘Brothers’, and call of ‘One for All!’ ‘All for One’ etc worked almost like placards or revolutionary slogans. They sound more like clarion calls of revolutionary upsurge, urging people to action not only within the ‘film’ (the movie), but also in the ‘theatre’ (where it is screened). In some other occasions, more than the dialogue of an individual in the narrative, it functions like a chorus as if giving voice to the multitude within the frame.

Cinema always was and is a medium of the masses, and in the silent era, it was truly so, because it could communicate to anyone without resorting to written texts. The history of subtitles starts with the very first talkie, The Jazz Singer, in 1929 when this American film was shown in Paris. Subtitles helped the ‘talkies’ to transcend the limitations of language and talk to the whole world. But with the facility of sound, films became more dialogue-oriented and the plethora of subtitles that accompanied brought with it the prerequisite of being literate, in order for the audience to follow it. So, subtitles, in a way, brings the ‘elitism’ of literature back into cinema, even while helping cinema to break language barriers and making it globally mobile.

The relationship between the viewer and a subtitled film is different from one that is not. Here, the spectator is not only watching and listening to the images and sounds, but also ‘reading’. Our eyes flit between the image and the text. And often, the subtitles at the bottom themselves become part of the image for us. This disrupts the hegemony of the image/sound and opens up a new relationship between the image and the text. Subtitles are not mere footnotes to the image, but another strand that independently addresses the spectator and thus goes into the creation of the narrative. In front of certain films that are dialogue-oriented, we in fact become ‘readers’, though its charm do not end there. For instance, many of the films of Bergman or Godard, Ray or Ghatak, would not be as exciting without the charm of their subtitles!

Yet, subtitles do not simply paraphrase or follow the dialogues mechanically. In fact, it is impossible to do so for various reasons. For one, there is the basic limitation of the length of the subtitle. (Earlier, in the analog era, it could not go beyond a certain length. But with digital technology, it has become much more flexible, both in terms of its font variety and size). If length is a question of screen space, there is the limitation of time too. An ideal subtitle should appear and disappear within the duration of the particular dialogue it is referring to. Apart from space and duration, there is also the question of depth of field. For instance, certain dialogues are whispered, and certain others merely said or shouted. There are instances where the filmmaker does not intend the spectator to comprehend the dialogue (especially in the long shots) while following the image. But when it comes to subtitles, such depth-of-field issues become problematic. The subtitles are either there or not. You can’t garble it or make it illegible, though there are instances of italicizing and highlighting, and in rare cases, animating the letters. Nor can subtitles capture the tonal variations and intonations that the actor in an alien language is playing with. On the other hand, subtitles can also add punch to a certain dialogue through an apt expression or turn of phrase.

There is also a constant interface between speech and text here – while some lengthy speech can be condensed into a few words, the nuances of some spoken words are impossible to capture in a text format. This is especially so with words which have certain cultural connotations. In Indian languages there are a number of words denoting family relationships, which have no parallels in English or other languages, which often puts the subtitler in a quandary! Other common instances are curses or swear words – though one can manage to find parallels or approximations in the target language, it is very difficult to convey the nuance or carry the punch of the original. Also, there are a lot of culturally specific words that do not lend themselves to translation. Take for instance, the word ‘muthalali’ in Malayalam which literally means ‘one who owns wealth/capital’. But it is most often used in a very loose manner to denote all kinds of people – land owners, shop keepers, contractors, traders, capitalists or industrialists. So how does one capture it in English? In one of the popular Malayalam films, the heroine endearingly calls her lover, “kochu muthalali” (‘kochu’ means small or little), and the sub title read: “my dear little bourgeois”!

The advent of the age of DVDs and global television has made the use of subtitles more widespread and also popular. Most of the channels that broadcast films now show them with subtitles, even for English films. The wide and prevalent use of subtitles have in fact globalised our viewing experiences in such a way that the very notion of ‘foreignness’ has become problematic. As Atom Egoyan and Ian Balfour puts it, “Globalisation has left its prints on how cinema is made, circulated, and received. ..We need to make sense of the foreign on our own terms. We have to define what is foreign to our individual experience, before we can hope to understand the roots of collective misunderstanding. Subtitles offer a way into worlds outside of ourselves. They are a unique and complex formal apparatus that allows the viewer an astonishing degree of access and interaction. Subtitles embed us.”

Obviously, the act of subtitling involves ‘universalising’ the ‘particular’ which brings the ‘local/regional’ in dialogue with the ‘national/global’. It raises a lot of questions, similar to the ones confronted by a translator: This also poses troublesome questions about ‘regional’ identities and ‘locality’ of a film and the film viewing experience.

Should one ‘translate out’ all the regional and culture-specific nuances to make the dialogues accessible to the global audience? Or, should one maintain the local flavour? If so, how? But the problem with subtitles is that it does not offer any scope for footnotes or explanations. So, subtitling is an act of balancing between the pressure to be concise yet cogent, true yet communicative, local yet global

References

Atom Egoyan and Ian Balfour (Ed) : Subtitles – On the Foreignness of Film, Alphabet Media Book, MIT Press, 2004

The author has subtitled more than 30 Malayalam feature films and several documentaries in English

ADAYALANGAL BY M G SASI

2008-06-25T00:37:00.000-07:00

Marking a Writer and His Times

M G Sasi's Adayalangal which won several State Awards including that for the Best Film and Direction, is an honest attempt to look into the formative years of an intense writer like Nandanar. It is a tribute to a great writer whose life was torn between great lust for life on the one and luring temptations of self-destruction on the other, to the latter of which he yielded in the end. In the process the film brings to life a disturbing period – the depressing 1960's – of Kerala society; times that were bleak and miserable with war and poverty looming large in the horizon.

