‘New Wave’ in Malayalam cinema

The ‘New Wave’ in Malayalam cinema is located within an exciting period in the cultural history of Kerala. The period was preceded by a consolidation of a ‘socialistic and humanistic ethos’[2] within main stream cinema and saw a convergence of energies from different fields including literature[1], fine art and theater. Amidst this convergence from different fields of the artistic milieu , cinema emerged on its own as a ‘Visual’ medium against an overtly literature[3] influenced melodramatic mode of the popular cinema of the 50’s and 60’s. Malayalam cinema until then had been  treading an independent trajectory ambivalent to the trends in Indian Cinema. The quest for a new visual language and autonomy helped Malayalam Cinema take a more radical turn in the 70’s with the formulation of ‘art cinema’ category which found viewership space within local film distribution[4].

The communist state sponsored project[5] of ‘New cinema’ created young film makers[6] equipped with global exposure that revolted against existing aesthetic and narrative styles. The new wave significantly benefited from processes of democratization[7] of the arts and literature, state sponsorship, and convergence of energies of the artistic milieu emerging from different fields. This provided the platform for new artistic and aesthetic development of the seventies. Discourses in literature and politics , on ecology came to fore during this period of which Aravindan is a part of.[8]

Govindan Aravindan  , one of the key figures of the ‘New Wave’ had already made a name for himself as a cartoonist by 1968 through the cartoon strip Cheriya Manushyanum valiya Bhumiyum. He was known to employ a style very distinct from his contemporaries . Making an incidental entry into cinema , Aravindan brought with him a diverse repository of skills as a cartoonist, painter, theater collaborator and music composer.[1] The multifaceted artist  brought a simple, non intellectual film structure involving loosely bound scripts often improvised on location. Aravindan’s  early influences lay in  European new wave movements. The role film societies and cultural communes were indispensable to the growth of Aravindan as a film maker. The collaborations he would make in theater and artist communes paved way to his first film. The predominating silence and quest for the ‘visual’ can be seen as the  of the directors’s silent and artistic persona[3]. The film characters are as much an impulse walker as the Aravindan himself and films become a constant exploration of new landscapes and spaces[4]. His works were noted for the use of music to compose the film form , a method which was known to be mastered by the Indian legend Mani Kaul .[2] 

Malayalam New Wave auteur  Aravindan’s films come out a context of busy experimentation in  realist  narrative both within the new wave as well as mainstream cinema producing varied results. It distinguishes itself in the aspects of representation of landscape and ecology.

______________________________________________________________________________________

[1] . The botany graduate, as a rubber board official in Calicut trained in Hindustani music and painted viciously. Aravindans initiation into Theatre comes with his contact with C.N.Sreekanttan Nair. Aravindan directs his famous piece called “Kali” in 1964.  The next major theatrical venture was “Avan Avan Kadamba” of K.N.Panicker in 1977.
[2]  The first IIFK in 1954 opened out the possibilities of cinema to Aravindan through Kurasoawa’s   “Roshomon” and De Sica’s “Bicycle thieves”.
[3] According to GV Iyer: “The man has so much of conflicts inside and it’s only through his medium that he would express. He wouldn’t speak anything about it .Often he says that he did things for its “feel”. The feeling has no words .He never wants to express it but wants another man to feel it .A man of such capacity never expresses it out but he puts everything on screen”. “Our friendship emerged from a silence. We would just walk together silently without saying anything but together.”-Girish Karnad
[1]  According to Sunny Joseph, The 60’s saw moments of significant experimentation within modern literature   with the emergence of new forms, styles, narratives and themes. However this was not sustained and the audience was limited to upper and middle class intelligentsia.
Aravindan works as a cartoonist during a period when many of the known artists like M.V Devan, Namboodiri, A.S Nair are exploring experimenting within the popular genre of illustration. The madras movement  including artists like KCS Panniker are deriving energies from regional classical and folk idioms in an attempt to rework modernism.
 
[2] C.S Venkiteshwar describes Malyalam Cinema of  50’s as : ‘Resonating with the leftist cultural interventions of the time, the imagination of these films was fired by a vision of a classless society and a future free from social inequalities, exploitation and casteism’
[3] The cinema of 50s and 60s was dominated by a literary influence.
[4] Art Cinema finds distribution in major cinema theatres in ‘Noon shows’.

[5] Many state sponsored institutions come up during this time for the promotion of ‘new cinema’.

