Adoor Gopalakrishnan: A Life In Cinema: A Review

By John Cheeran
There is cinema in India outside of Bollywood and Adoor Gopalakrishnan, a classicist in the mould of Satyajit Ray, has made significant contributions to sustain such alternative ways of light and shade. Adoor, an auteur celebrated internationally, but in India and, especially in his native Kerala, is regarded as an aloof man and, as happens mostly, is branded arrogant.
Film critic Gautaman Bhaskaran’s authorised biography of the director, Adoor Gopalakrishnan: A Life In Cinema, disappointingly does not offer enough insights and inputs that will help one understand the auteur better.
Adoor who has made films such as Swayamvaram, Kodiyettam, Elipathayam, Mukhamukham and Vidheyan deserves a biography that should read more than the reviews of his eleven features he has made in a long career.
Adoor is not an easy man or a film-maker to understand. As Shyam Benegal reminds us Adoor’s movies are meditations on the human condition. Bhaskaran, who has closely watched Adoor’s career from the vantage point of a journalist, has a written biography largely based on conversations that he had with the filmmaker. It’s challenge for any biographer to make Adoor confess about his life and movies. Bhaskaran, however, is unpretentious and writes lucidly and has succeeded to a great extent to give the reader an overall view about Adoor’s world. Adoor says: “Cinema is actually one’s experience. One’s vision of life. The filmmaker’s. That is his cinema.”
Adoor’s first movie (Swayamvaram) was released in 1972. Except for Nalu Pennungal and Oru Pennum Randaanum, the interval between his movies has been an excruciating four years, most of the times. The interval only reflects the time and thought that Adoor puts into his movies. He is a careful filmmaker. There is not a single frame in his oeuvre that is inessential. And he is a careful and cagey talker too which rules out a brutal self-portrait.
Adoor is not a stranger to controversies and, in Kerala, fellow filmmakers in art film circuit has had many bones to pick with him. It’s quite disappointing that Bhaskaran could not persuade Adoor to explain why he did not work with Kodiyettam Gopi after the successful 1977 effort (Kodiyettam) that gave the actor the national award. The lack of critical observations on the filmmaker from his contemporaries will, of course, invite the charge of the biography being a hagiography. Had Bhaskaran talked to Adoor’s heroes (Mammooty, Madhu, MR Gopakumar) and heroines (Sobhana, Mini Nair) the portrait would have been fuller.
And if you want to understand Adoor as a friend, lover, husband and father, you will have to wait longer.

Title: Adoor Gopalakrishnan: A Life In Cinema
Author: Gautaman Bhaskaran
Publisher: Penguin Viking

Adoor Gopalakrishnan in Abu Dhabi

By John Cheeran
The National, the Abu Dhabi-based English newspaper, today has devoted two full pages in its Arts and Life section to a profile of Adoor Gopalakrishnan, one of India’s finest film makers.
Despite the lavish display, there is hardly anything that is insightful in the profile by Gautaman Bhaskaran.
The journalist writes: “Gopalakrishnan’s cinema is about real people and real ¬issues.”
Aren’t all people real, all issues real?
Read the profile online.

Pulijanmam; a tiger's life for Priyanandanan

By John Cheeran
As Kerala’s so called successful film directors are involved in a fratricidal fight comes the news of director Priyanandanan’s Pulijanmam, based on a play by N Prabhakaran, winning the 54th national (Indian) award for the best film for the year of 2006.
Priyanandanan and I belong to the same district, Thrissur, in Kerala. But unfortunately not being at home and always on the lookout for my next job, I never had an opportunity to have a chat with the guy or watch his two critically acclaimed feature films so far – Neithukaran (Weaver) and Pulijanmam (A tiger’s fate).
Like me, many must be regretting their failure to watch Kaari Gurukkal and Prakashan in roles that are a rare blend of myth and reality.
Murali won the national award for best actor for his role in Neithukaran, and the movie fetched many awards including the state award for best debut director, runner-up best actor (female) and three international awards for best director, best film and best actor.
The fact that Pulijanmam did not win any awards at the 2006 Kerala State Film awards but went on to receive national recognition might be really heartening for Priyanandanan. And this has happened on a number of occasions within the Malayalam film industry.
The national jury, led by Buddhadeb Dasgupta, deserves some praise for having the nous to appreciate Pulijanmam.
I’m so much happy for Priyanandanan, whose travails are evocatively reported by my friend PI Rajeev in the Indian Express on June 11. (http://www.indianexpress.com/story/321767.html).In Thrissur, the other day, Priyanandanan has talked about the humiliations he underwent while directing the movie, and later for getting theatres to show Pulijanmam.
I, however, have one question for Priyanandanan.
As a director, how does he feel about, the jury’s decision to give the best film award for Pulijanmam and best director’s award for someone else, in this case, to Madhu Bandarkar?
For one thing I’m certain. The award will force many of us to watch this director’s efforts in the future.
And with M.G. Sasi and Priyanandanan winning accolades, pushing stalwarts such as Adoor Gopalakrishnan and K.P. Kumaran into far corners, Malayalam films might be on the cusp of a new awakening.

M.G. Sasi's Adayalangal: Hunger, Anger and Despair

By John Cheeran
I was among the crowd at Sridhar theatre in Ernakulam that watched M.G. Sasi's Adayalangal, the film chosen by Jahnu Barua-led jury as the best feature film in the Kerala State film awards.
M. G. Sasi has won the Kerala State award for best director, Adayalangal is the best film and the movie's cameraman Radhakrishnan is the best cinematographer.
The verdicat has shocked many, inlcuding directors Adoor Gopalakrishnan (Nalu Pennungal), Shyamaprasad (Ore Kadal), K.P. Kumaran (Akasha Gopuram) and P T Kunhumohammad (Paradesi who all had movies eyeing the award for the best feature film.
I began to watch Sasi's Adayalangal with dread. I even doubted whether it will be a documentary on Nanthanar (Ramakrishnan), the short story writer from Perinthalmanna, who committed suicide after a life of military angst. That I left the screening of Adayalangal without thinking that I wasted my three hours should have been enough to cheer up its director Sasi and the movie crew. How many recent Malayalam movies could produce similar feelings in the ticket-payer?
Adayalangal may not be a great film.
I still don't know whether Adayalangal deserved to be the best film. But havng seen Paradesi and Nalu Pennungal, I'm not surprised that Adayalangal won critical acclaim. All awards are subjective; their merits are relative most of the time. I haven't seen Akasha Gopuram and Ore Kadal, the other two serious contenders for the film awards.
In Adayalangal Sasi tackles a pretty ordinary struggle during the 60s when most of the Malayali families found it tough to keep hunger at bay. That hunger and helplesnness were acute in upper class households bereft of a breadwinner. And such situations have been portrayed in Malayalam letters and movies many times over.
Here a personal struggle, Nanthanar's, gets unswerving attention from the dierctor. Sasi has shown that he has the craft and calibre to tell a story that sticks to the viewer's bone long after the last reel is packed in.
And the real strength of Adayalangal lies in the realistic cinematography thanks to the twitching hands of Radhakrishnan.
The disappointment, though, was that Adayalangal tackled only the awakening of Nanthanar. (Though it has been pointed out that story is not on Nanthanar, but only on a story by Nanthanar. But I don't know how you can winnow the fact from Nanthanar's fiction). As Ramakrishnan (Nanthanar) himself realized at the cost of his life, the awakenings hardly matter in the whirligig of fortunes.