WHO is he?
Malayalam film director, producer, scenarist and film critic who has
directed over 30 feature and short-length films since the mid-sixties.
Gopalakrishnan has been active in documentary filmmaking as in fictional
cinema and was a key pioneer in the film society movement in the
country during the 60s. Apart from winning the National Award numerous
times, he won the FIPRESCI prize for Mathilukal in 1990 at the Venice Film Festival.
WHAT are his films about?
Themes
Gopalakrishnan is perhaps the most academically oriented filmmaker of
the country, with his scripts gravitating towards themes
well-established in social, political and legal theory. While his films
have dealt with ideas as diverse as the infiltration of political
consciousness in the life of common folk, the persisting legacy of
feudal structures and the fallibility of the system of capital
punishment, his pictures have most frequently been associated with the
exploration of the status and agency of women in various societal
setups.
Style
Gopalakrishnan has a quasi-classicist aesthetic in the way his
filmmaking relies on the inherent value of a single shot over the value
imparted by the splicing together of multiple shots. The camera is
always mounted, even when it is moving. Close-ups and deep-space
compositions are characteristic of these films, as are their unsettling
musical score, use of architecture and stylised performances. Symmetry
is preferred and actors are directed in a way that handles space
judiciously. Costumes and colour are important parameters that reflect
character traits as much as the character-driven scenarios of
Gopalakrishnan’s films.
WHY is he of interest?
Gopalakrishnan is among the most important artists of the Parallel
Cinema movement in India, which set itself apart from the commercially
oriented mainstream films with their serious-minded and socially
oriented quality. His fictional work has come to represent for many
viewers the face of Indian arthouse filmmaking, and his influence on
later day “middle-path” Malayalam cinema can not be understated.
WHERE to discover him?
Vidheyan (1993) is arguably Gopalakrishnan’s finest and most
rewarding film. Centring on the oppressive relationship between a
despotic landowner (Mammooty) and his cowardly serf (Gopakumar), the
film examines the Hegelian dialectic between master and slave, in which
the two are able to identify themselves only through their rapport with
the other. The film is also a reflection on the similar dialectic
between the ideas of home and exile.
Courtesy- http://www.thehindu.com
