Shaji N. Karun is not much of a talker and when he does, it is edited and measured. In his films, his strengths are his visuals and not words. Artist Namboodiri (K.M. Vasudevan Namboodiri) is an artist who fills up spaces with his fluent and bold strokes. And both of them are long-time friends. Shaji spent a little more than two years following his friend, crafting a film on him that would be a mosaic of the artist’s life, his thoughts and art.
Neruvara (Trueline) is a 57-film documentary on Namboodiri’s aesthetic peregrination from his early years and traces his evolution as an illustrator and sculptor. It documents his Cholamandalam days, and the artist wielding the brush, sketch pencil, chisel or the hammer (for metal reliefs) with equal ease, and the artist’s views on art and life in general. The film was premièred at JTPac, Tripunithura, recently.
There have been films on Namboodiri before but this is a Shaji film, different in its interpretation and approach. “I have known him since Aravindan’s Kanchana Seetha days. When I began making films he was there, staying for a few days at the location. He was always forthright in his views and suggestions, which helped me so much in my filmmaking. It’s a bond that has grown stronger through the years. I wanted to make a film on him, a sort of dedication to an artist who has been largely unrecognised,” says Shaji.
Neruvara is a visual interpretation of Namboodiri’s art. It moves through a series of monologues recorded from his conversations with fellow artists, musicians, art critics and writers. “I had decided that only Namboodiri would talk in the film. Instead of others talking about the artist, Namboodiri plumbs within himself, probes and sketches a portrait of himself. Otherwise the artist is often seen to be pushed into a corner, a well-lit corner of the screen, while others take over.”
This process, Shaji says, is like Namboodiri’s visual interpretation of literary works. “What Namboodiri does is interpret characters from literary works using line sketches, sometimes giving them a dash of colour. I told him that I was taking the liberty to do a similar interpretation of his life through visuals.”
The biggest challenge was, naturally, getting Namboodiri to open up. “He would talk a lot but would very consciously stop once the camera started whirring. So the only way we could go about it was to make him chat informally with his friends and colleagues and get it audio recorded. So we had the late C.N. Karunakaran, K.C. Narayanan, M.G.S. Narayanan, Vijayakumara Menon, Sreevalsan J. Menon and others talk to Namboodiri. My job was to take what was relevant and interpret it visually.”
Namboodiri talks on his art and the power of line sketches, even as Shaji’s camera pans on the illustrations. Dogs, elephants, children with wonder in their eyes, buxom women, shapely figures in various attires, landscapes, temples, streets…all of this come alive on screen even as he explains his take on them. “I think I have talked too much,” was Namboodiri’s immediate reaction after the screening. “I was only trying to explain my craft; analyse my thoughts. I hope I won’t be offending anyone,” he adds.
There are two touching sequences in the film. In one, Namboodiri talks about the Nandi sculpture at Mahabalipuram and the unknown sculptor who created it. He confesses that every time he sees it, his eyes become moist and he wants to fall at the feet of that unknown artist. In the other, he dispassionately says that an artist or a musician is not indispensable to this world. The world will go on even without a Namboodiri’s illustration. All of us are just small dots in this huge universe. Shaji’s matching visual of Namboodiri moving amongst a crowd in Bali elicited impromptu applause from the theatre.
Bali, strangely, becomes an important montage in the film. Shaji attempts to place it as a third dialectical image where the past and present interact. When a dialectical image is usually juxtaposed, Shaji uses it as an equivalent image. “We chose Bali as one of our locations because of its art legacy, because the tropical landscape was similar to that what Namboodiri was familiar with. More than all that, this dialectical montage would, I thought, provide a glimpse of the artist in a new milieu where art dominates.”
The Bali sequences are quickly juxtaposed with equivalent images from Namboodiri’s own surroundings; it succeeds in providing a gentle surprise to break the subdued progress of the presentation. It is the radical element in an otherwise anticipated, logical totality. This then is the hallmark of Shaji’s films, thinking in images rather than concepts.
Produced by Kalikota, Muvattupuzha, the film is enlivened by appropriate music by Sreevalsan J. Menon. “Shaji Sir’s mandate was clear. He wanted the human voice to heighten the effect of the illustrations on screen rather than instrumentals. Music, or rather Meera Rammohan’s voice, is used only sparingly in some of these sequences. Otherwise, silence provides a perfect background. The violin is used in one scene where Namboodiri Sir is seen painting a live Kathakali-Bharatanatyam performance on stage and of course, the sounds from Bali were recorded from there. The other voice used is that of Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavathar. Namboodiri Sir knew Chembai very well and his voice was used in the scenes even before I began my work,” says Sreevalsan.
Shaji has been capturing moments, not merely images right from the time he began cranking the camera. His films, especially his documentaries, speak a lot through silence and stunning visuals. They serve as his means of communication. Neruvara complements the candid and contemporary portrait with contextualising biographical information, filling out the life of the exceptional artist. “The film is about his art process and about his personality. His life and art is a message, a reminder of his exceptional creativity in the face of adversities, the power of art to surmount all this and to the authorities who have never bothered to recognise this inspirational individual,” winds off Shaji.
