Filmmaker Lenin Rajendran, who deftly strode the middle path between art and mainstream commercial Malayalam cinema, passed away on Monday night. He was 67. He had been under treatment at a hospital in Chennai for the past few weeks after liver transplantation.
In a career spanning over three decades, he made 15 films and a number of documentaries, which included deeply personal films like Mazha and Chillu , as well as overtly political films like Meena Masathile Sooryan .
Born at Ooruttambalam in Thiruvananthapuram, he completed his education at the University College.
Lenin began his stint in cinema by assisting avant garde filmmaker P.A. Backer. But, being a political filmmaker, who never shied away from expressing his leftist views on screen, he was also concerned about getting his messages to the masses. He thus drew on elements of mainstream cinema, even while charting a parallel path.
Making his debut with Venal in 1981, he followed it up the next year with Chillu . The next was the quirky, but at the same time tragic, Prem Nazirine Kanmanilla , on a group of disgruntled youngsters kidnapping the reigning star. It also became a commentary on the contemporary politics of the State.
In his next film Meena Masathile Sooryan , he chronicled the struggle of peasants from Kayyur against the British.
His biographical films — Swathi Thirunal and Makara Manju on artist Raja Ravi Varma — were not mere retellings of their life stories, but adaptations in a contemporary context. These two films, along with Kulam also became cinematic documentations of erstwhile Travancore kingdom. He also drew on the work of writers like M. Mukundan, for Deivathinte Vikruthikal . For Mazha , he drew on Madhavikutty’s work. While Vachanam was a film against fake human gods, Anyar was a warning against communal polarisation.
A member of the CPI(M), he has served as the Chairman of the Kerala State Film Development Corporation. He contested unsuccessfully for the Lok Sabha elections twice from Ottapalam in the 1990s. He is survived by his wife and two children.
Bid to mobilise funds
Meanwhile, B. Unnikrishnan, general secretary of Film Employees Federation of Kerala, said that industry heads were in talks to generate funds settle the dues at the hospital so that his body could be brought here by Tuesday afternoon.
“We have to mobile funds of around ₹40 lakh. I have already talked to associations including producers’ association and to the State government,” he said.
