For someone with an unwavering political stand, it was the Kayyur peasant uprising of 1941 which Bengali filmmaker Mrinal Sen chose as a subject when he planned to make a film in Malayalam. It is considered one of the first Communist-led peasant rebellions in the country.
Sen, according to filmmaker T.V. Chandran, had put in a lot of research work for the movie, with the help of Communist ideologue P. Govinda Pillai and others, and also paid visits to the village. But, the movie never got made. In the end, his forays outside Bengali cinema, reached only till Andhra Pradesh, when he directed the Telugu film Oka Oori Katha in 1977. Yet, he retained a close bond with Malayali filmmakers and film society activists.
“I met Mrinalda first at a film festival in Delhi in 1979. At that time, discussions on the Kayyoor film had happened. It was later in 1989 that a close friendship formed between us, when my film Alicinte Anweshanam was screened at the Locarno festival. He was jury head there. There was never a dull moment when he was around, just like there was none in his cinema. He did not stick to such conventional ‘art film’ practices. He had a definite political statement to make. But, he experimented with cinematic form too. Anything could happen in a Mrinal Sen film,” says T.V. Chandran.
Most of Sen’s films have been screened in film societies across the State over the years.
Long association
At the inauguration of the Kerala State Chalachitra Academy in 1998, he was the chief guest.
When the Chalachitra Academy instituted the Lifetime Achievement award as part of the International Film Festival of Kerala in 2009, there was not much debate on who should be the first recipient.
Sen, in his eighties then, had stopped making films, but he came down to the city to receive the award.
“When I went to join the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Mrinalda was the chairman of the committee that interviewed me. Since then, I had always kept in touch with him. I had won the National Award for editing in the same year in which the Dadasaheb Phalke award was conferred upon him. So, I told him that we have come a full circle now from that day in FTII. He was really happy to hear that. He was far more direct in his politics, compared to Ray. He believed cinema is a political tool. He unapologetically took a political stand in all his films,” says Bina Paul, film editor and Vice Chairperson of the Chalachitra Academy.
Film critic V.K. Joseph recollects the many visits to Sen’s home in Kolkata. “He was someone who treated everyone equally, debating politics and cinema with the same seriousness to a film student as he would with a veteran filmmaker. Not many has perceptively brought on screen the political undercurrents in the country as he did. For Keralites, he was like one of our own,” he says.