The story unfolds in a typical central Kerala village with scanty resources to go around and where everyone is cash-poor. In this economy that is totally cut off yet prey to a war that is happening in the outside world, everyone ekes out a living, doing odd jobs and with no hopes about the future. Sasi weaves together various characters from Nandanar's story world into this coming-of-age narrative of despairing adolescence. There is a depressing and fatal sense of claustrophobia to that remote village, where there life is at a standstill as is its economy. Everything is stagnant and regressive. Ironically, the only way to get out of this trap is the very mechanism – war - that contributed to this situation in the first place. Eventually, the adolescent protagonist Gopinathan (an impressive debut by Govind Padmasurya) has to join the army to escape that petty, narrow world.

The life of this youth is confined to the limits of the village. His only medium to understand and experience the world is the people around him. They virtually make their entry and exit into his stagnant world. It is also picturised thus, with these characters entering and exiting, or him going to them or stumbling upon them: among them are his father who is an artist with no work and is at a loss as to how to survive, the school master who takes him back to school, his uncle who is the only person concerned about him, the gay entrepreneur who offers him job in his beedi factory, his brother who has relinquishes his siblings to join the army, the traditional oracle from the lower caste who tries to help him, the junior poduval who sings to the horizon, the nambudiri landlord who is concerned only about himself etc. The female world comprises of his aunts and cousins – all poor and eking out a living out of nothing, with no hopes for exuberance of any kind; they go on bickering, cursing, and fighting. His only hope comes in the form of the teacher and Meenakshikutty, the girl who sparks erotic fantasies in him. They are the only ones who liberate him and enable him to get out of that cursed village. The film ends with his departure to the outside world to join the army. It is a move away from a closed world into the vast unknown.

Adayalangal is a quiet and probing kind of film that doesn't pretend to be anything else, and it has a kind of charming directness to it, which stands out in our films filled with idiotic sound and fury. Its simple yet rich and varied narrative format that throngs with short yet memorable appearances of several characters – some really good performances by Manikandan, TG Ravi etc – gives one a peep into Nandanar's world and times.

MACTA IMBROGLIO

2008-06-25T00:35:00.000-07:00

Who Wants Solutions?

Malayalam film industry is at a standstill, and an entrenched battle is on between a group of directors and producers on the one side and the bulk of the association of film industry workers on the other. Troubles have been brewing for quiet a long time, and what we witness are only the symptoms of the crisis that runs much deeper and wider. At the structural level, these rifts between various professions – creative, technical, and managerial within the industry, is a reflection of the state of our film economy. It is a low level economy that has adamantly remained inward-looking and status quoist in its approach for a long time. It is neither idea-driven nor sensitive to happenings in other industries in the areas of changing market, funding, technology, treatment or themes. Moreover, it has refused to be an organized industry with its proper business plans and management systems. It is being run on an ad hoc and haphazard manner for a long time. And this works to the advantage of only the top few – the super stars, the directors who charge and get their fees, and producers if happen to get lucky despite all this.

It is not a surprise that such a thoroughly disorganized system works to the structural disadvantage of the 'workers' in the industry, which here includes cinematographers, editors and art directors to light boys, drivers and focus pullers. Let us not forget the fact that these workers are the lowest paid in the country, despite producing 60+ films every year. And the ratio between the highest and lowest wages in the industry (that is, the money that a super star charges and a light boy gets to work in the same film) is beyond imagination. So, the 'trade unionism' that the so-called 'creatives' allege and point out as 'the' hurdle, is something that has been boiling inside for a long time. Obviously the fabulous amounts that are paid to the stars and the 'creatives' come out of the sweat and blood of these workers without whom the industry itself wouldn't exist. The super stars and the fly by night speculators have nothing to lose in this game. This anti-labour attitude has been very much evident in their films also, that religiously idolizes the hero (super star) and celebrates market freedom. (For instance, films of Srinivasan and Sathyan Anthikad have consistently depicted any kind of labour union as an impediment to wellbeing).

So what has been happening till now was that the heavy expense incurred at the top was being subsidized by the workers in the industry. Now they also want their due share in it, which is what is irking the bosses. In a way, they are refusing to share the burden of the mismanagement of a star-centred, idea-starved industry.

Unions in film industry has a long history and has been there in all the industries, whether it be Hollywood, Bollywood or Kollywood. It cannot be wished away, but has to be necessarily factored into the business plan. But one also has to take into account the fact that cinema is a peculiar kind of industry unlike manufacturing or other conventional businesses. It has a creative and spontaneous side, and constantly needs new ideas, talents and technologies. If 'unionism' stands in the way of such creative freedom and endeavours it will end up as yet another trade union that is unable to look beyond the purse of the financier. There are reports that the MACTA stranglehold over workers make it impossible for an 'unregistered' artist to work in a film in Kerala, or plan a film on his/her own terms, as a result of which shoestring often become noose string.

Though there are no readymade solutions to the current imbroglio, there is an urgent need to look at the industry afresh and also learn a few lessons from other industries – in terms of ideas, fund raising, across the platform production modes, themes and marketing.

Now, like any other issue in Kerala, this 'debate' is also 'progressing' around allegations and off the cuff opinions of individuals who seem to think that the world begins and ends with them. In the process it also turns into yet another media event, where solutions and dialogue are insignificant as long as it is entertaining and transient. What gets systematically hidden from public view are the real issues – the wage structure, financial and personnel management practices in the industry, and most importantly, the utter poverty of ideas, which is also evident in the way this issue is being handled. So let us move beyond Vinayan-Siddique tiffs, and 'intelligent' taunts of Srinivasan, and talk business, plain and simple.

KSEB ADVERTS

2008-03-10T21:46:00.000-07:00

All about Power – Patriarchal light, Female Darkness?

