The news of the film
director G. Aravindan’s death, sent shock waves throughout the film industry.
With only half a dozen films and documentaries to his credit, Aravindan was
already a highly respected director. For him, winning awards came naturally.
His first film Uttarayanam and his
last Vasthuhara, were both award
winners. He was working with a leading dancer Alarmel Valli on a documentary on
classical Indian dance, when he passed away.
Born in Kerala in 1935,
Aravindan began his career as a cartoonist in one of the country’s most popular
weeklies, Mathrubhoomi. Called ‘Little man in a big world’, his cartoons
exposed human follies and the hypocrisy rampant in modern society. He dabbled
in painting, promoted Kerala theatre and studied Hindustani classical music
under Saratchandra Marathe. He worked as a development officer for 22 long
years with the Kerala Rubber Board.
Aravindan’s personality
and genius flowered only after his entry into cinema. Soft-spoken and gentle,
he was an unlikely contender in the Indian film industry. His entry into cinema
was just a fortunate accident. Hobnobbing with a motley crowd of creative
writers and struggling artists, he felt drawn to their problems. He discovered
that the most effective medium to portray them would be in cinema…..and cinema
discovered the real Aravindan.
Kerala’s film goers are
loyal followers of serious cinema. The educated, thinking public in Kerala, was
fascinated by the layers of meaning that could be unearthed in an Aravindan
film. Aravindan thus was confident about the viewership that guaranteed returns
on his investment. The Malayalam cinema touched a new high with the
thought-provoking statements Aravindan made in each attempt.
A master craftsman, he
admitted that that he had never made an academic study of the grammar of
cinema. Shyam Benegal referred to him as a poet on celluloid. His deep
involvement with the human psyche and the understanding of political influences
on society, as well as his love for nature, deeply influenced his treatment of
his subjects.
The first film Uttarayanam in 1974 focuses on the
conflict between the values of the generation of the freedom struggle and the
aspirations of the present day youth. His Kanchana
Sita in 1977 was his interpretation of the Ramayana in a tribal setting.
David Robinson of Sight and Sound
called his film Thampu as ‘a most
mysterious and magical film.’ His Kummatty
(The Bogey Man), a children’s fantasy film, won the best Children’s Film Award.
Chidambaram was an essay on an adulterous relationship and the eternal
sense of guilt that haunts it. (The late Smita Patil put in a brilliant
performance matched by the legendary Malayalam actor Gopi’s).
It won the best film award
in 1986. Oridathu (1987) won the best
director award in 1987.
His last venture Vasthuhara, has only recently won the
National Award for the Best Picture. This off-beat film deals with the refugee
problem in Bengal , in the wake of the
partition of Bangladesh Bengal .
The richly textured films
of Aravindan were often on a shoe string budget. Dogged by financial restraint,
he always regretted that talented people in the new generation found it tough
to blossom.
With his large friendly
figure and flowing grey beard, Aravindan looked the poet he was. His lack of
swagger and bluff belied his tremendous achievements in his brief career. He
was honoured with a retrospective of his films by the Cinematheque Francaise in
1984 in Paris Canada
No wonder, Shabana Azmi
said that “Aravindan, apart from Ray, was slowly but surely making his name in
the international cinema.” Shyam Benegal’s tribute probably expressed what the
entire industry felt: “He was really a kind of painter and poet in cinema. In
terms of new cinema, he was a path finder, someone who extended the scope of
film enormously.”
Published in ‘The Independent’, Times of India on March 18, 1991
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