[6] Other major auteurs including Adoor Goplakrishnan and John Abraham. Aravindan is in constant touch with the former and is a regular visitor at his film society and collaborates with him few events of cultural communes in Malabar. Artists like A.S. Nair, Namboodiri (who later collaborates with Aravindan) are exploring new compositional strategies and drawing styles in illustrating fiction and poetry during this time. The role of the illustrator here is perhaps equivalent to a director with a script in hand, the difference being that the former can present only one or two scenes of his choice from the storyboard. So by now literary magazines which circulate within middle class intelligentsia play a huge role in shaping not just the literary and political sense of the readers but also the visual aesthetic sensibility. 

[7]Arguable since its happened through Institutionalization and served the middle and upper classses.

[8] Communion including Aravindan and Adoor are holding regular sessions of Poetry and literature in Trivandrum while there’s an emergence of Eco-centric discourse.

 

——————————————————————————————————————————–

“The experience of Avant Garde cinema works to counter the psychic and environmental effects of the commercial media”[1].

Independent Avant Garde through representations of ecological particularities can enrich our understanding of the environment on broader level than that of the mainstream cinema. Aravindan’s Films : KanchanaSita, Esthappan and Kummati are situated within four diverse landscapes associated with Kerala: the forest, the coast, and the mid lands. Central to Aravindan’s early work is Cinema’s inter-connectedness with nature which becomes a window to re-imagine the inter relation between human and natural world. There is an implicit environmental consciousness in these films which is in a dissonance with Modernity: in a context when it’s  beginning impact the rural.

Aravindan’s ‘Kanchana sita’ presents an eco-feminist narrative, situating the epic of Ramayana into a marginalized space. The film ‘Kummati’ explores an imaginary world of children’s fantasy through folklore specific to the region, in connection with landscape and fauna. ‘Esthappan’ weaves into local myths and creates a counter point to modernity through the poetic of the ‘local’. ‘While Kummatty already exists in the collective psyche of generations, Esthappan is the process of that transmutation; the making of the myth.’[2] All of these films operate in the local world of cultural specificity.

Notion of Time

Kanchana Sita was shot entirely in the daylight. The insertion of the extended shots of sunset, and the sunrise comes as marker in the shift within the narrative. The filming derives an internal logic for time and space through directional codification. By applying the didactics of past and future to the left and right (respectively) of the screen one can decode the time seen on screen. When the camera pictures lava and Kusha pondering at the sight of the Aswamedha horse (pictured with them facing the left) the suggestion is that they are invariably looking into the past. Whereas lava is pictured getting ready to shoot the arrow in following shot facing the right. The long sequence of Valmiki’s conversation with Laxman is shot merely through the close up of his head and eyes titling around alternated by close ups of flora. The one eighty degree panoramic shots follow the same logic. While the centrality of the frame positions it as in the present, We see a moment as dispersal of bodies around. The logic of choreography within the limitless seeming filmic space is more inclined towards that of theatre. In Kummatti the mundane everyday life is positioned against the cyclicality of time in the natural world. Seasonality functions as a marker within the narrative shift. The mood and action translates into temporal change within nature

Body and Landscape

Often working with loosely bound scripts and screen play Aravindan mostly improvised on location often deriving inspiration from the outdoor space. The choreography of the body within the landscape becomes key to the visual language of Kanchana Sita. The figure of Rama’s image is de-centered and relative position and scale of him against nature giving a sense of Sita’s overwhelming presence. The frame continuously draws the eye further beyond the figure of Rama and Lakshmana to the reflections in the river, the nature around it, constantly retaining perception of audience to nature. The transitory nature of characters is common all the three films. There is no holding of the gaze but a constant movement using longs shots, pans and panoramic constantly adding new spaces to the register.

Esthappan’s traversal is not merely between diverse spaces but also between multi layered surfaces of varying levels of modernity, primitivism and morality. Esthappan’s vagabond and selfless body becomes the site of the projection of the moral and spiritual contradictions of the social fabric. His traversal as an intervention cuts through the fabric and exposes the ambivalence in values of the time. Aravindan constantly breaks the archetypes of characters presently the neutral humanistic view. Kummatti emanates out of the landscape and his body becomes a mediator between: the natural and the human world, the real and the surreal, the linear and the cyclic, the mature and the innocent. Aravindan hints at the ruptures caused by modernity and he falls back to showcase into the hidden wisdom of the natural world and explore the interconnectedness of life through the mystic.

