For a village woman in remote Tamil Nadu, the winds of change from cities are crippling, as it compels her to shed her traditional sartorial attire. Something that is inarguably intertwined with her right over her body. A right that even today women in advanced western countries are fighting for and losing. It is this ‘universally relevant political’ theme of the significance of firmly holding onto one’s individual right and choices that caught the interest of Kerala-based filmmaker Vipin Radhakrishnan, while reading a short story penned by his favourite writer, Perumal Murugan.
Murugan’s short story ‘Kodithuni’ was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, funny, RK Narayan-ish kind of a tale of a village widow being forced by her son to wear a sari blouse, when his prospective rich, city-bred in-laws come visiting. The irony here is that the village woman has been in a blouseless sari all her life and cannot comprehend her son’s angst. It is a true-life incident which Murugan artfully spun into a story.
A widow, a mother and a conflict
Radhakrishnan, however, tapped into this core idea of a young man’s embarrassment over his mother’s blouseless attire, in his new film Angammalwhich made its debut at MAMI Mumbai film festival last month. Yet, though charmed by the idea, he has not scrupulously stuck to the telling in the short story and tweaked the narrative to make it more “cinematic”, he tells The Federal in an interview.
“In Perumal Murugan’s short story, the characters do not even have names. But, in cinema, I had to create an interesting conflict and so I turned the mother into a fierce strong matriarch,” he shares, adding that in ‘Kodithuni’, Murugan is just narrating the incident in an ironic, funny manner laced with the politics behind it. “I had to show her as a proud woman who resists this change to forcibly wear a blouse, while in the book she is a subdued character,” he points out.
In the film, the beedi-puffing mother Angammal, played by the inimitable Tamil actor Geetha Kailasam, is shown as an aggressive, self-made widow, who is proud of her son who has become a doctor. And vain about the tattoo on her bare arm which she loves to flaunt. But she is hurt, disturbed and in a quandary when he asks her to cover up and wear a blouse. This conflict disrupts their tiny village home situated in the midst of a rugged, stunning mountainous landscape, where strong winds blow bringing its own poetry, myths and memories.
The atmospheric setting
Angammal’s melancholic elder son, her daughter-in-law who she lords over and abuses, her young grandchild, and even the entire village, are all caught up in this mother-son tussle. So, how does this get resolved? For Radhakrishnan, the politics behind a woman firmly asserting her right over her body and her choices fascinated him.
“She was comfortable in a clothing she has been used to all her life though other women had caved in to modern styles. But she had staunchly stuck to her traditional clothing. I liked the idea of a woman fiercely holding onto her right to be who she wants to be,” says Radhakrishnan.
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Besides this dilemma that propels the plot forward, what gives Angammal an edge is the atmospheric setting that takes you back to Shyam Benegal’s rural drama Nishant (1975). But in Benegal’s film there is overt drama happening in the form of a kidnapping of the teacher’s wife and so on. Here, the tensions in the interpersonal relationships in a family simmer without actually erupting at the end.
Anagammal is a visual delight, as it is shot in the sprawling landscape of Padmaneri village, 50 km from Tirunelveli near Kalakkad. Radhakrishnan had travelled extensively all around south Tamil Nadu before stumbling upon this village where nature is still pristine and untouched. The film crew rented a home in the village and interacted with the villagers for a while before they started shooting. The setting itself was an inspiration and helped them to give poetic twists to the screenplay, Radhakrishnan confesses.
Geeta Kailasam’s power-packed performance
The sunrise shots and the other scenic elements in the film are shaped by the film’s creative cinematographer Anjoy Samuel, who is also one of the producers of the film. According to Radhakrishnan, he is grateful Samuel understood the importance of waiting for the “right time” to shoot and did not quibble over delays.
Another highlight of the film is Geeta Kailasam’s portrayal of the character. (Kailasam is slowly emerging as a force to reckon with in Tamil cinema, having made a mark in Pa Ranjith’s ventures like Sarpatta Parambarai, Navarasa; she also played Major Mukund Varadarajan’s mother in the new hit Tamil film Warning. She is the pivot of the film, admits Radhakrishnan.
“It’s so tough to pull off such a tough complex character for there’s a danger of overplaying it. But when we saw Pa Ranjith’s film, we were bowled over by her screen presence. And when we met her, we found her to be intelligent, grounded and sensible,” says Radhakrishnan, who claims she also gave valuable inputs for the film.
‘An exciting time for Indian cinema’
Radhakrishnan arrived at cinema, driven by a deep desire to tell stories. Though he studied architecture, he left the field after two years and joined the film industry. He started out as a screenplay writer and then moved into direction. “Cinema was the only medium of entertainment in my childhood growing up in Kochi. I have loved cinema from childhood, I cannot tell stories in any other way. I am a storyteller in visual form,” he shares.
In his view, it’s the best time for anyone to make movies in India. “Maybe, it is difficult to sell movies which is another issue but all the resources are available today. Making films is so much cheaper now due to digital technology,” he says, admitting that distributing the film may be a problem and he is still trying to crack that.
“If you are not worried about returns and just want to showcase your film, you can now even upload on YouTube,” he points out. In his case, he is looking for a theatrical release for Angammal next year.
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At MAMI this year, where Angammal was screened and was praised, Radhakrishnan says the films he managed to catch at the festival made him realise that the quality of Indian films have vastly improved. “I saw two films in MAMI; Fable by Ram Reddy and Shuchi Talati's Girls Will Be Girls. In terms of content and filmmaking, Indian filmmakers are experimenting and doing different exciting things, and you can see how individual voices are emerging. They are not sticking to a formula. It is truly an exciting time for Indian cinema,” says the young director.
‘Good movies get noticed in the end’
However, raising money continues to be a challenge for filmmakers today. “It is a problem of course, but I feel the distribution system has to change. There has to be a way where it is possible for filmmakers to generate revenue from these kinds of movies as well. The system has to be aligned to ensure these films will make money,” he says, raising an issue that is increasingly being discussed at film forums.
There’s also another factor at play. A Laapataaa Ladies may have had an Aamir production house behind it to become a viable project but at the end of the day, audiences in the south, at least, flocked to the theatres to see it because it was a good film, he says. “I believe good movies essentially get noticed in the end,” says this young director, who hopes to leave his mark in the complex, multi-lingual landscape of Indian cinema.
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