CINEMA & ECOLOGY:

Landscapes in Malayalam New Wave

Based on Films of G. Aravindan

Gggirish chandranGIRISH CHANDRAN GIRISH CHANDRAN

Ist Year MA
MA First Year
School of Arts and Aesthetics
______________________________________________________________________________

“Aravindan's 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”- C .S.
VENKITESWARAN
______________________________________________________________________________

“My total commitment is to cinema as a medium. …Subtlety is my style. I believe

that it is more acceptable and suited to our way of life, culture and aesthetics. I
cannot overlook the importance of social values. I enjoy making movies that are
in communion with nature” – G .ARAVINDAN
______________________________________________________________________________

GIRISH CHANDRAN Ist Year MA

“Govindan Aravindan was one of the true masters of Indian art cinema, a poet of
the screen who brought to the art of filmmaking a rich and diverse background1”.
“His films are universal but one having a regional ethos.” 2

While 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. I look at three early films of the
director: Kanchana Sita, Kummati and Esthappan through such an eco-centric
perspective reading representations of landscape, gender, region and culture
while situating Aravindan’s cinema within the context of the new wave moment.

CONTEXT
NEW WAVE CINEMA

The new wave of Malayalam cinema is considered to the golden period in

Malayalam film history. 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 literature3, fine art and theatre and was preceded by a
consolidation of a ‘socialistic and humanistic ethos’4 within main stream cinema.

1
P 244 John W Hood 2000
2 Film maker BaluMahendra in the documentary G.Aravindan
3
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 wTjas 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.
4
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’

GIRISH CHANDRAN Ist Year MA

New Wave Cinema’s quest for autonomy helped cinema emerge on its own as
‘Visual’ medium against an overtly literature5 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 distribution6.
The communist state sponsored project7 of ‘New cinema’ created young film
makers8 equipped global exposure that revolted against existing aesthetic and
narrative styles. The new wave significantly benefits from processes of
democratization9 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.10

THE ‘REGION’: ECOLOGY AND CULTURE

Kerala’s distinct fabric: the Rural Urban Continuum is characterized by high density
and an equivalent dispersal. The linguistic region of ‘Kerala State’ which gets
modernized by 70’s through state sponsored programs in education. One may

5
The cinema of 50s and 60s was dominated by a literary influence
6
Art Cinema finds distribution in major cinema theatres in ‘Noon shows’
7
Many state sponsored institutions come up during this time for the promotion of ‘new cinema’
8
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.
9
Arguable since its happened through Institutionalization and served the middle and upper classses
10
Communion including Aravindan and Adoor are holding regular sessions of Poetry and literature in
Trivandrum while there’s an emergence of Eco-centric discourse.

GIRISH CHANDRAN Ist Year MA

argue that Kerala’s geographically and ecologically diverse micro ecologies
might have negotiated with modernity differently with diverse reflections.
Modernity’s negotiations with cultural landscape would be as diverse as diversity
in geography. While every rural village and town gets equipped with libraries and
schools and political mobilization centers ie party offices. The negations of ‘rural’
with urbanity and modernization are prevalent within works of popular cinema
along the slow progression of consistent urbanism. The Local Geographical
peculiarities within the state translate directly into the diversity of ritual and cultural
practices. Cultural practices could vary with as small a region or micro ecology
as a Kaavu. Performance practices, myths and folklore are connected to a
specific region as a place as small as a village or a community within cultures. .
Eco-centriscism around folklore and performance tradition is profound and it’s
connected to the landscape through the materiality and symbolic. In those terms
the specificity of such forms of art or belief and knowledge systems operates at
the level of local.

GIRISH CHANDRAN Ist Year MA

“His intensely poetic and introspective films are colored by the
beauty of the Kerala landscape and the richness of its cultural
tradition, making his work – Universal in its appeal- a paragon of
Malayalam Cinema.”11

New wave directors significantly tapped into local cultures

specifically, festivals and rituals (Adoor for instance). But often
landscape appears merely as an environment which characters
operate. While for Aravindan, landscape becomes the central
representation of the narrative. His films are located within the local
ecology where such connections are more visible.

THE MULTI FACED ARTIST

While making an incidental entry into cinema Aravindan

brought with him a diverse repository of skills as a cartoonist painter,

11
Shyam Benegal

GIRISH CHANDRAN Ist Year MA

theatre collaborator and music composer.12 He brought a simple, non intellectual
film structure involving loosely bound scripts often improvised on location. While
his early influences in are situated in new wave he relates with works for Mani Kaul
for the similarity in using music to compose the film form.13 The role film societies
and cultural communes were integral to the growth of Aravindan .The
collaborations he would make in theatre and communes paved way to his first
film. The predominating silence and quest for the visual can be seen as the
extensions of the directors’s silent and artistic persona14. The film characters are
as much an impulse walker as the Aravindan himself and films become a
constant exploration of new landscapes and spaces15.

