Making of the Man : A History of Eighty Years

of Malayalam Cinema [1928-2008]

Cinema is basically a male construct.1 Women-centered film productions get limited to a

representation of male-made women. Even women’s endeavors in a predominantly male

based industry seem to have bore few fruits. An analysis of the 80 years of Malayalam

cinema from 1928-2008 would reveal its patriarchal ideologies.

The history of Malayalam film industry begins in 1928.2 The revival of the industry

started in 30s and 40s. In the 50s the presidential award winner film, Neelakkuyyil, 1960s

winning best national film Chemmen etc. established a national name for the industry.

New wave parallel cinema occurred in the 70s, with the stepping in of new professionally

qualified directors who took degrees from Pune film institute. The so-called golden epoch

of Malayalam films between 80s and 90s, with the emergence of other genre, semi-

parallel movies blending the fine aspects of parallel and commercial cinema happened.

Meanwhile, the return of the popular happened in the 90s. 20th century was considered to

be the century of the cinema. 21st century witnessed a decline of the industry. Digital

technology brought in short films in plenty. It changed the concept of cinema. Films have

ceased to be a mere means of entertainment. It became a medium for documenting life in

its multiple ways. A look at the hi(s)tory of Malayalam cinema would be significant in

this juncture.

1
David M. Considine in his article “Critical Viewing and Critical Thinking Skills” defines film industry as
a patriarchal one. www.medialit.org/reading_room/article202.html -
2
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_in_Kerala -
 A perception of the names of Malayalam films from Vigathakumaran [1928] to

Gulmohar [2008] is enough to understand its patriarchal leanings. Vigathakumaran,

Marthandavarma and Balan are our early films. It is of little wonder that the first three

films in Malayalam cinema, and cinema being one among the several enterprises, that

was to come up in the post renaissance scenario of Kerala, turned out to be male centered

ones. It is only that, Malayali renaissance, which had closely followed the heels of

European thought system, enforced here the European/ male centered ideology. Since our

community based reformers were all men, the hegemony of the male ideology remained

unquestioned. The market-friendliness of secularism made it even more acceptable. Thus

all cinematic endeavourers were to be controlled by the mind of the modern male market.

One could see that almost all the Malayalam films which got noticed at the national level

were those which subjectivised the existential problems of men. A certain supremacy was

accorded to the male citizens, he being the centre of all modernizing projects. Moreover

these upper caste men with their supremacy and supposed splendor, who ruled over this

modern world, didn’t take into consideration “the other” subaltern masculinities.

In India, the biggest film industry in the world (Thoraval 2007),3 the whole story of the

cinema begins with Raja Harishchandra, directed by Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, (a

Maharashtra Brahmin) in 1912, and modeled under an imported missionary French film

by Alice Guy by name Life of Christ, began the representation of the (hu)man as the

centre in Indian cinema, even in films centered on gods. Phalke started mentally

visualising the images of Indian gods and goddesses in the like of Ravivarma’s paintings.

3
Anthropologists have great interest in mapping Malayali life and films. Yves Thoraval in The Cinemas of
India states that India produces films more than any other country in the world.
What really obsessed him was the desire to see Indian images on the screen in a purely

Swadeshi venture. He fixed up a studio, wrote the scenario, arranged the set and started

shooting for his first venture Raja Harishchandra in 1912. The film was widely

acclaimed by one and all and proved to be a great success.

His Krishna Janmam (1918) also was again a film that gave prominance to the human

over god. Theses films carried the extra burden of nationalism and secularism. It is also

through films that in a place of mother goddesses, the dominance of father gods were

established. Though Vighatakumaran made by the Tamil born J.C. Daniel, was praised

much for having replaced God with man, like in Phalke, that man was inevitably a

patriarch.

The 1940s, in spite of being a period of independence struggles and propagation of

communist manifestoes, the cinema of the period did not engage itself in politics

apparently, unlike the political theatre4. Cinema was to give importance to men’s

thoughts and actions. That the films which came out with women’s names like

Jnanambika, Nirmala, Nallathanka and Sthree were constructed as per patriarchal

notions of womanhood went quite unnoticed.

It is in the 50’s that the commercial cinemas, from the time of Udaya studio to the

present, began its stride. 60’s were the period of P. Bhaskaran, P.N. Menon, P. Ramdas,

K.S. Sethumadhavan and Ramu Kariat. M.T. Vasudevan Nair’s Murappennu is the

construction of the woman from the male perspective. M.T.’s perception of the male as

4
K.P.A.C. and IPTA Movements of the time staged, politically loaded dramas where as films apolitical.?
the Asuravithu and the woman as one, who goes astray even as one comes to Nirmalyam

in the 70s, highlights this male dominance. From the 70’s, Adoor Gopalakrishnan takes

over these anxieties of masculinity in his films and continues doing so even now, taking it

to the global market.