The landscape of Kanchana Sita and the bodies of Kummati and Esthappan can be seen as interventions cutting through the changing landscapes of the 70’s. Bound with innocence and humanism they reveal an inherent ecosophy with the local and micro ecologies.

THE VISUAL TURN

“Cinema is a machine that moves along vectors that are affective, narrative and semiotic in nature and discloses worlds in which humanity, animals and territory is brought in relationship with each other.[3]”

Landscape in cinema is a visual and audible space and can only be better than in literature. Aravindan developed a visual language and filming style which was a significant departure from the cinema which was over weighed by a literary influence.

“What a good writer achieves with imagination use of language cinema should achieve with visuals. It is here that on he recognizes the limitation of technology and equipment.[4]”

The intensely poetic and painterly overtones are achieved through a casting aside the concern for narrative and dialogue and a focus on the visual image, The pre-occupation with natural elements is a common thread in the three films while the opening sequences establish a primordial connection of the central characters with nature. It happens through a very gentle revelation of the landscape in opening sequences of Kanchana Sita. The film ends with Rama becoming one with nature. Esthappan is pictured against the sea following images of waves in the title sequence and the climax scene he is pictured against the landscape again.

Part of Kummati’s narrative dwells in the animal world. He emanates out of the landscape and returns back into it.  Integral to Aravindan’s style is the  extensive use of long shots focusing on the relative positioning of the character with the landscape. Deleuze in Cinema II says Cinema has the “Sublime capacity to shock thoughts through activity, and awaken the sand effectual automation “in us through vibrations and affects rather than representations.[5] Striving for the non-representative and the ‘affective’ Aravindan extensively uses panoramic pan shots of landscape creating a mimesis of nature on screen. This technique is rigorously used in Kanchana Sita.

—————————————————————————————————————————–

“The cinema possesses a specific moment which is truly magical truly cinematographic”[1]

Kanchana Sita’s footage of the sunrise marks the shift in the plot line. Aravindan uses documentary footages of local performance practices in both Kancha sita and Esthappan. Tribal dance in Kanchana Sita and Chavittunadakam in Esthappan add to the authenticity and cultural specificity of the region. Aravindan drew from his multi faced talents in visual arts and music to formulate a style easily distinguishable from other new wave film makers. “Aravindan’s films follow a 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”[2] construct the vastness of the of nature. In these three films Aravindan has developed an ‘affective’ visual treatment serving age themes of the films.

—————————————————————————————————————————

‘Thematically diverse, the films are intensely poetic and painterly overtures into the beyond, always stretching the cinematic medium and its aesthetic possibilities’[1]. Aravindan’s early films draw from the profound Eco-centricism in folklore, performance traditions and the diverse eccentricities of the local. The interconnectedness of human subjectivity, the environment, and social relations, in the films has to be read, de-centering ‘the region’[2] to an Ecological category.Aravindan’s ‘regional counter narratives’ are however responses to cultural ruptures caused by modernity and its emergence owe to the unique   political and cultural precincts of the 60s and 70’s. Aravindan’s Cinema it could be argued marks a Visual turn in Malayalam Cinema through distinct technical and aesthetic properties of visualization and sonification countering mainstream representations. ‘With regard to their spatial dynamics, Aravindan’s images try to capture and also demand from the viewer, always inviting participation to unfold their intensity.’[3] While technical excellence of new wave was quickly absorbed into the main stream ‘middle cinema’[4], Aravindan’s visual aesthetic and simplicity had a significant impact on the next generation of film makers (though merely stylistically). Directors like Bharathan took cues from his style while his collaborators like Shaji N Karun carried forward the legacy through works like Piravi.

————————————————————————————————————————–

 