A series of 'public interest' advertisement spots on television released recently by the Kerala State Electricity Board warns the public not to waste electricity. Film stars like Suresh Gopi and Dilip pontificates and urges us on the need to take actions to curb wastage of electricity at home in order to avoid imposition of power cut. The ads not only shifts the onus of saving power on to the customer (read women), but also puts the blame squarely on the domestic consumer for wasting power and causing power cuts. As everyone knows and umpteen number of committees have pointed out ad nauseum one of the most obnoxious 'source' of power loss in the state is in the area of Transmission and Distribution, an area solely under the control of the Board, and which the Board has systematically chosen to ignore. It has instead vehemently argued for more hydel projects, like the one it has proposed and pushing for in Athirapilly now, despite the vehement protests and pleas of environmentalists and civil society activists. So the target of the ads is 'naturally' the general public, who are obviously being warned of the darkness ahead if they don't cut down consumption. Obviously it is not just about consumption and saving. This sudden revelation and concern about power shortage and saving look ominous especially in the context of the Board's fatal obsession with hydel projects. There is no doubt that the domestic consumer needs to be extremely careful and diligent about the use and abuse of power. What are made 'secondary' in the process, are the more crucial and wasteful instances of the electric abandon manifested at our religious and other festivities, the all-too bright and conspicuous waste by and in commercial complexes, and by the transmission and distribution machinery and mechanisms of the Board themselves. And, what are the priorities the ads thrust before us, and more importantly, why do they target women as 'the' irresponsible squanderers at home?

Look at the representation of women in these 'public interest' advertisements. It seems the film stars have brought the primitive gender blindness of Malayalam cinema with them into the ad space. In cinema, women are always pets or preys, decorative objects or scopophilic consumables, and all the decisions are and have to be made by men while women admire, obey and follow. The ads follow the same logic, forcing even the critics to follow the same-old tired arguments in critiquing such obsolete stereotypes.

In the KSEB ads, the women are the ones who waste - they are either wasting their time (over 'idle' chat over phone) or energy (by using it at 'peak' hours). In contrast, men carefully take efforts to curb waste and save energy. So, while the 'stars' bring in light, women are harbingers of darkness (and the sole potential cause for power cut)! In one spot, we find a 'housewife' ironing clothes at dusk, with all the lights on (subtextually it seems to be asking, why the hell does she need such brightness?). Dilip enters the scene, switches off all the unnecessary lights, and tweaking her ear chides her not to use such devices during peak hours (whose peak hour?!). Here is a 'responsible' husband warning an irresponsible wife (who is at work, by the way) for wasting valuable energy. Leave alone the fact she is seen working at 'peak hours', she is also made responsible for and guilty of energy waste!

In another ad, we see a lady picking up a phone for a chat when the power goes off sinking the room in darkness. A match stick is lighted and we find Suresh Gopi bringing light not only into the room but also in the form of an advice to the woman about saving power so as to avoid power cuts. In the third ad, we have Suresh Gopi again, who is apparently a conscientious officer working late in his office; he diligently switches off his PC and comes out of his cabin to find all the lights in his deserted office turned on. He meticulously switches them off one by one, setting a male superior example for the society to follow.

So, in all the ads, the positive and proactive examples happen to be men, while frivolous women waste power and squander them thoughtlessly.

Obviously, it is all about power.

ANIL KV SHOW

2008-01-07T23:20:00.000-08:00

In-betweening (Tweening, for short), is the process of generating intermediate frames between two images to give the appearance that the first image evolves smoothly into the second image. Inbetweens are the drawings between the keyframes which help to create the illusion of motion. Tweening is a key process in all types of animation, including computer animation. Sophisticated animation software enables one to identify specific objects in an image and define how they should move and change during the tweening process.

Obsessed with ends and extremes, assertions and closures, we lose/forget what is most important in life – what lies in between. Life is always and inexorably lived in detail, it consists of those dull, tiring and long, sometimes exciting and thrilling but other times frustrating and painful, 'in betweens'. Enamoured with landmarks and highpoints, we nullify the in betweens that connect those nodal points, give meaning and direction to them, and fill the gaps and voids, the interstices between the departures and arrivals.

Anil Vasudevan's series of paintings 'In Between' takes up this dilemma of the 'in between' to weave visual narratives that map our lives and times that are apparently fast changing, always moving away, flying between points, destinations, landmarks, stages and full stops.. These images attempt to look at the dizzying change that we are participants to most often as mute witnesses. These radical shifts are not only those happening in time, but also ones that transform the landscapes we inhabit beyond recognition, redesigning the very stuff and pace of the sensations and experiences that make our lives. It is a despairing attempt to reclaim continuities and make sense out of this dizziness that marks the march of time in our times. It thus reclaims history through memory reimaging certain images, between then and now, between before and after, between childhood and youth, between past and present, between nostalgia and reality. The key frames that form the extreme ends of each triptych function as the 'key frames' while the in between work as a link, a path or a poser between the two.

These images excavated both from the past/childhood and the misty present, are poignant with their autobiographical charge. They are also images of a fast developing metro, the desperate attempts of an artist to make sense of his time and place, that is increasingly and dizzyingly whirling away to nowhere

FILM FESTIVALS AND KERALA AUDIENCE

2008-01-07T22:27:00.000-08:00

Film Festival, Audience & Media

The 12th International Film Festival of Kerala that concluded yesterday was one of the best in its history. It had some very interesting and stimulating packages like films from the Caribbean and the Balkans, the Anthologies series, Latin American Women filmmakers etc apart from a very exhaustive retrospectives of the Korean master Im Kwon Taek and Pedro Aldomavar, the maverick filmmaker from Spain who is being showcased for the first time in such depth in India. The World Cinema section featured the latest works of contemporary masters like Alexander Sokurov, Lars von Trier, Takeshi Kitano, Miguel Littin, Taviani Brothers, Hou Hsiao Hsien, Zhang Yimou etc

What distinguishes this year's festival was the splendidly mature way in which the audience (more than 7500 delegates) conducted themselves. It is only natural that despite the careful and well spread out scheduling of films, there were solitary instances of overcrowding for some films. It was also an indication of the enthusiasm and passion for good films. While content and participation have always been its strength, one of the major limitations of IFFK has been its inability to take our films to the world by opening avenues for our filmmakers to market, showcase and sell their films abroad. This year, a significant initiative was made in this regard. There was a very fruitful and informative interface between local filmmakers and representatives of the industry and some of the major players in international film festival circuit, global film marketing and selling. This beginning, one hopes would make some headway in exploring an international market and attention for regional cinemas. Something that would certainly synergise our stagnant film economy and aesthetics.