Even in the films that echoed the brutality of Emergency and staunch communism also

have the male as their centre. This reveals that even political films which upheld the

modernist ideas were not free from the obstinacies of the patriarchal ideology. John

Abraham and G. Aravindan and the whole of parallel cinema makers have to be reread in

this way. The new rise of stars in the 80s created a big world of masculine bodies. This

period was the golden period of films referred to as Mohanlal and Mammotty films

instead of that of the directors who made them. In the 90s, they became the male

representatives of films which were looked upon as being reactionary. Along with the

early films like Chemeen, Kanchana Sita, Thampu, Elipathayam etc, films like

Mathilukal, Vaasthuhara, Piravi, Swam etc. received national accolades. Looking back,

one finds that in all these films, man is the mega star.

A look at the recent [2006-08] film awards, both regional and national, show similar

tendencies. Pulijanmam and Ekantham convey to the audience the anxieties of male

citizens. In that sense, Naalu Pennunggal is a film of four men. Ore Kadal represents a

similar patriarchal ideology. Adayalangal is in no way a different one. Gulmohar is a

male revolutionary who flames even in the scorching sun. Even the children’s movie

Kaliyorukkam is a male centered construct.

school syllabus are all male based narratives. The Kid, which focuses on an orphan Balan

or boy, is not different from the first Malayalam talkie Balan, at least at the level of the

exercise of sentimentalism. Basheer the Man, brings into focus, the male Basheer. Pather

Panchali is all a male play.

Oru Vadakkan Veeragatha, learned by the Malayalam students of Kannur University is a

product of M.T.’s masculine consciousness. M.T. who seems to have been obsessed with

the works of Hemingway reestablishes the undefeatable male in his films. That

Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea represents a world without women as the

manifestation of the undefeatable truth of masculinity would never be noticed by those

who included it in the syllabus. This shows the extent to which things have been

naturalized. That C.V. Raman Pillai’s novel Marthandavarma has been adapted to a film

and that Pazhashi Raja is going to revisit us are not mere coincidence, but leads us to

perceive cinema as the fulfillment of the masculine enterprise.

Like money, man is also a main component of the film industry. The attempt of women

to intervene in this space seems to bring out little results. One can see that Revathy who

made the film Mitr—My Friend, ultimately converts to one who is obliged naively to

protect the sanctity of the male centered family structure. We have realized that the script

of Deedi’s Gulmohar has been widely edited off to make it a male elegy. Even the film
Akasha Gopuram, based on Ibsen drama may be seen to be representing the immortality

of the hero. The hero in the film doesn’t die, unlike the hero in the drama, who does.

Thus the 80 years of Malayalam cinema history is in fact Malayalees’ 80 years hi(s)tory.

The films, made by the Malayalee men, in its turn, served its purpose by reconstructing

them. What we see is that this burden of normative masculinity is or has to be taken up

by the “other” Malayalee masculinities. It is only through a deconstruction of these films,

which bear the ideology of the high cast(e) ideals that these other Malayalee

masculinities, who have been changed to passive spectators, can construct their own

spaces in films.

Bibliography

Baskaran, Theodore. “Cinema as a Source Material for History: Possibilities and

Problems.” History through the Lens: Perspectives on South Indian Cinema.

Hyderabad: Orient Black Swan, 2009.

Das Gupta, Chidananda. Seeing is Believing. New Delhi: Penguin, 2008.

Harris, V.C. “Stock Taking Questions,” Kerala Calling (Nov. 2006): 33-35.

Muraleedharan, T. “National Interests, Regional Concerns: Historicising Malayalam

Cinema.” Deep Focus (Jan-May 2005) 85-93.

Cultural Formation of Kerala. Ed. P.J. Cheriyan, Thiruvananthapuram:

Kerala State Gazetteer IV. II (1999): 349 – 369.

Raveendran, P.P. “Abhiruchiyute Vyakaranam: Thaaram, Thaaramoolyam.”

Madhyamam Weekly (19 April 2002): 17-21

Thoraval, Yves. The Cinemas of India (1896-2000). New Delhi: pub house, 2000.

[reprint 2007]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayalam_cinema

http://www.malayalamcinema.com/