[1]  According to Sunny Joseph, The 60’s saw moments of significant experimentation within modern literature   with the emergence of new forms, styles, narratives and themes. However this was not sustained and the audience was limited to upper and middle class intelligentsia.
Aravindan works as a cartoonist during a period when many of the known artists like M.V Devan, Namboodiri, A.S Nair are exploring experimenting within the popular genre of illustration. The madras movement  including artists like KCS Panniker are deriving energies from regional classical and folk idioms in an attempt to rework modernism.
[2] C.S Venkiteshwar describes Malyalam Cinema of  50’s as : ‘Resonating with the leftist cultural interventions of the time, the imagination of these films was fired by a vision of a classless society and a future free from social inequalities, exploitation and casteism’
[3] The cinema of 50s and 60s was dominated by a literary influence
[4] Art Cinema finds distribution in major cinema theatres in ‘Noon shows’
[5] Many state sponsored institutions come up during this time for the promotion of ‘new cinema’
[6] Other major auteurs including Adoor Goplakrishnan and John Abraham. Aravindan is in constant touch with the former and is a regular visitor at his film society and collaborates with him few events of cultural communes in Malabar. Artists like A.S. Nair, Namboodiri (who later collaborates with Aravindan) are exploring new compositional strategies and drawing styles in illustrating fiction and poetry during this time. The role of the illustrator here is perhaps equivalent to a director with a script in hand, the difference being that the former can present only one or two scenes of his choice from the storyboard. So by now literary magazines which circulate within middle class intelligentsia play a huge role in shaping not just the literary and political sense of the readers but also the visual aesthetic sensibility.
[7]Arguable since its happened through Institutionalization and served the middle and upper classses
[8] Communion including Aravindan and Adoor are holding regular sessions of Poetry and literature in Trivandrum while there’s an emergence of Eco-centric discourse.
[1] C.N.V
[2] Ie..Dis placing a Linguistic /Administrative Categorization of the Region.
[3] C.N.V
[4]  Middle cinema went on to bridge the gap between the art and commercial. Major directors Include Bharathan , Padmarajan.
[1] Oeuvres (256)
[2] C.N.V
[1] Mac Donald Ingram
[2] Shashi Kumar
[3] Adrian Ivankhir , Eco-philosophy of the Moving Image
[4]  G .Aravindan
[5] Deleuze (Cinema II)
[6] Oeuvres (256)
[7] C.N.V
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Asan, Kumaran. “Sita Immersed in Reflection.” In Ramayana Stories in Modern South India: An Anthology, by Paula Richman. 2008: Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Hood, John W. The Essential Mystery: Major Film Makers of Indian Art Cinema. 2000: Sangham Books, London.
Kumar, Shashi. “Aravindan’s Art.” Frontline, June 10-23, 1989.
Mitter, Partha. “The Artist as Charismatic Individual: Raja Ravi Varma.” In Nationalism in Colonial India 1850-1924. Cambridge University Press.
Nair, C.N.Sreekantan. Retelling the Ramayana: Voices from Kerala: Kanchana sita & Five Ramayana Stories. Oxford University Press , 1995.
Rangarajan, Swarnalatha. “Ecological Dimensions of the Ramayana: A conversation with Paula Richman.” The Trumpeter , (Volume 25) 2009.
Stephen Rust, Salma Monani, Sean Cubit. Eco-cinema Theory and Practice. UK: Routledge , 2013.
Venkiteswaran, C.S. Auteur par excellence . Friday Review , TRIVANDRUM: THE HINDU, 23.1.2013.
Venkiteswaran, C.S. “Local narratives, national and global contexts.” http://www.india-seminar.com.
Zacharias, Usha. “Prakriti and Sovereignty in Aravindan’s Kanchana Sita.” In Ramayana Stories in Modern South India: An Anthology, by Paula Richman. Bloomington Indiana University Press , 2008.
From the book ARAVINDANTTE KALA (THE ART OF G.ARAVINDAN)
  1. Aravindan, Rachanakalepati (notes on his works)
  2. Aravindan, My life and My Work
K.P. Kumaran, Valiya Lokam Ottapeduthunna Manushyan,
C.N.Sreekanttan Nair, Kanchana Sita
C.V.Sreeraman, Vaastuhara
Sunny Joseph, Vaastuharayepatti
A.V. Anilkumar, Vaastuharayile Jeevithanireekshanam
FILMOGRAPHY
Aravindan and his films, Documentary by Doordarsan
G.Aravindan, Documentary by Shaji N Karun, Films Division
KanchanaSita
Kummati
Esthappan
Vaastuhara
Oridathu
Chidambaram

