Aesthetic dislocations: A re-take on Malayalam cinema of the 1970s

Abstract

The centrality of South Indian cinemas in ‘New Indian Cinema’, one of the many cultural constellations of the turbulent and vibrant 1970s, has been widely acknowledged. Focusing on the aesthetic structuring of select moments from Adoor Gopalakrishnan's Swayamvaram, K.P. Kumaran's Athithi and P.A. Backer's Kabaneenadhi Chuvannappol, this paper investigates the contestations central to the emergence of a realist aesthetic in Malayalam cinema. It unpacks the movement towards the consolidation of realism as a mode of address that generates certain spectatorial responses, as opposed to understanding this turn in Malayalam cinema as foregrounding a new version of the social. The status of popular cinema and cinephilia are at the center of these contestations, as these film texts actively intervene in debates around aesthetics.

Notes

 1. Film theorist Madhava Prasad describes the 1970s as the time of the disintegration of the ‘feudal family romance’ with the emergence of what he calls ‘the aesthetics of mobilization,’ ‘development aesthetic’ in the films of Shyam Benegal and the middle cinema exemplified by Basu Chatterjee (Prasad 117–216).

 2. Film historian John W. Wood identifies this sequence as a flashback (149–150). This reading, based on no textual evidence, is an attempt to account for these sequences in terms of a linear story – a reading that I argue against.

 3. Venkiteshwaran, prominent film critic, lists the references to cinema in Swayamvaram and identifies the statement about aesthetics. I differ from him on one significant count. He presents this argument about aesthetics as ‘self-referential and [as pointing] towards notions about creativity and “art” inherent to the new wave project’ (Venkiteshwaran 31). For me this set of references is the central project of the film and not just a matter of self-referentiality. This is the meta-narrative of the film – one that ties different aspects of it together.

 4. In the context of Malayalam cinema, social realism refers to an emphasis on social conflicts even as they deployed melodramatic tropes. Films of the mid-1950s that dealt with issues of the working class and the lower castes are popularly seen as representing the singularity of Malayalam cinema.

 5. In his The Imaginary Signifier (1986), film theorist Chritian Metz argues that the viewer in the cinema hall identifies with himself as a narrativized and abstracted subject position put together by the filmic text (97, 42–57). As has been noted by many, the suturing of the actual viewers with the abstract spectator is never complete.This has implications in understanding the viewers of Malayalam parallel cinema, a discussion that is outside the scope of this paper.

 6. In other films, the systems that are in crisis inlcude matriliny (Elipathayam, 1982), Communism (Mukahamukham, 1984 ), and feudalism (Vidheyan, 1994 ).

 7. Madhava Prasad describes the structuring of realism as metalanguage thus:

… a contractual link [is established] between the members of the audience, including the film-makers, thanks to which the object-world can be represented in its there-ness. It is this latter contract that is at the base of the metalanguage of realism and it is because of the operation of this contract that it is possible for the metalanguage to effectively disappear in its material aspect without eliminating any of its effects. (73)

  Reality in these articulations is contractually produced. Realism is then the way of apprehending this contractually formed ‘reality,’ a specific way of ‘looking.’ See also Rajadhyaksha (124–126).

 8. The presence (in a sequence discussed earlier) of G. Sankara Pillai, one of the founders of the thanathu nataka vedi, provides us with another clue to the salience of modernist theatre in articulating realism in this film.

 9. For a detailed discussion of the economic context and the emergence of parallel cinema in Kerala, see Radhakrishnan (219–231).

10. This book, along with the path breaking Kalaavimarsham: Marxist Maanadhandam (Art Critique: Marxist Yardsticks, 1983) edited by Raveendran, consolidated a form of art/film criticism that was influenced by Antonio Gramsci and Frankfurt School and anticipated the emergence of film studies in the 1990s.

11. A third film reference is the poster of a film titled Aa Maze Lelo (‘Come, have fun’), possibly a B-movie, on the back of an auto rickshaw. This is the only reference that could be a direct comment on popular cinema, but I guess that, even if it were, it would have completely missed the audience in Kerala.

12. The film, made during the Internal Emergency between 1975 and 1977, could secure a release only after being subjected to a number of deletions by the Censor Board, which was more powerful than ever. Because of the precarious conditions under which it was screened, Kabanee became, much like Mrinal Sen's Calcutta ' 71 (1972), a locus for political mobilization.

13. Perhaps as a testament to the ambiguity of its politics, at the height of Internal Emergency in 1975, Kabanee was selected as the Second Best Film and Backer was selected as the Best Director by the State Film Awards. Backer accepted the award from the hands of the then Home Minister of Kerala, K Karunakaran who spearheaded the hunt, and in many cases murder, of Naxalites. Backer writes that Karunakaran had said to a journalist that Kabanee carried the message that if you indulge in anti-State activities, you could be killed (Krishnakumar 42).