The media coverage of the festival was very exhaustive with most of the newspapers and channels giving it ample space and time. Curiously, the 'smaller' newspapers carried much better analysis and insightful coverage compared to the big – almost monopolistic – players. The latter seemed to take a very laid back attitude to the event – one of the most important international cultural events in the state- and more often indulged in trivia or regurgitation of the synopses of the films being shown. There was neither an effort to look at the event with the seriousness it deserves, nor a passion for cinema evident in its coverage. One glaring instance was the news reports about the signature film made by a promising young filmmaker. While one may have difference of opinion about the film itself, the reports were talking more about the filmmaker and the imagined machinations behind its making. Triggered by the intolerant howls in the auditorium, these reports seemed to fuel it further rather than bring some sort of sanity and initiate intelligent discussions about it. This intolerance towards anything different and new is also indicative of our mindset that is increasingly enslaved by the lyrical-nostalgic on the one, and the global-consumerist on the other. While we are all voracious for anything new and experimental from outside, we don't give a damn about anything like that around us. In the process, anything local and innovative gets booed out.

But the seriousness and involvement shown by the viewers in the festival and the keen interest it has generated amongst cineastes from all over ought to take it to new heights and possibilities. If at all that happens, it would be despite the media.

INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL OF KERALA

2008-01-07T22:23:00.000-08:00

Quality vs Quantity?

The International Film Festival of Kerala is an event that all cineastes look forward to every year. This year iffk 2007 features some very stimulating packages, homages and tributes, apart from some of the most important contemporary films from all over the world.

According to sources, about 6000 delegate passes have been issued, which indicates its increasing popularity and local interest in the event. The rise in the proportion of female delegates and the youth have been the most positive features of this festival which was earlier limited only to the 'initiated'. But this 'democratisation' of participation in the festival has not been without its problems. One major problem has been the quality of viewing, which has a lot to do with the culture of film viewing. The experience of the last two years should certainly disturb anyone who really value films and filmmakers. Instances of constant walkouts and walkins, phone rings, conversations over mobile phones etc have been a regular phenomenon in our festival. This not only disturbs those who would like to watch the film peacefully, but also shows thorough disrespect to the film or filmmaker in question. So, increasing participation is definitely something that has to be accompanied by greater responsibility, respect and discipline. Obviously, it cannot be enforced from above, but has to be part of a healthy and positive film viewing habit. Certainly not everyone likes all kinds of films; what is 'great' for one may be 'trash' to another. But it is all about respect for oneself and others, and also respect for efforts behind the work being screened. It is also the question of taking enough pains to understand the other, the different, the faraway. The question of quality of viewership is something the film viewing community participating in IFFK has to seriously address.

This quantitative increase in participation also follows a certain pattern. It gives one a feeling that it is the 'festival' that attracts delegates rather than the 'films' themselves. For, if the audience were actually drawn to the festival by the films, then the various monthly screenings at the film societies and campuses should have attracted more people. Most of these screenings are finding it difficult to get people to see them. But the rush for the festival is increasing year by year.

The change in the nature of viewers and pattern of viewership is also reflected in the interactive sessions, whether it be the Open Forum, Seminars or Meet the Directors. In recent years, such sessions have turned into dull affairs, where nothing serious or interesting transpires. So, one is left to wonder whether this rush is yet another variety of consumerism, a la the famous Kerala Model, which is all about consumption and distribution and much less about creation and production. It is impossible to turn one's face away from the question whether these festivals have really synergized our film industry – both mainstream and independent. Or, is this kind of scopophilic exposure to global products adding further to our inferiority complex about the 'little' films that we make under severe constraints, limited budgets and for small markets?

If organizationally, our festival urgently needs to address the question of the quality of viewership, technically, we have to address the quality of screening, which has been very poor compared to global and even national standards. Both are questions relating to respect –respect that we owe to the films and to our fellow viewers.

Malayalam Cinema 2007

2008-01-07T22:12:00.000-08:00

– More Despair than Hope ?

Year 2007 presented nothing unpredictable or exciting. It was the usual fare with a mixed bag of very few successes and a whole lot of failures, financial as well as aesthetic. Despite the unending wail about the 'crisis' looming large over it, in terms of numbers, it did better this year with 64 releases compared to 59 last year.

The pick of 2007 would be Nalu Pennungal by Adoor Gopalakrishnan, which takes a intense but dispassionate look at the lives of women in Kerala during the mid decades of last century. It bears the mark of a very mature filmmaker for its control over the medium, and in its charming ability to narrate with bare essentials. Shyamprasad's Ore Kadal was refreshing in terms of its theme – a 'normal' housewife breaking out of the prisons of her sexual mores, and finally walking out of the family to seek refuge in her lover. It is also notable for casting a senior actor like Mammooty in a role that suits him. Another promising film of the year was Avira Rebecca's Thakarachenda. It takes a frontal look at the contemporary phenomenon of displacement and homelessness – one of the many social tragedies that unfold before us and that our cinema is studiously blind to. PT Kunhimuhamed's Paradesi takes up a globally contemporary and politically relevant theme of the question of citizenship and nationality from our very midst but gets mired in its insistence to tell the whole story through dialogues.