Aravindan

Malayalam New Wave auteur Aravindan’s films come out a context of busy experimentation in realist narrative both within the new wave as well as mainstream cinema producing varied results, it distinguishes itself in the aspects of representation of landscape and ecology. The new wave was located within an exciting period in the cultural history of Kerala which saw a convergence of energies from different fields including literature[1], fine art and theatre and was preceded by a consolidation of a ‘socialistic and humanistic ethos’[2] within main stream cinema. New Wave Cinema’s quest for autonomy helped cinema emerge on its own as ‘Visual’ medium against an overtly literature[3] influenced melodramatic mode in popular cinema of the 50s and 60’s. Having been treading an independent trajectory ambivalent to the nationalist and modernist project till then , Malayalam Cinema took a more radical turn in the 70’s with the formulation of ‘art cinema’ category which found viewership space within local film distribution[4]. The communist state sponsored project[5] of ‘New cinema’ created young film makers[6] equipped global exposure that revolted against existing aesthetic and narrative styles. The new wave significantly benefits from processes of democratization[7] of the arts and literature, state sponsorship, and convergence of energies of the artistic milieu emerging from different fields. This provides the platform new artistic and aesthetic development of the seventies. Discourses in literature and politics on ecology and landscape take come to fore during this period of which Aravindan is a part of.[8]

————————————————————————————————————————–

“The experience of Avant Garde cinema works to counter the psychic and environmental effects of the commercial media”[1]. Independent Avant Garde through representations of Ecological particularities can enrich our understanding of the environment on broader level than that of the mainstream cinema. KanchanaSita, Esthappan and Kummati are situated within four diverse landscapes associated with Kerala: the forest, the coast, and the mid lands. Central to Aravindan’s early work is Cinema’s interconnectedness with nature while it becomes a window to re imagine the inter relation between human and natural world. The implicit environmental consciousness is in dissonance with Modernity: at a time when it’s penetrating the rural. While Kanchasita presents an eco-feminist narrative, situating the epic into a marginalized space, Kummati explores an imaginary world of children’s fantasy through folklore specific to the region, in connection with landscape and fauna. Esthappan weaves into local myths and creates a counter point to modernity through the poetic of the local. ‘While Kummatty already exists in the collective psyche of generations, Esthappan is the process of that transmutation; the making of the myth.’[2] All the films operate in the local world of cultural specificity

Notion of Time

Kanchana Sita was shot entirely film is situated in the day. The injection of the extended shots sunset, and the sunrise comes as marker in the shift within the narrative. The filming derives an internal logic for time and space through directional codification. By applying the didactics of past and future to the left and right (respectively) of the screen one can decode the time seen on screen. When the camera pictures lava and Kusha pondering at the sight of the Aswamedha horse (pictured with them facing the left) the suggestion is that they are invariably looking into the past. Whereas lava is pictured getting ready to shoot the arrow in following shot facing the right. The long sequence of Valmiki’s conversation with Laxman is shot merely through the close up of his head and eyes titling around alternated by close ups of flora. The one eighty degree panoramic shots follow the same logic. The oscillation while the centrality of the frame positions it as in the present. We see a moment as dispersal of bodies around. The logic of choreography within the limitless is more inclined towards that of theatre. In Kummatti the mundane everyday life is positioned against the cyclicality of time in the natural world. Seasonality functions as a marker within the narrative shift. The mood and action translates into temporal change within nature

Body and Landscape

Often working with loosely bound scripts and screen play Aravindan mostly improvised on location often deriving inspiration from the outdoor space. The choreography of the body through landscape becomes key to the visual language of Kanchana Sita. The figure of Rama’s image is de-centered and relative position and scale of him against nature giving a sense of Sita’s overwhelming presence. The frame continuously draws the eye further beyond the figure of Rama and Lakshmana to the reflections in the river, the nature around it, constantly retaining perception of audience to nature. The transitory nature of characters is common all the three films. There is no holding of the gaze but a constant movement using longs shots, pans and panoramic constantly adding new spaces to the register. The mobility of camera through the jungles in Kanchana Sita takes realism’s agenda to the wilderness. Esthappan traversal is not merely between diverse spaces but also between multi layered surfaces of varying levels of modernity, primitivism and morality. Esthappan’s vagabond and selfless body becomes the site of the projection of the moral and spiritual contradictions of the social fabric. His traversal as an intervention cuts through the fabric and exposes the ambivalence in values of the time. Aravindan constantly breaks the archetypes of characters presently the neutral humanistic view. Kummatty emanates out of the landscape and his body becomes a mediator between: the natural and the human world, the real and the surreal, the linear and the cyclic, the mature and the innocent. Aravindan hints at the ruptures caused by modernity and he falls back to showcase into the hidden wisdom of the natural world and explore the interconnectedness of life through the mystic. Then the landscape of Kanchana Sita and the bodies of Kummati and Esthappan can be seen as interventions cutting through the changing landscapes of the 70’s. Bound with innocence and humanism they reveal an inherent ecosophy with the local and micro ecologies.

