A short film ‘Bonjour Mayyazhi,’ where characters search novelist, M. Mukundan, by journalist E.M. Ashraf, will be screened at the K.P. Keseva Menon Hall in Kozhikode at 4 p.m. on Wednesday.
“The film is based on the perception of a reader who judges and evaluates the behaviour of characters in novels and short stories. As a reader, I was thinking of what will be the attitude of the characters when they meet their author M. Mukundan who returns back to Mayyazhi after writing about them in his novels and short stories on Mayyazhi while he was living in Delhi for 40 years. Actually it was a fantasy.The dead and the murdered characters come to see their creator to question and express their agonies. A few put across their anger also,” Ashraf says.
Ashraf has written the story, script and directed the film.
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“The irresistible characters of Mukundan are unique in their feelings and deeds. Also, the presence of the characters is very exceptional when compared to other writers. Mayyazhi is a land of mixed culture and once the occupied place of the French Army. Indo-French culture is the speciality of the writings,” he says.
As a journalist, Ashraf probed the consequence and reaction of the characters when they meet their author. “This short film is purely based on speculation and no way connected to reality. So the appraisal of the viewer must confine to this concept,” he says.
The best works of Mukundan, one of the pioneers of modernity in Malayalam literature, reflected his native village of Mayyazhi. His magnum opus ‘Mayyazhippuzhayude Theerangalil’ won accolades for the best novel. Three of his novels were made into feature films.
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Ashraf says that his short film is an experimental one on literature and also evaluating works of a legendary writer who is still working on various subjects.
“I hope this concept and treatment would be unique as such, ” he adds.