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Few filmmakers in the world are as inimitable
as Adoor. His idiom is his very own, his images clinical,
the emotions controlled. A deep understanding of the human
mind in general and the recent history of Kerala in particular
govern his approach to narrative situations and character
traits. In most of his films -- from Swayamvaram (One's
Own Choice, 1972), in which a man and a woman break
away from their families to begin a new life together without
the sanction of marriage, to Nizhalkkutthu (Shadow Kill,
2002), where an old, infirm hangman grapples with pangs of
guilt in pre-Independence Travancore - socio-political realities
inescapably impinge upon life and determine the nature of
human striving.
His body of work is a stunning demonstration
of artistic consistency. Whether it is the linear Kodiyettam
(The Ascent), the poetic Elippathayam
(The Rat Trap), the trenchant Mukhamukham
(Face to Face), the elliptical Anantaram
(Monologue) or the emotionally draining
Mathilukal (The Walls), his control
over the medium never wavers. Adoor is a true auteur. He writes
his own scripts and takes his own time in developing them.
He never ever plunges into a film like a quick-fix artist;
he always ambles into it with the gentility and focus of a
consummate craftsman, chiselling away with utmost patience.
His newest film, Nizhalkkuthu, was completed
over two years ago. It showed beyond an iota of doubt that
that the master filmmaker has lost none of his gifts. Nizhalkkuthu
is far and away the most surreal film Adoor has ever made.
Yet, it is pure Adoor for the translucence of the vision.
It is cinema that explores recesses of the human consciousness
that lesser filmmakers can only aspire to grasp.
In Nizhalkkuthu -- a moving moral
allegory that addresses the questions of human responsibility
and freedom through the tale of a guilt-ridden hangman of
the pre-Independence era princely Travancore province -- Adoor
cast the net wider than he had ever done before. He employed
music (Ilaiyaraja) as a full-fledged narrative element, injected
an air redolent with lyricism into the tale and even fell
back on the visual sweep of the Cinemascope format. Elippathayam
had flashes of poetry; Nizhalkkuthu contains
moments of sheer inspiration.
Nizhalkkuthu has raised hopes
of the advent new, resurgent Adoor ready to announce to the
world that he is all set to push his boundaries even further.
For a lover of good cinema, no matter where in the world he
lives, nothing could be better than the emergence of an Adoor
experimenting with an element of restrained lyricism.
The apparent simplicity of the sequence of
Nizhalkkuthu story is broken in the last quarter
of the film as the line between dream and reality, the conscious
and the subconscious is blurred in the fevered imagination
of a drunken Kaliyappan. The characterization itself is replete
with contrasts: the hangman's rope, which kills the condemned,
also cures the sick. The rope has curative powers: when burnt
before an image of Goddess Kali it yields a magical ash that
can drive away human ailments.
As with all of Adoor's films, the passage of
time plays a crucial role in Nizhalkkuthu. Time
is indeed a constant presence here. The shortening hangman's
rope, the lengthening furrows on the care-worn face of Kaliyappan
and the ethereal quality of the music of the orphan's flute
conjure up a sense of timelessness as much as they indicate
the inexorability of the march of Time.
It is just such touches of magic that make
Adoor's cinema such a treat. But they also make demands on
the viewer. His cinema is not for the casual tourist; it is
meant for the committed pilgrim. Only the uncannily observant
and most patient of filmgoers can hope to get access into
this world where nature and history, emotions and ideas, style
and substance attain a glorious level of confluence.
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