THE VISUAL TURN

“Cinema is a machine that moves along vectors that are affective, narrative and semiotic in nature and discloses worlds in which humanity, animals and territory is brought in relationship with each other.[3]” Landscape in cinema is a visual and audible space and can only be better than in literature. Aravindan developed a visual language and filming style which was a significant departure from the cinema which was over weighed by a literary influence.

“What a good writer achieves with imagination use of language cinema should achieve with visuals. It is here that on he recognizes the limitation of technology and equipment.[4]”

The intensely poetic and painterly overtones are achieved through a casting aside the concern for narrative and dialogue and a focus on the visual image, The pre-occupation with natural elements is a common thread in the three films while the opening sequences establish a primordial connection of the central characters with nature. It happens through a very gentle revelation of the landscape in opening sequences of Kanchana Sita. The film ends with Rama becoming one with nature. Esthappan is pictured against the sea following images of waves in the title sequence and the climax scene he is pictured against the landscape again. Part of Kummati’s narrative dwells in the animal world, while he emanates out of the landscape and returns back into it. Integral to Aravindan’s style is the use extensive use of Long shots focusing the relative positioning of the character with the landscape. Deleuze in Cinema II says Cinema has the “Sublime capacity to shock thoughts through activity, and awaken the sand effectual automation “in us through vibrations and affects rather than representations.[5] Striving for the non-representative and the ‘affective’ Aravindan extensively uses panoramic pan shots of landscape creating a mimesis of nature on screen. This technique is rigorously used in Kanchana Sita.

—————————————————————————————————————————–

“The cinema possesses a specific moment which is truly magical truly cinematographic”[1]

Kanchana Sita’s footage of the sunrise marks the shift in the plot line. Both in Kanchana Sita Aravindan used documentary footage of local performance practices. Tribal dance in Kanchana Sita and Chavittunadakam in Esthappan add to the authenticity and cultural specificity of the region. Aravindan drew from his multi faced talents in visual arts and music to formulate a style easily distinguishable from other new wave film makers. “Aravindan’s films follow a 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”[2] construct the vastness of the of nature. In these three films Aravindan has developed an ‘affective’ visual treatment serving age themes of the films.

—————————————————————————————————————————

‘Thematically diverse, the films are intensely poetic and painterly overtures into the beyond, always stretching the cinematic medium and its aesthetic possibilities’[1]. Aravindan’s early films draw from the profound Eco-centricism in folklore, performance traditions and the diverse eccentricities of the local. The interconnectedness of human subjectivity, the environment, and social relations, in the films has to be read, de-centering ‘the region’[2] to an Ecological category. Such relocation, in wake of globalization and increasing ecological destruction, may help the convergence of cultural / artistic resistances by harnessing the embedded ecological wisdom within cinema. Aravindan’s ‘regional counter narratives’ are however responses to cultural ruptures caused by modernity and its emergence owe to the unique political and cultural precincts of the 60s and 70’s. Aravindan’s Cinema it could be argued marks a Visual turn in Malayalam Cinema through distinct technical and aesthetic properties of visualization and sonification countering mainstream representations. ‘With regard to their spatial dynamics, Aravindan’s images try to capture and also demand from the viewer, always inviting participation to unfold their intensity.’[3] While technical excellence of new wave was quickly absorbed into the main stream ‘middle cinema’[4], Aravindan’s visual aesthetic and simplicity had a significant impact on the next generation of film makers (though merely stylistically). Directors like Bharathan took cues from his style while his collaborators like Shaji N Karun carried forward the legacy through works like Piravi.

[1] According to Sunny Joseph, The 60’s saw moments of significant experimentation within modern literature with the emergence of new forms, styles, narratives and themes. However this was not sustained and the audience was limited to upper and middle class intelligentsia.

Aravindan works as a cartoonist during a period when many of the known artists like M.V Devan, Namboodiri, A.S Nair are exploring experimenting within the popular genre of illustration. The madras movement including artists like KCS Panniker are deriving energies from regional classical and folk idioms in an attempt to rework modernism.