KANCHANA SITA (1977)

12
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. 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
13
The first IIFK in 1954 opened out the possibilities of cinema to Aravindan through Kurasoawa’s
“Roshomon” and De Sica’s “Bicycle thieves”.
14
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

GIRISH CHANDRAN Ist Year MA

“Aravindan’s unique contribution to world cinema and to the Ramayana tradition
emerged out of the creative energy that colored the artistic milieu of Kerala in
1970’s and 80’s related to and inspired by a generation of
iconoclastic artists , filmmakers, writers, sculptors who were deeply
disillusioned with post independence ‘modernisation’ and
communist democratization.” 16

Aravindan’s Kanchana Sita is an important disjuncture within the

history of mythological cinema in Indian which is seldom talked
about. Shot during the emergency in 1977 is an adaptation of a
play in the same title by C.N Sreekantan Nair which is a feminist
retelling of Ramayana. The plot17 of Kanchana Sita interprets the
Uthara kanda.18

LOCATING THE EPIC WITHIN THE SUBALTERN LANDSCAPE

In a radical departure from the main stream representations of

Ramayana, Aravindan did his casting with Rama Chenchu tribal
people of Andhra Pradesh who claim lineage to the mythological
Rama. Kanchana sita gains its authenticity by the casting the tribals
who continue to be connected with Ramayana tradition as well as
the forest. The actors bear close physical resemblance of tribals
with ancient murals connecting Ramayana and had the ability to
recite the Ramayana.

16
Zachariah
17
The plot of Kanchana Sita interprets the Uthara kanda, where Lord Ram sends his wife Sita to the jungle,
subsequent to her trial by fire on doubts of her chastity among Rama’s subjects. The grief-stricken and
pregnant, Sita throws herself into the Ganga, and the river bears her twin sons, Lava and Kusa, down to sage
Valmiki, who brings them up. Rama is confronted and later united with his sons during the Aswametha yaga.
18

GIRISH CHANDRAN Ist Year MA

 Shooting in the jungles of Bhadrachalam, Andhra Pradesh Aravindan
moves Rama’s story into the landscape of the Adivasis imagining in the forest with
caves as palaces, its streets as track in the wilderness and replacing the Sarayu
River with Godavari. The Uthara Kanda on which the play is baptized is a critique
of the sovereign power is buried in Karma web’s of Rama’s life. Utharakanda
serves as a critique for sovereign power. Ramayana and other epics give
accounts of massive and blind deforestation for the sake of urbanization. Events
like death of Shambuka, the shudra character and the withdrawal of Sita into the
lap of Mother Earth, critique of gender discrimination and critique the Kshatriya-
Brahmanical power.

LANDSCAPE AS CHARACTER: THE ECOFEMINISTIC RETELLING

“Sita does not perish... Sita is nature itself.” (sreekantan 93)

Feminist retellings of Ramayana within modern malayalam literature appears as
early as in Kumaran Asan’s ”Sita Immersed in Reflection”, the fourth section of
which culminates with Sita literally becoming one with the Earth. Sreekatan nair’s
text by the ‘Kanchana Sita’ literally means the golden image of Sita, which Rama
uses as a substitute for her presence in the Aswamedhayaga. While the text points
at the position of women during that age in the male dominated society in India
where women were possessed by men like golden images but were denied many
rights as human beings. Plot 19 Sita, the wife of the king of Ayodhya, had been
denied the basic consideration as an individual by being charged with the
offences she is not guilty of, only to be abandoned in a wild forest in the last stage
of her pregnancy giving ample importance to the female characters like
Kausalya and Urmila who have fewer roles in Valmiki’s

19

GIRISH CHANDRAN Ist Year MA

 Aravindan by conceptualizing Sita as nature itself and giving
it the maximum of screen space. “Instead of restricting her (Sita) to
a mere character, Aravindan gave her all pervasive presence. She
is not Prakriti in the passive sense of the term but a febrile, dynamic
presence that gives life to nature.”20 The primal connections with
nature being central to Aravindan’s narrative also draw from the
concept of Purusha and Prakriti. This concept in Sreekantan Nair‘s
version derives it geneology in the Samkhya-Yoga school of Indian
philosophy.

