Kummatty - A G. Aravindan Masterpiece

G. Aravindan's 1979 masterpiece, Kummatty is on Youtube, looking better than the original. The painstaking restoration effort, jointly done by World Cinema Foundation in the US, India’s Film Heritage Foundation and the Italian archive Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna has paid off. The vibrancy and the life in the restored print is unbelievable. The restored print is better than the original I had watched at least half a dozen times in my childhood. The restoration is a testament to the resolution and sharpness of the original analog film (Eastman color stock), even after all the negatives were lost and the restoration team had to rely on the positives, location shots and on the recollections of the original cinematographer.

Piper Kummatty and his band of followers.

Kummatty is a beautiful visual poem. A poem from a bygone Kerala, a Kerala that ceased to exist around the time the movie was made in the late seventies. It is the kind of movie you can show your American/western movie-buff friend representative of native Indian folklore on celluloid cautioning her/him the India depicted in this movie is as far removed from the present day India as snake-charmers and climbing rope-tricks.

A theyyam in the movie.

I first saw the movie when I was in 3 or 4 years old. It was promoted as a children's film. Although the director, G. Aravindan was of the opinion that he didn't consider it a children's film as he didn't like typifying his films, he said children may like it. Kerala state government went ahead and awarded it the best children's film for that year. Not to lose the opportunity to promote a world-class children's film, it was screened (almost) every weekend we visited the outdoor movie theater at the children's park at Napier Museum. I was traumatized every time I watched the movie. It was definitely not for little kids.

The mysterious figure of Kummatty, the dark vibe of the movie and the story (no spoilers) where one of my own kind (child) was thrown into deep 'existential' trouble and had to stay in that 'troubled' state waiting for the Kummatty to come back distressed me no end.

A real stray dog that landed a lead role in Kummatty.

G. Aravindan was not the most talkative of film makers. His films were contemplative visual poems. Kummatty is no different. When your main lead is a dog for the half the movie, dialog becomes dispensable. 

Aravindan's movies also served as vehicles for other talented people. Kummatty must be one of the finest cinematography projects ever helmed by Shaji N. Karun. In almost all of G. Aravindan's films, except the last couple, the camera was handled by the talented Shaji N. Karun. Well schooled in the mid to late twentieth century art house movie making techniques of long meditative shots and sparse dialog, Shaji N. Karun went on win Camera d'Or at Cannes with his own directorial debut composed along similar lines, Piravi, in 1989. 

G. Aravindan, Shaji N. Karun (photo courtesy Ramu Aravindan, son of G. Aravindan.)

The folk songs composed for Kummatty by Kavalam Narayana Panicker, set to music by M.G. Radhakrishnan have found a permanent place in the Malayalam cultural encyclopedia, with rebirths in the form of popular and rock songs by bands like Avial, decades after the movie was released.

Vilasini in one of the beautifully framed shots from Kummatty.

The only familiar face for me in this movie is of (Kuttyedathi) Vilasini. The choice of unknown actors or having common folks play part in his movie is also signature G. Aravindan. His movie, Kanchana Sita had tribal people from Andhra (location where it was filmed) playing main roles in that movie. Ashok who played the lead (kid), Chindan in Kummatty recently showed up at a screening of the restored version. Kummatty was the only movie he had ever acted in.

Kummatty's stash of animal crackers.

Kummatty sharing animal crackers treats with kids.

Kummatty is translated as 'the bogeyman' in the subtitles. I would disagree. Kummatty is not exactly a bogeyman, but he is more like a pied piper, luring kids with his songs, music, magic and animal crackers. Animal crackers are pretty symbolic in this story which is closely connected to animals. Unlike the piper from Hamlin, Kummatty has no ill intentions, he is an eternal child who finds joy and magic in the small things in life. The best compatriots he finds in his expeditions are children who share his sense of wonder and joy. 

Temple pond where Kummatty takes his bath, banyan tree and the temple in the background, where Chindan and his friends are seen watching the mysterious magic man.

Aravindan said Kummatty symbolized spring. He is a force of nature who visits a place according to his own schedule, like seasons. He comes after the rains, in spring, when lakes and ponds are abrim with water and nature is green and bountiful wearing its finest.

Evening market on the street, a common scene in mid twentieth century rural Kerala. Chindan played by Ashok is seen buying fish for his family's dinner.

Re-watching this timeless classic at the end of the first quarter of twenty-first century, it offers us a window into rural Kerala from half a century ago. None of these scenes will be naturally occurring anywhere in present-day Kerala. 

The social, political and cultural landscape of Kerala has irrevocably changed. The physical environment - built structures and the nature surrounding them, if they still exist untouched anywhere, are flanked by updated buildings and inundated with signs of progress like tin-sheet roofing or neon lighted billboards.