The 'commercial-mainstream' was not able to wriggle itself out of its obsession with super stars, despite thumping failures. It seems to be vegetating in a world of make-belief and tired formulae. It is disappointing to see even young filmmakers falling into the same trap. Only someone like Laljose sometimes dares to break this hoodoo. His Arabikatha was a very interesting film that takes a hilarious look at the 'actually existing' communism in Kerala. But in the process, it resorts to the simplistic and the nostalgic, positing all the virtues and ideals in the past and in the rural. Maybe it is this deep suspicion about the urban and the contemporary, and its black and white approach to the problems it throws up, that ultimately led to its success. This year's box office hits like Chocolate, Mayavi, Hello, Chota Mumbai and Vinodayatra etc had nothing new either in their format or theme. They trade with tried out formulae and depended on PR to do the rest. For the last few years, television channels have been working overtime to promote films. Though, films and filmfare still constitute the bulk of their content, it is sad that none of the TV channels in Kerala has made any significant foray into the field of cinema; they still wait for the films to be made to market and use it.

The inability to explore such symbiotic and mutually energizing links is yet another symptom of the disease that afflicts our industry. Even the fact that the superstarrers have been failing consistently has not been an eye-opener to it. There are a lot of lessons to learn from film industries like Tamil and Hindi, which have succeeded in boosting the local industry by looking out and finding new pastures. They were ready to break away from myopic conventions and to look the global in its eye. We still keep our heads plunged in the sand of nostalgia and surface only for consumption – that of course, of the global and the trendy. It was sad to see even young filmmakers like Amal Neerad getting caught up in this, and unable to transform a language that is contemporary to our visual experience but at the same time making connections to our lives and times. Only films that tried to traverse a different terrain were Bharathan (Anil Das) Thaniye (Babu Thiruvalla) and Ekantham ( Madhu Kaithapram). While Bharathan is an attempt at science fiction (a non existent genre in Malayalam), the other two films deal with the burning topic of the aged in Kerala, their loneliness and despair in a society like ours. Unfortunately, they do not confront the challenges of visual language and address the expectations and tastes out there that are shaped and determined by the immediacies of television and the spectacles of digital technologies. We are definitely in need of some fresh air.

The last year saw the departure of some veterans like P Bhaskaran and Kozhikodan, notable lyricist Bharanikavu Sivakumar, and actors like Ravi Menon and Vijayan. Bhaskaran-mash was a multifaceted personality who made signal contributions in various fields. Films like Neelakuyil, Rarichan Enna Pouran, Iruttinte Atmavu, Kallichellamma, and Anveshichu Kandethiyilla etched a vibrant period in the history of Kerala and will be rediscovered in the years to come. Kozhikodan in an assiduous career spanning decades shaped the taste of a generation of viewers with his perceptive and enduring writings.

One hopes Malayalam cinema would succeed to live up to their dreams

Mass Media and Public Broadcasting

2008-01-07T22:10:00.000-08:00

– From Citizen to Consumer?

In recent times, one of the radical shifts in mass media programming has been to make the hitherto passive consumers (listeners, viewers, readers) into content providers. In press and television, there is the huge influx of citizen journalism. Most of the sensational images and inputs about events (whether it be riots, assassinations or natural disasters) in recent times were generated by the 'general public' who were at the site. Conventional 'news' and 'analysis' followed these images, more often feebly attempting to give sense and coherence to the event unfolding live before the viewers. In television entertainment, there is a wave of reality shows, where the hitherto viewers have taken over the idiot box to become participants and performers. Instead of watching others perform, everybody is watching themselves on TV now. In radio, it is the 'phone in' programmes that the jockeys are specializing in, where they chat with the listeners and create a community feeling. Today everybody is a media producer. The mobile phone at hand could make anyone into a journalist or filmmaker. In the cyber realm, the Web 2.0 revolution is all about this, where anybody can reach out to everyone; create communities and fraternities that cut across barriers of class, religion, nation and race.

So, in the business of mass communication the monopoly of the 'centres' over technology, content and transmission has become a thing of the past. Earlier, the messages flowed from a centralized institution (newspapers, TV/Radio stations) to the margins (consumers, people). This one-to-many process has now become an instantaneous and affordable many-to-many process today.

But has this shift really helped in democratizing our public and media sphere, creating new and vibrant platforms for the margins to speak up, to find their voice, and to make themselves visible? With this shift, have the public broadcasting systems become redundant? If we take the case of Doordarshan in the post-liberalisation era, the lessons are bleak. Instead of developing its strengths – accountability, reach, responsibility to inform and educate, state ownership etc – it instead tried to compete with the commercial television channels to become yet another one like that. The first casualty was content. For instance, earlier Doordarshan used to give a permanent slot to award-winning films from regional languages. This gave the 'regional' filmmakers an opportunity to make their works available to the nation as a whole. In its eagerness to be market-friendly and 'viable', Doordarshan promptly did away with all such programmes. As a result, it now looks like a poor man's version of the private channels. It is neither good commercial channel nor a public broadcaster.

Is this pattern going to be repeated in the case of radio also? With the entry of the private FM radios, what is going to happen to Akashvani? Will it turn into yet another Mango, Mirchi or Club, or retain its identity and responsibility as a public broadcasting service? The pattern that is emerging is one of segmentation. The public is being segmented into niche-groups to be addressed by different channels. The private FMs are targeting the high net worth urban population, and the state-owned radio will be gradually pushed to the rural and small town populations, where they have a very wide and dedicated listenership now. If the AIR also tries to compete with the new private channels, they would also be wooing the consumer-class. Then who is going to address and give voice to the 'citizens' and civil society, the villages and the peasants, the dalits and adivasis? Will it become the sole responsibility of the Community Radios? Though community radio movement is an 'answer from below', there is also a dangerous kind of compartmentalization at work here. Community Radio is an instance of the margins speaking to the margins from the margins. It is far more important for the margins to speak from the centres and in the mainstream public spheres. So, the segmentation of the audience (read market) is also a segmentation of the public sphere itself. And the crucial question is whether it is going to bring in a new multi-tiered caste system in media.

FM RADIO REVOLUTION IN MALAYALAM

2008-01-07T22:05:00.000-08:00

From Tribal Drum to Chatter Box?