[2] C.S Venkiteshwar describes Malyalam Cinema of 50’s as : ‘Resonating with the leftist cultural interventions of the time, the imagination of these films was fired by a vision of a classless society and a future free from social inequalities, exploitation and casteism’

[3] The cinema of 50s and 60s was dominated by a literary influence

[4] Art Cinema finds distribution in major cinema theatres in ‘Noon shows’

[5] Many state sponsored institutions come up during this time for the promotion of ‘new cinema’

[6] Other major auteurs including Adoor Goplakrishnan and John Abraham. Aravindan is in constant touch with the former and is a regular visitor at his film society and collaborates with him few events of cultural communes in Malabar. Artists like A.S. Nair, Namboodiri (who later collaborates with Aravindan) are exploring new compositional strategies and drawing styles in illustrating fiction and poetry during this time. The role of the illustrator here is perhaps equivalent to a director with a script in hand, the difference being that the former can present only one or two scenes of his choice from the storyboard. So by now literary magazines which circulate within middle class intelligentsia play a huge role in shaping not just the literary and political sense of the readers but also the visual aesthetic sensibility.

[7]Arguable since its happened through Institutionalization and served the middle and upper classses

[8] Communion including Aravindan and Adoor are holding regular sessions of Poetry and literature in Trivandrum while there’s an emergence of Eco-centric discourse.

[1] C.N.V

[2] Ie..Dis placing a Linguistic /Administrative Categorization of the Region.

[3] C.N.V

[4] Middle cinema went on to bridge the gap between the art and commercial. Major directors Include Bharathan , Padmarajan.

[1] Oeuvres (256)

[2] C.N.V

[1] Mac Donald Ingram

[2] Shashi Kumar

[3] Adrian Ivankhir , Eco-philosophy of the Moving Image

[4] G .Aravindan

[5] Deleuze (Cinema II)

[6] Oeuvres (256)

[7] C.N.V

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Asan, Kumaran. “Sita Immersed in Reflection.” In Ramayana Stories in Modern South India: An Anthology, by Paula Richman. 2008: Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Hood, John W. The Essential Mystery: Major Film Makers of Indian Art Cinema. 2000: Sangham Books, London.

Kumar, Shashi. “Aravindan’s Art.” Frontline, June 10-23, 1989.

Mitter, Partha. “The Artist as Charismatic Individual: Raja Ravi Varma.” In Nationalism in Colonial India 1850-1924. Cambridge University Press.

Nair, C.N.Sreekantan. Retelling the Ramayana: Voices from Kerala: Kanchana sita & Five Ramayana Stories. Oxford University Press , 1995.

Rangarajan, Swarnalatha. “Ecological Dimensions of the Ramayana: A conversation with Paula Richman.” The Trumpeter , (Volume 25) 2009.

Stephen Rust, Salma Monani, Sean Cubit. Eco-cinema Theory and Practice. UK: Routledge , 2013.

Venkiteswaran, C.S. Auteur par excellence . Friday Review , TRIVANDRUM: THE HINDU, 23.1.2013.

Venkiteswaran, C.S. “Local narratives, national and global contexts.” http://www.india-seminar.com.

Zacharias, Usha. “Prakriti and Sovereignty in Aravindan’s Kanchana Sita.” In Ramayana Stories in Modern South India: An Anthology, by Paula Richman. Bloomington Indiana University Press , 2008.

From the book ARAVINDANTTE KALA (THE ART OF G.ARAVINDAN)