“Indeed Sita as Prakriti-and Rama’s almost inevitable journey into

becoming a part of her- is the heart of Aravindan’s narrative…. She
now permeates the narrative through her immediate and all-
pervasive presence as Prakriti, the cosmic life-force…. Thus she
appears as the sunlight that marks an ever-changing path through
the thick forest trees, she is audible and visible as the wind that
rustles the trees, and she moves in the river as ripples in the water.
She is the animating principle of nature that energizes all visible life-
forms…21”

Poet and scholar Ayyappa Panicker views Sita's absence as

a conscious, meticulous effort ‘not to communicate in order to
communicate.’ By an extremely evocative silence of human
characters which is consumed by the silence or the sounds of
nature. The film foregrounds the omnipresence of Sita as nature. The
film ends with Rama becoming one with nature.

20
Usha Zacharias
21
Ibid

GIRISH CHANDRAN Ist Year MA

REWORKING REPRESENTATION AND AESTHETICS

The representation of myths and mythological characters in Indian cinema

drew heavily from the aesthetic of Raja Raja Varma paintings and prints.
‘Kachana Sita’ consciously22 reworks the nature of representation popularized by
film makers like Dada Sahib Phalke in which the setting alternates between
opulent palaces and the forest by ‘locating the entire story into the landscape of
the Adivasis imagining’23. A film of such heterodoxy which situates itself as
subaltern eco-feminist retelling of the epic would be hard to materialize in today’s
context where, the sanitized sanskritized and saffronised image of Rama has been
embedded into public consciousness through popular television serials.
Ramayana scholar Paula Richman mentions how such a representation serves as
a readymade for invocation of Hindu Fanatics. Aravindan maximizes concern in
the visual using minimal and merely essential dialogue while Sita is absent in film
in human form but is portrayed as the spirit of nature. This leads to the formulation
of a cinematic style which relies on extensive photography of details of the forest.

KUMMATI (1979): LEARNING THROUGH THE FOLK

22
According to Aravindan “An artist has a responsibility to change the beliefs of a society. Ravi Varma’s
calendar mythological paintings were not only tasteless departures from indigenous art traditions, They are
vulgar parodies of our epics, a readymade appropriation by a cheap revivalist. Ravi Varma reduced our
mythological characters to calendar images. In a way Ramayana is a tribal legend. We should be able to
imagine a history that can belong to traditions beliefs and behaviors of the tribes. Kanchana Sita is rooted in
such a perspective. I have made a conscious attempt to change the nature of representation .People who
watch the film with the presumptions based on popular mythological films will be disappointed….I chose a
narrative visualizing Sita as nature and Rama as Purusha. For critics who might get annoyed with this, I have
just one thing to say, that I have visualized the Rama of the tribals.”

23
Usha Zacharias

GIRISH CHANDRAN Ist Year MA

 Centered on the concept of a folk form specific to few regions of north
Kerala, Kummati is a jovial ride through the fantastical world of children.
Emphasizing the folk, a culture that is non intellectual, organic to the lives of
ordinary rural people Aravindan creates a character closely intertwined with
nature and bearing all the exoticism of the landscape which he is constantly
framed against. His arrival and departure marks the change in seasons. The
vagabond elderly folk entertainer, is a figure of mystic charm whose bonding with
the children of the village forms the narrative. Kummati befriends the children of
the village during his annual visit at the harvest time.

Chindan who is turned into a white dog by Kummati has to wait till the next
harvest season to be turned back into human form, during the course of which
he reassess his relation with nature .This culminates with him freeing his caged bird
which joins a fleet of birds in sky. Kummati offers a knowledge sytem bound and
connected to nature and ecology against the modern education of the school
which the children have access to. Kummati foregrounds the apprehension of the
adults towards his way of life and traditions. The children’s endearment with
Kummati is a slow but natural process while they later connect with nature
through their transformation into the animal form .The nuances and the
connection between the human and animal world is fore grounded here.
‘Kummati’s finely crafted syntax is a careful arrangement of symbols, suggestions
and metaphors connecting to nature are amplified by the scarcity of dialogue.’24
Time in the fantastical world of Kummati is cyclic and is contrasted against the
mundane everday life experience while children go to school. Kummati offers a
reading into ecology strongly grounding itself in a visual vocabulary.

ESTHAPPAN (1979): MARGINALIZED LANDSCAPE AND LOCAL MYTHS

24
Woods

GIRISH CHANDRAN Ist Year MA

 Representations coastal landscape has been rare in Malayalam cinema
before successful attempt of Chemmen in 1965. The coastal economy is
dependent on natural cycles and its fragile seascape ecology. This close
interdependence with nature forges a relationship in the sacred and mystic realm
between the community the seascape. Often there is an attribution of
sacredness to the seascape and there are local myths and beliefs specific to
each village. The vulnerabilities of coastal life often lead to religious way of life
abiding by the church which acts as a unifying force. The 70’s sees a minor
permeation of modernity into the region.

