Even as there are ripples of excitement as auteur Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s latest work Pinneyum reaches screens on August 18, all is calm and peaceful at his serene house at Akkulam, on the outskirts of Thiruvananthapuram city.
The auteur is in a mellow mood, reminiscing about his works, colleagues, actors and immortal characters he has created on screen. He goes back and forth in time, much like his works, to create a magical mosaic of memories, images and vignettes.
“Pinneyum is my first work using digital technology and it is the first time my film has got such a wide release. As the tagline of the film says ‘It is not just another romance’. It is a film that unfolds in the time we live in,” he says.
Starring Dileep and Kavya Madhavan in the lead, Pinneyum sees the maestro helming a movie after eight years.
“That is one of the reasons why the film is titled Pinneyum (Once Again). My wife, Sunanda, used to keep asking me why I was not writing or working on a new project. She motivated me to begin working on a new film. I am happy that I was able to complete the first draft and that she was able to read it before she passed away,” says Adoor.
Another reason is because “in each of us, there is a desire to go back in time to experience certain phases of life or a wish to relive certain others. That never happens but the desire is there. The movie reflects on that. I took more than a year to write this.”
If the script of Adoor’s first feature film Swayamvaram was written down by reputed film director K.P. Kumaran, Kodiyettam was ‘written’ by thespian Bharath Gopi, who also enacted the lead role in the film.
“Many of my films that followed were written by Meera Sahib, I would dictate and he would write it down. That went on till I wrote the script of Nizhalkuthu , when I began using the computer,” says Adoor with a mischievous smile.
“I learnt the computer myself, much in the same way I learnt typewriting from a book written by Pitman during my student days at the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune. Now I do my writing all by myself. In fact, this time I wrote the shooting script in English and dialogues in Malayalam, all on my computer," he explains.
Even as he is writing and fleshing out his characters, he would have an idea of who would be the best to enact a character. “I would have an image of each character; the way he/she would look, walk, speak, behave. So once, the script was done, I would call up the actor and ask them if he/she would be interested in the film. Invariably the answer would be in the affirmative,” he says.
It goes without saying that the call would be a milestone in the actor’s filmography for Adoor’s characters have won not one but several awards for the actors who breathed life into them on screen.
“It is a director’s job to mould an actor into the character,” he avers.
Pinneyum , which has a huge star cast, sees him working for the first time with Dileep. “There is this perception of Dileep that he is more of an entertainer than an actor. But one of the biggest strengths of an actor who has a gift for comedy is timing. And that is also one of the greatest assets of any actor. Dileep plays an unemployed youngster, Purushottaman Nair. He has done an excellent job. Now when he telephones me, he introduces himself as Purushottaman Nair!” laughs Adoor.
The filmmaker explains that even romantic heroes and comedians have brilliant actors in them but they have to be tapped and given a chance to exhibit their skills. “Oduvil Unnikrishnan was known more as a comedian and character actor when I cast him in the lead role in Nizhalkuthu . But look how he lived the life of a hangman,” adds Adoor.
Admitting that initially he did have apprehensions about digital technology, he adds that he was completely bowled over by the possibilities of the new technology. This is the Adoor who has quietly moved on with the times without any fuss. He has coped with losses on a personal level too. Most of his classic films were shot by his dear friend and acclaimed cinematographer Mankada Ravi Varma, who evocatively captured Adoor’s minimalism and Gandhian austerity in his works.
After Ravi Varma passed away, Adoor has been working with M.J. Radhakrishnan. “Radhakrishanan is brilliant and he knows exactly what I have in mind. That is the mark of an extraordinary cameraman – to see the story the director has in his mind. Ravi Varma and I shared that rapport. There was no need for words. It is the same with Radhakrishnan.”
He talks about how new technology has helped cinematographers and directors by making their work easier and simpler. “In the olden days, we had to light up the frame to shoot a scene in low light or at night. But now there is no need of that. Shooting can be done in natural low light,” he explains. He talks about how they were able to shoot a scene that had Dileep walking on the beach at Shangumugham without any kind of hassles. With child-like enthusiasm, he says how they hid in a bus and with a hidden camera filmed Dileep walking through the crowd without anyone suspecting that there was a star in their midst.