A new wave of media is lapping the shores of Kerala. If the last such wave was television, now it is FM Radio. Around 15 new FM Radio channels are about to go on air in Kerala in the coming months from centres like Kannur, Kozhikode, Trichur, Kochi and Trivandrum. And the players include Malayala Manorama, Mathrubhumi, Asianet, Surya, Radio Mirchi and Big FM. This radio wave is sure to create some ripples in the media industry scene in Kerala, and will hopefully trigger some changes in approach and content.

The Radio which was till now the monopoly of the State or the monotony of Akashvani, will assume a new form and voice under the new conditions. Though such FM radios have become common in the other metros of India, it is still new to the Malayalee listeners, who are used only to AIR. The Akashvani itself will have to rouse itself from its age old slumber and wake up to the new reality of commercial broadcasting. A sense of threat is already audible in the programme packaging and presentation modes. But what is at stake is much more.

There are different questions that confront media houses and market. What is going to be the programme content of all these new radio channels? In the metros, where there is a huge floating and traveling population, it caters to the urban youth and yuppies apart from housewives and students. But in Kerala, the traditional listenership for radio is much more diverse. It is not the car-riding population that tune into this medium, but housewives, the aged, students, rural population etc. Akashvani, as a public broadcasting system, has also been keen to package its programmes to address all these segments. So, how is this massive arrival of private commercial radio stations going to affect a public broadcasting system like Akashvani? And will these radio stations competing with each other give voice to the diversity of our culture, and to the hitherto marginalized sections of society? Or, like television in Malayalam, will it be more of the same everywhere, multiplied ad infinitum?

If our FM radios are going to follow the pattern of their counterparts in the metros, the focus will naturally be on entertainment alone, and that too, meant for the urban population, especially the youth and the yuppies. In which case, it could easily end up as a chatter box, adding to the noise that already dominates our media. Such a choice is the easiest and the obvious one to take, as all these channels are in urban centres, and their commercial viability will necessarily depend on commercial branding and sponsorship of their programmes. Such Ad-driven programming, that is averse to being idea-driven, will naturally address the high net worth population in the urban areas, who constitute the bulk of the consumers of the products of the sponsors. This will leave out a huge population of listeners, both in the urban and semiurban centres, who also want to be informed and educated even while being entertained. If our FM Radios take this easy route, the medium, this tribal drum, as Marshall McLuhan describes it, will end up as yet another chatter box.

ADIEU RAHIM

2007-10-11T09:09:00.000-07:00

Adieu Rahim

Valiyakath Abdu or PKA Rahim as he was known among friends and comrades, died at the age of 73 on 1st of October at his home in Trichur. He was bedridden for the last few years and living a life away from the glare of media and the busi-ness of public fora.

A proud citizen of Vanneri, 'the motherland of renaissance' according to him, he was part of various sociopolitical movements from his student days. He was closely associated with Students Federation and the Communist movement in his early days and later influenced by Royist thought, moved on to become a Radical Humanist. He was an ardent follower of MN Roy's thoughts till the end. A rebel by nature, his notions of activism couldn't confine itself to sloganeering and party politics. For him, politics was more potent at the subterranean levels of culture and arts. Being active in various socio-religious and cultural movements that rocked his time, was for him also a process of earning lifelong relationships. He had close, lifelong comradeship with people like M Govindan, MRB, Premji, KCS Panicker, Sachidanandan, KG Sankarapillai etc.

He literally journeyed with the fervour of the intellectual climate of his youth, creating platforms for avant garde expressions. He not only argued and engaged in polemics, he also searched and found ways to create space and voice for rebellion – in politics, arts, life and literature. The publications he brought from his firm - Best Printers - stand testimony to his fascinating affair with modernism and radicalism. His engagement with politics was one that tried to extend the horizons of our political imagination by sparking debates and dialogues. The series of book he planned to publish on Radical HHum

Humanist thought (like N Damodaran's Vyakthi, Samudayam, Viplavam), if it succeeded, would have enriched our political discourses qualitatively into more nuanced explorations about real political alternatives and releasing it from the clutches of Marxist-Antimarxist polemics it fell into.

In the flush of modernism, his radical humanist political little magazine 'Jwala' turned into the most vibrant voice in avant garde literature of the time. Edited by Sachidanandan with an array of brilliant writers behind it, Jwala still remains an unparalleled and unique endeavour of its kind in Malayalam, both with regard to its form and content. In the 70's when spring thunder was in the air and Emergency on land, Rahim was instrumental in bringing out a political avant garde publication Prasakthi. Without Rahim, publications like Kurukshetram and Harishree (a collection of new writings in Malayalam with a polemical manifesto by its editor Sachidanandan), the four books of poems by M Govindan, etc would not have been possible. The innovations these books attempted in layout, design, use of fonts, etc reflect the fervour of the time. In fact he created writers like Maythil Radhakrishnan, one of the most original writers in Malayalam, whose first books, Suryavamsam etc, were published by Best Printers, especially in a time when no established publisher would dream of taking such risks. His last publication was 'Vanneri Nadu', a book edited and brought out by him. It was a rich homage to his homeland - a wonderful collection of history, memoirs, anecdotes, and photographs that sketch the history and cuture of Vanneri.

Rahim leaves a legacy of rebellious living, thought and action. When many of his contemporaries were swallowed by ideologies and waves, got stuck in positions of power and basked in their self-images, he had the courage to travel light and ahead. Pleasant by disposition, he was never one to yearn for glory in isolation or martyrhood, but one who was cheerful and warm with people around, inclusive and dialogic in his engagements, and expressive and constructive in his actions

covering death

2007-10-11T09:07:00.000-07:00

Coverage of Death, Deathly coverage

The way we treat the dead gives crucial insights about the life and 'culture' we live. It is about the way we live and perceive life. Some deaths get celebrated even by the enemies, while some others are ignored, unseen or shrunk to the coffin of an obit column.

Obituaries in fact tell us a lot more about ourselves than the dead. They tell us about how, why and where we are; it is an unconscious commentary upon our sense of history, and so, of our present. In these times of 'the excess of the present and the presence of excess' in all areas of life, when media decides what will occupy the public mind and space, the way we treat death and the dead give us a lot of painful and sad insights about ourselves (or, to put it more harshly, our dead lives).