Esthappan (Stephen 1989) is set in the coastal Kerala on a small Syrian

Christian fishing community is an account of an enigmatic character through the
eyes of villagers, the view of which oscillates between the sacred and profane.
The film is an arrangement of associated sequences serving to illustrate the
character of Esthappan and the reactions of other people to him. The character
Esthappan is connected to the community and other members of the
congregation through the shared faith they subscribe to. We see a diverse cross
section of the community with laborers, children, fisher folk, fishwives and
shopkeepers. The priest and his toothless servant who are guardians of religious
values, the policeman as the state and modernity through the wealthy family
complete with a yatch, Mercedes Benz and a western wife. Esthappan
successfully traverses between spaces of modernity and tradition. Aravindan
expands the narrative technique of Roshomon with outlets of humour and satirical
confrontations of the characters placing truth against prejudice and social
constructions.

There are multiple instances of biblical indications within the narrative

situating Esthappan as the projection of ideals of the shared faith. He becomes
the savior of the helpless. There are seemingly miraculous instances when

GIRISH CHANDRAN Ist Year MA

Esthappan returns the curiosity of children repeatedly with clumsy boyish throwing
of stones. The stones turn into biscuits and at later instance he is seen distributing
handful of currency to the people of village. However these are contradicted
with other versions. Esthappan’s seemingly selfless and neutral body becomes a
site of projection of moral / ethical anxieties and inner contradictions of the
community. The anxieties regarding his disappearance from the village is cleared
by the priest with an assurance of his return, drawing a biblical reference to
resurrection. In the later sequences the camera follows Esthappan traversing
diverse spaces: across the bridge through fields, the beach, along the street
outside the church, the seaside, the palm groove, the bank of the river and then
beside the backwaters. In the final shot where the camera rotates three hundred
and sixty degree taking in the sea , the shore , the forests and parts of the village
and then returns to the sea to take a final shot of Esthappan asleep on the rock.
Esthappan follows a visual logic Aravindan derives from Kanchana Sita. It is the
mysticism and poetry evoked through constant placing of Esthappan against the
landscape. While he seems to be living at some removal from actuality of the
materialistic world, he is seen to be close to the landscape and the nuances of
nature. Esthappan knows the sea better than anyone as he is seen warning the
fishermen of the angry waves. He is seen as guardian of the sea while he critiques
the contractor who is dumping boulders into the eroded and weak seafront. “Did
the rocks melt into water? Or water turn into rocks? You dump your waste on the
waters, and if it does seem to be land, it not your fault…and if it is your fault ….
You can ask who on earth is blameless…” We see him as a skilful artist drawing
gospel subjects on the rocks and on the walls and relating to children.

ANALYSIS

GIRISH CHANDRAN Ist Year MA

ECOLOGICAL DIMENSION IN ARAVINDAN CINEMA

“The experience of Avant Garde cinema works to counter the

psychic and environmental effects of the commercial media”25.
Independent Avant Garde through representations of Ecological
particularities can enrich our understanding of the environment on
broader level than that of the mainstream cinema. Kanchana,
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 which 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.’26 All the
films operate in the local world of cultural specificity

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

25
Mac Donald Ingram
26
Shashi Kumar

GIRISH CHANDRAN Ist Year MA

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

GIRISH CHANDRAN Ist Year MA

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.

GIRISH CHANDRAN Ist Year MA

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.27” 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.28”

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

27
Adrian Ivankhir , Eco-philosophy of the Moving Image
28
G .Aravindan

GIRISH CHANDRAN Ist Year MA

rather than representations.29 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”30 .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”31 construct the vastness of the of nature. In these three films
Aravindan has developed an ‘affective’ visual treatment serving age themes of
the films.

CONCLUSION
‘Thematically diverse, the films are intensely poetic and painterly overtures
into the beyond, always stretching the cinematic medium and its aesthetic
possibilities’32. 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,

29
Deleuze (Cinema II)
30
Oeuvres (256)
31
C.N.V
32
C.N.V

GIRISH CHANDRAN Ist Year MA

in the films has to be read, de-centering ‘the region’33 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 I’ve 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.’34 While technical excellence
of new wave was quickly absorbed into the main stream ‘middle cinema’35,
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.

33
Ie..Dis placing a Linguistic /Administrative Categorization of the Region.
34
C.N.V
35Middle cinema went on to bridge the gap between the art and commercial. Major directors Include
Bharathan , Padmarajan.

GIRISH CHANDRAN Ist Year MA

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." 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.

GIRISH CHANDRAN Ist Year MA

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

GIRISH CHANDRAN Ist Year MA