Changes between Initial Version and Version 1 of Amma Ariyan

Timestamp:

Jul 17, 2012, 7:36:55 PM (12 years ago)

Author:

Trupti

Comment:

--

Amma Ariyan

@@ +1 @@
+Amma Ariyan
+aka Report to Mother
+1986 115’ b&w Malayalam
+d/s John Abraham pc Odessa Movies c Venu
+m Sunitha
+lp Joy Mathew, Maji Venkitesh, Nilambur Balan,
+Harinarayanan, Kunhulakshmi Amma, Itingal
+Narayani, Nazim, Ramachandran Mokeri, Kallai
+Balan, Thomas, Venu C. Menon
+
+
+Abraham’s last and most complex film is told in
+the form of an open letter from a son, Purushan
+(Mathew), to his mother (Kunhulakshmi) while
+interweaving fact and fiction with fragments of
+memory. Purushan sets out for Delhi with his
+friend Paru (Venkitesh), who is researching a
+thesis on Durga, the mother goddess, a figure
+traditionally though ambiguously representing
+the cohesive forces of nature. Along the way
+they find a hanged man (Harinarayan) who
+seems hauntingly familiar, a suicide.
+Reconstructing the identity of the corpse takes
+Purushan, and a growing body of young men
+who all have a stake in the youth’s history,
+from the northern highlands of Kerala to
+Southern Cochin and ends with a re-evaluation
+of a generation’s radical past. Along the way,
+Abraham filmed an actual quarry workers’
+strike, echoing Kerala’s troubled 70s, and
+manages to endow both the journey and the
+central character with broader historical
+resonances in a manner reminiscent of the
+director’s master, Ritwik Ghatak’s Jukti
+Takko Aar Gappo (1974): a style full of irony
+and with a free-wheelingly innovative
+approach to sound and to narrative structures.
+The first production of the Odessa group, it
+was made entirely through raising funds from
+public contributions, supported by the Kerala
+State Film Development Corporation.
+Abraham’s death, shortly after the film was
+made, elevated it to cult status while also
+merging together the fate of the director with
+that of the main protagonist, both strongly
+inflected with Christian themes of innocence
+and martyrdom.
+
+[[Film]]