| | 4 | Successful Malayalam and Tamil director and nephew of P.N. Menon. Had a substantial art-house following in his early career. Born in Vadakkanacheri, Trichur Dist., Kerala. Graduate of Trichur School of Art; professional painter before he joined films as a set designer and publicist. Produced his début feature from his own story, later also composing the lyrics and the music for his own features. His films often draw their iconography from Padmarajan’s writings, depending on few characters, addressing sexuality set in a bleak moral landscape that metes out primal justice (e.g. the snakebite and divine intervention in Rathi Nirvedham). The format was extended into an indigenous version of the western with the big-budget CinemaScope film Thazhvaram, in which a stranger (Mohanlal) appears in the frontier town to settle a long-standing feud. Changed his idiom for his major hit, Thevar Magan, written and produced by Kamalahasan and devoted to the star’s self- image. |