What does the all-too-sudden or 'much-awaited' exit of a person/ality mean to us, and to a society? Every death is an end of the world, in a sense. It is a very painful personal experience for the dear and near. For them, it is a heart-wrenching experience entangled with too many things – memories, emotions, and experiences, even certain smells, touch, objects and spaces. The event or the phenomenon of death is made all the more unbearably enigmatic for our sheer inability to imagine the sudden absence of someone who was with us till now. As for the milieu or society he/she lived in, it may be the exit of a chunk of history, a whole biography marked and scarred by time, a way of life, a vision, a voice, a friend, guide or philosopher.

Inevitably, every death forces us to confront the present, to make a comparison of values and worldviews, to take stock of ourselves and the life we live.. Every death forces us to ponder about transience and so, about our 'worth', raison de'tre, or, in other words our own death. When we watch death live on television, we are morbidly watching our own death, again and again, its cold eyes staring back at us.

So, mourning for the dead is something very near to our core and our worldviews; it is all about how we look at life, the respect we give to ourselves, and our sense of proportion and history.

The sad demise of PKA Rahim and MN Vijayan bring such dark thoughts to one's mind. The former is forgotten, almost invisible, and unpardonably sidelined in the media, while the death of the other is 'celebrated'. Both equally sickening and depressing. Both equally unfair and ungrateful to the great souls they were. The question whether the proliferation of media would further enrich our understanding of the world by including more and covering more areas of our life and times, is answered here with a deafening NO. Totally drowned in the present, here, media proved itself to be an instrument of forgetting rather than remembering. For media, PKA Rahim, a Radical Humanist and avant garde publisher, was not worth its attention – it didn't know him nor did it bother to. On the other, Vijayan's death was an easy occasion to rake the dirt of the present they splurge in.

This kind of selective memory should force us to interrogate our propensity for mindless celebrations, the compulsive need to create and demolish idols, and to en-close our world and the public sphere to the present and the immediate. In effect media creates a sterile atmosphere sans history, and so, closed to any sense of connection with the all-too real struggles of our own life and times. It prods us to examine our own fears and fantasies about death, and more crucially, our inability to mourn, or, our inability to give the dead a decent burial.

What Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) said in his Devil's Dictionary, has an ominously contemporary ring with regard to our media and its deathly coverage:

Done with the work of breathing; done

With all the world; the mad race run

Through to the end; the golden goal

Achieved – and found to be a hole!

Ignoble end to all the strife!

To lie as ne'er we lay in life,

With legs uncomfortably straight

And rigid fixity of pate,

Pierced through and through by worms that live

To make with needless skill, a sieve

Our of our skin, to sift our dust.

Vain labour! at the last they just

Bolt us unbolted till they bu'st!

TWENTY20 CRICKET

2007-09-30T21:43:00.000-07:00

Television, Cricket and Media Frenzy

Another wave of cricket euphoria is sweeping through the subcontinent. India's Twenty20 world cup success has literally swung everyone off their feet and minds with the whole country gloating over it like an adolescent. Though India played much better and exciting cricket against Australia and South Africa, the final was 'the most important' victory obviously because it was against our arch-other, Pakistan. One could virtually feel the nervousness and tension of the players out in the field during the match. Evidently both of them were not playing a game; rather the game was playing them with the wishes, prayers and dreams of millions of their countrymen looming over their heads. Rules of the game do not apply here; it is either glory or ignominy. You are either paraded through the streets, or lynched in public. (The bitter experience that both the teams faced after their unceremonious exit at the WCC should be still fresh in their memory) So, the frenzy that television whipped up cannot just wind up with the end of the game. It went on and on through the night and the following days, with the channels vying with each other to follow the players to their homes. It was as if the channels, akin to adolescents, couldn't come to terms with the fact that the tournament was over.

Witnessing the kind of joy and exuberance in and of the media, one gets the feeling that it was also a desperate exercise in public memory. Television constantly needs such euphoric moments to create an illusion of participation through spectacles. On the one side are the pressures of entertainment industry to innovate new forms of entertainment and thus advertisement revenue. On the other is the frantic effort of the audience to hold on to something, anything that goes beyond the transience and everydayness of life and media that suffocates them. Such moments naturally need its heroes, villains or martyrs – and this game constantly renews itself to cater to this inexorable hunger - of the fans as well as the media. From its often result-less 5 Day version, here cricket has taken the shape and size of a film show, a thriller lasting for three and half hours!

As Rohit Brijnath puts it very insightfully, "it's a game that is the remarkable mix of many stolen parts; it has borrowed the idea that plot is irrelevant from Van Damme movies, it's scrounged the concept of "music at changeovers" from the US Open Tennis; it's spawned its own version of baseball's dancing girls; it's crude version of football's penalty shoot-out, it's got a hockey-style on-ground bench, and bears a resemblance to golf with its bizarre rules.. Its intensity is unrelenting, its no-dawdling pace so wonderfully un-cricketing, its lack of snobbery invigorating, its demand for nerve exhilarating, its improvisation intriguing" (It is Excitable, Unruly, Unsubtle and Fun, Sportstar, September 29. 2007). So, is the game of cricket imitating television, which is a media that picks from any genre, mixes and shuffles them at will, always trying to keep the frenzy alive at any cost?

And he goes on to say, "Twenty20 is the future, but it's also the past. The game we embrace now is the one we left behind. Every shot played by Yuvraj that night against England was only an echo of our boyhood..Gully cricket was not about accumulation but explosions..We played Twenty20 before it was invented" Maybe it is this very immediacy, intimacy and spontaneity, and the boyishness of the players (players like Hayden and Gilchrist look like Dinosaurs) that prompts us to take on to it so easily and compulsively. Maybe it is this feeling of participating in yet another reality show, where your gully and neighbourhood are the arena, that makes it so TV-friendly, full of excitement and frenzy as it happens, and totally forgotten the moment the wave passes by. So, it may not be a coincidence that this victory was constantly compared with film narratives like Lagaan, Chak De India, etc where a rabble comes together to gain victory. Is art/media imitating life or is it the other way round?

