The J.C. Daniel Award for Lifetime Achievement (2015) goes to one of the most versatile and intense filmmakers in Malayalam, Kulakkattil Geevarghese George. Born in 1945, K.G. George is in many ways a ‘Midnight’s Child’.
His oeuvre spanned a crucial period in Indian polity and politics, that is from the mid 1970s to the early 1990s. It was also one of the most vibrant periods in Malayalam cinema. In Indian politics, this period includes the dark days of National Emergency in 1975 to the age of New Economic Policies inaugurated by Narasimha Rao government during 1990-91 and the demolition of Babri Masjid.
During this period, George made 17 films that interrogated and excavated Malayali life and society through a series of narratives portraying the complex web of man-woman relationship in various milieus, classes and social strata. No other filmmaker has looked so clinically at the life of women within the patriarchal power structures of Malayali society, one that is hidden behind the veneer of apparent civility and progressive verbosity.
Making his debut with Swapnadanam in 1976, a psychological crime story, he made his mark with its narrative style and visual compositions that broke new ground. He went on to become a prolific filmmaker, with almost all his works faring well at the box office. When one looks back, George’s works so far has had three phases: the first phase of romantic-lyrical tragedies starting from Swapnadanam to Ini Aval Urangatte (1978), the second phase of milieu films from Mela in 1980 to Panchavadipalam in 1984, and the third phase that dealt with various aspects of a woman’s life - from Lekhayude Maranam Oru Flashback in 1983 to Ee Kanni Koodi in 1990.
In the first phase, his films took the existing romantic themes to new tragic dimensions and intensities. Among them Ulkkadal , one of the first campus films in Malayalam, went on to acquire cult status of sorts. Here was a lover who embodied the ambivalence of the Malayali male’s romantic imagination. This hero was very unlike the heroes the audiences were used to till then, the heroes who fought against all odds, evils and enemies to win their love. Both in Swapnadanam and Ulkkadal , the protagonists are haunted and wounded by love, and are unable to cope up with the challenges of reality. The next phase of his films delved into the lives of several milieus, ripping open the layers of violence and oppression in our society.
If Mela told the tragic stories of male and female artistes whose lives are caught in the circus tent, as they move from one place to another enthralling the audience, Yavanika was a murder thriller set amidst a theatre troupe. In both the films, there is an intense love story in the foreground, that runs parallel to the real and performed lives of artistes in the background.
Eminent film critic T.G. Vaidyanathan described Kolangal as one of ‘the most perfect tragic dramas in Indian cinema’. Set in a village, it presents an array of characters whose apparently mundane and placid lives slowly degenerates within a moral vacuum of sorts. Here, every expression of tender love and humanity are snuffed out in this nihilistic drama, with evil forces celebrating their victory at the end.
Panchavadipalam , one of the first ‘serious’ political satires in Malayalam cinema, portrays another village with a host of stereotypical characters enacting the tragic-comic drama called democracy. Lekhayude Maranam Oru Flashback takes a ruthless look into the heart-wrenching realities of life behind the glamor and glitz of cinema. Resonating with a real life incident, the film goes beyond that to take an intense look at the life of women in an industry ruled and run by male gaze, ambitions, lust and power.
The next phase is the most chilling and devastating of George’s oeuvre. It was in this phase that he made Adaminte Variyellu, Irakal, Kathakku Pinnil, Mattoral and Ee Kanni Koodi , all of which dealt with various layers and dimensions of the life of women in Kerala. Adaminte Variyellu one of the first feminist films in Malayalam, inaugurated this phase by presenting different women from various classes – upper, middle, lower, and from various communities, facing the same doomed predicament in a patriarchal world. It is one that lures, traps and enslaves them, driving them to suicide, insanity or endless drudgery.
Irakal takes the theme forward and dissects the complex and omnipresent presence of power underlying the family and the sexual economy on which it is founded.
Built on endless greed, this oppressive structure can find release and expression only in blind lust and brutal violence. The desolate biblical wail of the grandfather, the man who toiled to create wealth and build the family, resonates through the film as the martyred conscience not only of that family, but also of the community and Malayali society at large. Both Kathakku Pinnil and Ee Kanni Koodi trace the trajectories of a woman’s life in her relationship with man and entanglements with the family and society.
Mattoral is one of the most chilling portrayals of middle class life and the void that men are despite their progressive, civic appearances. Here is a woman who dares to opt out of the seemingly happy, middle class, well-to-do family, only to realise that it merely took her from one hell to another. “In the end, every woman in this world is a prey, to be humiliated, conquered, destroyed..” says another character in the film.
What makes George different from other filmmakers is his generic variety; he made crime thrillers, romantic dramas, family dramas, comedies, and historicals. His films also journeyed into various performative modes such as cinema, theatre and circus even while mapping the life of woman from various angles and in different situations.
After the 1990s, with the spread of television and its all-pervasive presence, George gradually withdrew from the field unable to play up to the monoculture of the market and to the macho narratives of super heroes. But his narratives continue to inspire and haunt us with the disturbing questions they asked about ourselves and society.