G. Aravindan, Rachanakalepati (notes on his works)

G. Aravindan, My life and My Work

K.P. Kumaran, Valiya Lokam Ottapeduthunna Manushyan,

C.N.Sreekanttan Nair, Kanchana Sita

C.V.Sreeraman, Vaastuhara

Sunny Joseph, Vaastuharayepatti

A.V. Anilkumar, Vaastuharayile Jeevithanireekshanam

FILMOGRAPHY

Aravindan and his films, Documentary by Doordarsan

G.Aravindan, Documentary by Shaji N Karun, Films Division

KanchanaSita

Kummati

Esthappan

Vaastuhara

Oridathu

Chidambaram

Malayalam New Wave Cinema

The ‘New Wave’ in Malayalam cinema is located within an exciting period in the cultural history of Kerala. The period was preceded by a consolidation of a ‘socialistic and humanistic ethos’[2] within main stream cinema and saw a convergence of energies from different fields including literature[1], fine art and theater. Even while benefiting from the convergence of energies of the artistic milieu emerging from different fields . Cinema emerged as a a midst this cinema emerged New Wave Cinema’s quest for autonomy helped cinema emerge on its own as a ‘Visual’ medium against an overtly literature[3] influenced melodramatic mode in popular cinema of the 50s and 60’s. Malayalam Cinema which had been treading an independent trajectory ambivalent to the trends in Indian Cinema ,took a more radical turn in the 70’s with the formulation of ‘art cinema’ category which found viewership space within local film distribution[4]. The communist state sponsored project[5] of ‘New cinema’ created young film makers[6] equipped with global exposure that revolted against existing aesthetic and narrative styles. The new wave significantly benefited from processes of democratization[7] of the arts and literature, state sponsorship, and convergence of energies of the artistic milieu emerging from different fields. This provided the platform for new artistic and aesthetic development of the seventies. Discourses in literature and politics , on ecology and landscape came to fore during this period of which Aravindan is a part of.[8]

Aravindan had already made a name for himself as a cartoonist by 1968 through the cartoon strip Cheriya Manushyanum valiya Bhumiyum, in a style very distinct from his contemporaries sMaking an incidental entry into cinema , Aravindan brought with him a diverse repository of skills as a cartoonist painter, theatre collaborator and music composer.[1] The multifaceted artist brought a simple, non intellectual film structure involving loosely bound scripts often improvised on location. Aravindan’s early influences lay in European new wave movements. The role film societies and cultural communes were indispensable to the growth of Aravindan as a film maker .The collaborations he would make in theatre and artist communes paved way to his first film. The predominating silence and quest for the ‘visual’ can be seen as the of the directors’s silent and artistic persona[3]. The film characters are as much an impulse walker as the Aravindan himself and films become a constant exploration of new landscapes and spaces[4]. His works were noted for the use of music to compose the film form , a method which was known to be mastered by the Indian legend Mani Kaul .[2]

[1] . The botany graduate, as a rubber board official in Calicut trained in Hindustani music and painted viciously. Aravindans initiation into Theatre comes with his contact with C.N.Sreekanttan Nair. Aravindan directs his famous piece called “Kali” in 1964. The next major theatrical venture was “Avan Avan Kadamba” of K.N.Panicker in 1977.

[2] The first IIFK in 1954 opened out the possibilities of cinema to Aravindan through Kurasoawa’s “Roshomon” and De Sica’s “Bicycle thieves”.

[3] According to GV Iyer: “The man has so much of conflicts inside and it’s only through his medium that he would express. He wouldn’t speak anything about it .Often he says that he did things for its “feel”. The feeling has no words .He never wants to express it but wants another man to feel it .A man of such capacity never expresses it out but he puts everything on screen”. “Our friendship emerged from a silence. We would just walk together silently without saying anything but together.”-Girish Karnad

[1] According to Sunny Joseph, The 60’s saw moments of significant experimentation within modern literature with the emergence of new forms, styles, narratives and themes. However this was not sustained and the audience was limited to upper and middle class intelligentsia.

Aravindan works as a cartoonist during a period when many of the known artists like M.V Devan, Namboodiri, A.S Nair are exploring experimenting within the popular genre of illustration. The madras movement including artists like KCS Panniker are deriving energies from regional classical and folk idioms in an attempt to rework modernism.

________________________________

[2] C.S Venkiteshwar describes Malyalam Cinema of 50’s as : ‘Resonating with the leftist cultural interventions of the time, the imagination of these films was fired by a vision of a classless society and a future free from social inequalities, exploitation and casteism’

[3] The cinema of 50s and 60s was dominated by a literary influence.

[4] Art Cinema finds distribution in major cinema theatres in ‘Noon shows’.

[5] Many state sponsored institutions come up during this time for the promotion of ‘new cinema’.

[6] Other major auteurs including Adoor Goplakrishnan and John Abraham. Aravindan is in constant touch with the former and is a regular visitor at his film society and collaborates with him few events of cultural communes in Malabar. Artists like A.S. Nair, Namboodiri (who later collaborates with Aravindan) are exploring new compositional strategies and drawing styles in illustrating fiction and poetry during this time. The role of the illustrator here is perhaps equivalent to a director with a script in hand, the difference being that the former can present only one or two scenes of his choice from the storyboard. So by now literary magazines which circulate within middle class intelligentsia play a huge role in shaping not just the literary and political sense of the readers but also the visual aesthetic sensibility.

[7]Arguable since its happened through Institutionalization and served the middle and upper classses.

[8] Communion including Aravindan and Adoor are holding regular sessions of Poetry and literature in Trivandrum while there’s an emergence of Eco-centric discourse.