For Adoor the perfectionist, the excitement of watching his film coming together is a taxing process as well. Anxious to see that the soundscapes in his works were as natural as possible, he would record background sounds and incorporate them in his movies. “Who has ever heard the rain in a Malayalam film? That happened in Elipathyam , where we were able to utilise the rain’s infinite possibilities. It has happened in Pinneyum as well, the sound, the mood and the visuals of the rain play an important part,” he explains. He recalls how a famous French filmmaker refused to believe that the sound was not sync sound in his films.
Like the other components in his works, Adoor also attaches a great deal of importance to his locations. Certain portions of Pinneyum was shot in a large traditional house in Thevalakara, near Chavara in Kollam. Adoor had the rundown house be given a facelift before the shooting began.
“Spaces are important, especially a home. They tell us who and how the characters came to be. Many of our characters in movies don’t seem to have any roots. They only have time to romance and sing songs. I insist on my characters having an identity of their own.”
In Pinneyum, Kavya’s matriarchal home was the one shot in Thevalakara. Working with Kavya for the second time after Naalu Pennungal , Adoor is all praise for her histrionic skills. “An excellent actress. Devi, her role in the film, will be a landmark one in her career. She is a teacher married to Purushottaman Nair,” adds Adoor.
“KPAC Lalitha, Nedumudi Venu, Vijayaraghavan, Indrans and Srinda Ashaab are some of the actors in the cast in which there are two newcomers – Vaishakh and Meera Nallur.
While Adoor agrees that Malayalam is flexing its muscles at the box office, he wonders about the standards of the films, even those that did well at the box office. “Recently, I happened to watch a movie that had created waves last year. I was quite disappointed. It looked like it had no script or direction.” However, he is generous in his praise of filmmakers C.R. Sudevan, Vipin Vijay and Sanal Sashidharan.
As the doyen of Indian cinema gets ready to release another masterpiece, he hopes that the wide film will help viewers watch his work. With the enthusiasm of a newbie, he says: “Every filmmaker wants his work to be seen. I am no different.”
The film has been produced by Baby Mathew Somatheeram. Music is by Bijibal.
At home in his study
In his huge study lined with books, photographs and memorabilia from his lustrous journey in filmdom, is a large table and by its side is a computer. Awards from all across the world are crammed on shelves. Paintings, posters of films, right from the time of Swayamvaram , and old photographs adorn the walls. Each has a story that Adoor is happy to share with visitors. If a poster of Swayamvaram was designed by artist Karunakaran, the pictures of Kabuki were given to him after a performance in Japan. An old family photograph taken soon after his eldest sister’s marriage has Adoor’s mother’s sister holding an infant in her lap. “That is me,” he says.
His late wife, Sunanda smiles at him from a photograph that is hung on the wall, just behind his computer. “It is a good one, a natural one, taken at a wedding. It was given to me by Meera Sahib. She had no idea that it was being taken,” he says.
Adoor says his table is usually filled with books. He had them moved to the floor for some polishing work on his table. “Otherwise, I would have been hidden by the books if I sit on the chair,” he says laughing as The Hindu ’s photographer S. Mahinsha focusses on the much-decorated film director.
The filmmaker donates many of the books to a library in Adoor that was founded by his uncle.
Celebrating Adoor
It was a report in The Hindu that reminded me that I was 75 years old. A former classmate of mine called me up to wish me after seeing its Tamil translation in the Tamil edition of The Hindu . Till now, my brothers and I have never celebrated birthdays in our family. However my mother’s birthday was celebrated with a reading of the Bhagavatham. That was done every month, on the day of her birth star according to the Malayalam calendar. So the tales of the Bhagavatham are still vivid in my mind.
Recently PC Soman, who has been working with me since the days of Swayamvaram and Soorya Krishnamoorthy are planning a programme and I am going along with it. Soman had also acted in a play I had directed: a Malayalam adaptation of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot . I have not directed a play after that. Theatre was my first love, a natural progression because of my fascination for Kathakali. But after movies came into my life, I found that my thinking and visualising was more suited for cinema, theatre is a difficult job and it is very demanding.