Life in a Metro

2007-09-30T21:38:00.000-07:00

The Metro within

The city and the urbanscapes of life and its tribulations have entered the mainstream of Hindi cinema recently. The city was there earlier too, but it was a sort of liminal presence, a space one took refuge in one was never 'at home' there. Its values were not consonant with the diegetic centers of the narratives of films from of the Raj Kapoor variety. Vegetating within the national-developmentalist ideology, the city was a place where money and ruthless ambition ruled the roost, and where humane feelings and tenderness had no place or time.

But in recent Hindi movies like Life in a Metro (Anurag Basu) city is no longer a 'place of arrival' but where one simply is. The feeling of awe and wonder at the sight and pace of the city, its anonymity etc are passé. There is no longer the feeling of shock or alienation; instead it is a place that totally engrosses its inhabitants, inexorably drawing them into its vortex. So, like earlier, these films do not place the rural at a moral highground as the counterpoint to urban values and ways of life. Life in the city now is something that seeks its own redemption and drawing from its own resources and conflicts. Moreover, for these characters, there is no longer a village to dream of or return to.

But significantly, even while the film deals with the contemporary conflicts of a globalised Indian city life, the plight of women remain almost the same. The three women in the film, the mother Shivani (Nafisa Ali), and her daughters Shikha (Shilpa Shetty) and Sruti (Konkana Sen Sharma) find it a very difficult place to realize themselves, or express their sensuality. Shivani joins her old flame Dharmendra, who left her decades back to pursue his career, but their relationship ultimately finds its consummation in death. Shikha who is bored with her busy and unfaithful husband, moves till the brink of breaking free from the moral prisons of the family, but only to rush back to its rusty security. Her sister, who is in endless search for the groom of her choice, had to literally grab him back on the day of his wedding. And woven through the lives of these three women is the life in the metro, one that is seething with restless ambition, lust and desire for pleasures. But only men seem to be able to access the new freedoms opened up by the new economy.

As a result, the culture of self-denial follows women in the globalised city too. If for Sruti it is a constant search for the right man, for Shikha it is a dangerous lure, whose furtive physicality sends her scurrying back to the familiar embrace of the adulterous husband and to the confines of the family. For their mother, the reunion, which is a liberating moment in the film, ends up as yet another denouement of self-denial, ending in her own death. Neha, the ambitious girl who attempts to sleep her way to success, has to return to her lover's hands, virtually reborn, 'reformed' and domesticated.

Why should all these narratives which splurge in the adulteries of men, teeter at the edges of any transgression on the part of female? It is a question that looms large in the face of our variety of globalisation, whose gender biases are bursting in its seams.

chakde india

2007-09-30T21:34:00.000-07:00

Chak de! India - Team vs. Nation

Chakde! India is a feel good movie for sure; one which celebrates the victorious comeback of the underdogs. Who doesn't love to identify with the underdogs provided they make it in the end? So, Chak de sees to it that, all the dilemmas and conflicts it triggered are tied back to a neat finale. The honour of the humiliated coach Kabir Khan (played in a very charmingly subdued manner by Shahrukh Khan) is reclaimed. The bureaucratic committee is silenced. The inner squabbles within the team about regional differences, culture, seniority, sharing, identity etc are sorted out. And in the end, Indian women's hockey team wins the world cup defeating the six-times champions Australia! His honour restored, Kabir Khan is able to come back to his ancestral home after an exile of 7 years and closes the door of his house on a victorious note. The pride of Indian flag has been saved to fly high above its subjects. But at whose cost?

For instance, why should a Muslim essentially be a traitor until he proves his patriotism? Why is this burden of proof and performance always thrust upon them? Why is his patriotism always linked to performance and worth? This is all the more striking because the 'Muslim question' is strongly posed only in this one instance - in fact in the prelude to the film. Significantly, it is a Muslim coach who 'unites' an otherwise chaotic rabble of players from all over the country. This is the exact replica of the communal logic in reverse; there you have the Muslim uniting India oppositionally as its other and enemy!

It is also interesting to note how the logic of achievement – a favourite Hollywood theme in this genre of films – is adapted to the Indian situation. While Hollywood unequivocally celebrates the spirit of the individual and his/her ambitions and achievement, here in Chakde!, individualism and difference is constantly critiqued and put down. The mission of the coach is to nip any individual or identity assertions at the bud – whether it be that of the region, playing positions or internal hierarchies. He wants them to put all this behind and meld into one whole to perform and save india and himself from ignominy. The contrast between cricket and hockey is an extension of this logic. In the film cricket stands for individual glory and benefits, while hockey is sported as 'the team game' representing all the values of 'good old india'.

The internal squabbles in the team, fuelling the feeling 'if only we stood together, we would be a super power', are based upon very stereotypical figures from various regions. The big, short tempered Punjabi, the coarse and unsophisticated Jharkandi, the urban rich arrogance of the Chandigarh player, the carefree ones from the North East etc play their popular identity roles, later to be purged and merged into the 'nation' of a performing team. Obviously differences do not perform and is anathema to team work and achievement. And who else can sort and stamp out all these internal female differences in the team (read family) but the male coach (Father)?

Maybe only if India melds all the differences into a monolithic, performing whole, can Kabir Khan's own Muslim identity become non-problematic. Or is it the other way round? Is he fighting all kinds of differences exactly because it is for being the other that he was humiliated and punished as anti-national.

But isn't the concept of the team one that brings together and works on the synergy between differences in personal talents and field positions? But ironically, in the Chakde! , it has to be supplanted by the uniformity that the 'nation' demanded from Kabir Khan.

So, if in the colonial India of Lagaan differences couldn't be suppressed, in competitive and globalised India, differences are something to be sacrificed at the altar of achievement