The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : ‘Popular films have robbed the legal system of its dignity’

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Saturday, Jan 05, 2008
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‘Popular films have robbed the legal system of its dignity’

Special Correspondent

Adoor Gopalkrishnan’s Naalu Pennungal screened at film festival

— Photo: K. Murali Kumar

RIBBON-CUTTING: K.V.R. Tagore (left), Commissioner, Information Department, directors Girish Kasaravalli (right) and Nagathihalli Chandrashekar at the film festival in Bangalore on Friday.

BANGALORE: Many people are making films labelling them as “art films” much to the disadvantage of serious filmmakers, filmmaker Adoor Gopalkrishnan has observed.

Mr. Gopalkrishnan was speaking at an interactive session on his latest film Naalu Pennungal, screened at the inaugural session of the Chitrabharathi section at the weeklong second Bengalooru International Film Festival (Biffes), here on Friday.

Contrary to those who can make films without homework and requisite preparedness, filmmaking was a difficult journey punctuated by hard work and struggle, he added.

He said popular cinema had propagated untruths and had robbed the legal system of its dignity.

“You cannot shout and scream in the court, like the hero in a popular film does,” he said. He, however, observed how the law has been for the privileged and has ignored people on the periphery.

On how the legal situation was being depicted in commercial cinema, Mr. Gopalkrishnan said that the mainstream films, which propagates untruth, would make a mockery of a system. It would only talk about people on the periphery.

Only the heroes of commercial cinemas would deliver a speech at crucial and sensitive junctures, he said.

His film [Naalu Pennungal] was based on Jnanpith award winning Malayalam writer the late Thakazhi Sivashankara Pillai’s short story.

It deals with the validity and complexities of man and woman relationships on legal, physical, and metaphysical planes.

Mr. Gopalkrishnan has produced the film for the Thiruvananthapuram Doordarshan Kendra.

Compact disc

Kannada playwright and MLC Chandrashekhara Kambar released a Laser Compact Disc containing the clippings of national award winning Kannada films from 1954 to 2005. The LCD is designed by writer Vijaya.

Filmmaker Girish Kasaravalli said that the LCD was an attempt to record the history of Kannada films with some details. The efforts would be a continuous one in the interest of the industry. In the morning, Commissioner of Information K.V.R. Tagore inaugurated the Films of the World section of the festival.

Complaints

Many film buffs complained that the video and audio quality at both the auditoriums of Vision Cinemas, the main venue of the festival, was not up to the mark.

They were also unhappy about the quality of canteen services despite the expensive price tag.

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