Chindan, with a pot of water, framed against the doorway of a typical Malabar home or temple, built of hewn laterite.

Kummatty was shot in my favorite part of the world, north Malabar. The rolling grasslands and sun burnt laterite hill tops of Kasargod where Kummatty frolics with his band of child followers is reminiscent of my childhood summers. The crimson faced theyyams and the local architecture in hewn laterite brings back memories of grand-parents and the cool interiors of ancestral homes. 

Kummatty takes us back to a lost world and a lost time,  where the pagan spiritual rituals, theyyams, bare chested grandmas and seasonal magic men co-existed with evening village markets and centuries-old banyan trees. At the discerning age I am now, Kummatty is no longer disturbing, the beautiful work of art has revealed itself, speaking of love, nature, (wo)man and the interconnectedness of it all. Thank you, G. Aravindan!

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Varshangalkku Sesham - A Vineeth Sreenivasan nod to Malayalam cinema

A nod that placed Kannur on the map of Kerala movie-dom. For me, that is the redeeming factor of Malayalam movies directed by Vineeth Sreenivasan. The slang, the accent/dialect, the people and the stories of Kannur (the director's birth-city and mine) were never given much prominence in Malayalam films or literature before Vineeth Sreenivasan appeared on the horizon with his youthful, sentimental films set in the region.

Vineeth's Hallmark-card-designed-for-Kerala type of movies is not exactly my cuppa, nor is this latest one from him, Varshangalkku Sesham. But the opening scene set in the director's familiar north Malabari environs with the perfect casting of his own brother Dhyan Sreenivasan, Malayalam's favorite slacker-hero, delivering his brother's lines with an innate comedic flair is a performance so pitch-perfect that it almost absolves the film's overindulgence in nostalgia.

Interestingly, the director's father, the iconic Sreenivasan , has long been a cinematic ambassador for the Kannur dialect, employing it in most of his roles regardless of his character's origin. However, his own directorial works—the cult classics  Vadakkunokki Yantram and Chinthavishtaya Shyamala,—while both commercial and critical hits, could have been set anywhere in Kerala.

The signature dialect in Malayalam movies of the eighties and nineties, when I was growing up, was the mid-Kerala Valluvandandan dialect which was supposedly the proper Malayalam for literature and films and therefore considered classy at the time. Kudos, Vineeth Sreenivasan for making Kannur and Kannur accent and dialect mainstream. Chennai (formerly Madras) and its people are next in line to thank Vineeth S. for making their city and culture the other geographical cornerstone of his directorial ventures.

Varshangalkku Sesham is meta movie, a nested node of nods.

A nod to the night breeze of north Kerala, a meteorological discovery made by the director in early 2010s. A nod to north Malabar. A nod to Madras/ Chennai . A nod to Kodambakkam. A nod to Tamil, Tamilnadu and sambhar sadam. 

A nod to yesteryear's directors. A nod to Priyadarshan and his production design style. The village scenes in the beginning almost feels like ghost-directed or designed by Priyadarshan's production designer. A nod to Mohanlal, a very weak nod at that, aided just by genes. A nod and a new life-line for Nivin Pauly. A nod to the nameless side-kicks. A nod to music, musicians especially violinists. A nod to polka dots, reaffirming their eternal status as retro, no matter which decade. 

A nod to old style Indian melodrama,  the millennial version.  A nod to Mohanlal style mund-flick. A nod to the new-generation version of the iconic Malayalam duo Dasan & Vijayan, immortalized by the actor dads of this movie's lead actors.  A nod to friends and family, who have contributed to Vineeth's success through the years.  A meta nod to characters, dialog and music from Malayalam movies of the past.   

Varshangalkku Sesham (transl. Years Later) is a nod to all things Malayalam cinema in an ensemble entertainer package, neatly packed and tied with a bow of gooey-Vineeth Sreenivasan-goodness.  It might also be a personal reciprocation effort from Vineeth Sreenivasan, paying respect to the stalwarts of Malayalam cinema like Mohanlal and Priyadarshan by creating central characters in this film to fit the progeny of these stalwarts. Although Pranav Mohanlal and Kalyani Priyadarshan are the weakest links in this movie. Dhyan Sreenivasan, shows he can act and has the range to play complex characters. 

Nivin Pauly's career is thrown a life-line and an opportunity to hit back at his critics with dialog penned by his bestie - Vineeth S. Director turned actor - Basil Joseph, Aju Varghese, Neeraj Madhav, music-director turned actor Shaan Rahman, Neeta Pillai, Deepak Parambol and Sreeram Ramachandran bring up the rear supporting the talented bro-team in this syrupy nod to Malayalam film world.

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