When Malayalam cinema once swung between art-house barrenness and swooning sentimentality, K G George carved a niche for himself as a maker of films that sought to fill the vacuum between the two extremes. He telescoped into raunchy contemporariness with an uncommon ease, but surprisingly the masses accepted — and celebrated — his complex and multi-layered narratives. Today, for the past 12 years, George has been resting as a director, but his movies continue to stand apart for their artistry if not for their creative edge.
True, some dub the veteran as a devotee of parallel cinema, but George says he has never considered himself one. “I don’t make potboilers that question the integrity of the viewer. Nor do I resort to the sickening gimmicks of art-house format,” he says.
George, now 64, owns an oeuvre that features some of the finest films made in Malayalam during the 1980s. But times have changed since. And the maker of 19 films — of a wide variety of genres — in a span of almost a quarter century finds the present cinematic climate frustrating to the core. “Malayalam cinema has deteriorated and degenerated into a series of compromises, a nauseating star studded farce,” he says.
George, an alumnus of Pune’s Film and Television Institute of India, feels that more than the stagnation, it’s the shift in sensibilities that has reduced the Malayalam industry to a star-stricken lump. “What we have today is a level of perceptiveness that lacks aesthetic capacities. The filmmakers have no sense of propriety. They dish out anything that sells, stuff devoid of any human touch,” he shrugs.
The filmmaker who started off with Swapnadanam (1975), a psychodrama, toyed with a range or genres making it impossible for him to repeat himself. Yavanika (1982), Lekhayude Maranam Oru Flashback (’83) and Ee Kanni Koodi (’90) had a detective tint, while he was at his satirical best in Panchavadippalam (’84). Ulkadal (’78) was a campus love story and Adaminte Variyellu (’83) explored the female realm, its conflicts and struggles in unjust surroundings. He also used backdrops ranging from a touring theatre troupe to a circus camp. “Achieving such variety in your creative expression is not an easy task especially when you take into account that all these attempts were accepted by the audience,” he says.
From the psycho strangler in Irakal (’86) to the vicious tabla player in Yavanika, there seems to be a strong undercurrent of violence that pervades almost all his films. But the actors rampaging the screen with their ruthless personae is an artist’s response to the times — to the flux of values around him, says George. “Irakal is a film marked by raw ferocity and it was conceived during a period that witnessed a radical outbreak emerged out of the downfall of a value system,” he clarifies.
George has been one filmmaker who never used his heroines for ornamentation. In his works, they were never banished to the peripheries. Far from it, they made a strong presence with their pervasiveness and intensity. “My female protagonists have been pivotal to the development of the plot. It was never a conscious effort. I just wanted a slice of life, reels throbbing with reality. And you cannot zoom into that without giving female characters their due,” he says. “Today, sadly, most of the films use actresses just like background props.”
Elavankodu Desam (’98), by far his last film, is a period drama that received a lukewarm response. George is stoic about it and says the film had its share of planning errors. “The movie was based on a legend. It required impeccable planning. I did make some compromises while canning the film, but I won’t deny they also imply my failure as an artiste if it couldn’t make the expected impact. Yet, I don’t believe it’s a bad film, it’s just one of those weak films I made.”
George, currently chairman of the Kerala State Film Development Corporation, says it is high time Malayalam cinema came out of its “regressive spell” and started afresh. “They say that Tamil cinema is going places. It’s true that now they try unconventional angles. But it is nothing when compared to what we established in the ’70s and ’80s — a period when Malayalam cinema made its thunderous entry into the global film scenario,” he says.
George, who developed a signature style while keeping in tune with the realistic school, says he is not prepared for anything that superimposes the commercial criteria over his concept of cinema. He has no qualms revealing that a director with remarkable credentials like him had to take an extended leave of absence due to the lack of funds. “I don’t want to go by the popular demands and make a pseudo film — a film that doesn’t belong to me.” So is George winding up his innings? Well, “I chanced upon an intriguing piece of blog recently,” he says. And adds, crucially: “I would love to give it a visual language — if I have a producer who approaches me without giving me any specifications to please the market.”
— navamysudhish@expressbuzz.com