Interview: Adoor Gopalakrishnan

KATHAPURUSHAN

Coming to KATHAPURUSHAN, it also deals with childhood like ANANTARAM. But structurally it follows a chronological order, with a series of historical events that also mark the life of Kunjunni. The film follows the life of Kunjunni at several historical junctures. All films are autobiographical in a way, yet to what extent is KATHAPURUSHAN autobiographical?
There are no definite parallels, though there are many resemblances. The film was shot in the house (built by my grandfather) where I was born and had spent most of my childhood. Kunjunni's father was like my father, not entirely though. In the film he appears only once, but my father and mother were periodically separated. I am not the only son like Kunjunni. We also had an old man as house manager very much like Veluchhar. But he had a family of his own. He loved me very much and I was also very attached to him. I was never a member of any political party or an activist.

At home I was not alone. I was the sixth among seven children. In that house I lived with my mother (There was no grandmother as in the film) and my brothers. Those parts dealing with the childhood are very much built out of my own childhood memories and experiences. And memory is always selective. It doesn't reproduce all that happened in exact conformity. It picks and chooses.

For example I remember one blind old man, his name not known we used to call him 'Uvvera' (a usage repeated in his songs) who used to come home during my childhood. When he came it was great fun. He would tell stories, enact them etc. But years later when I enquired with my brothers and sisters about him, only my elder brother remembered him. So memory is an interesting phenomenon. In memory, only 'we' are there. Only those events and people who affected us directly and deeply are retained. It is also a question of our being sensitive to certain things.

In the film, most of 'history' or what is happening outside is in fact coming into his space in various ways, as newspaper reports, processions, rumours etc. Any autobiography is also only a possibility. There is the individual's life and also history. In those terms, is KATHAPURUSHAN an autobiography of your attitudes or orientations to historical events of your time?
Yes. There is one thing that is common to our lives. The 40 odd years that Kunjunni witnesses are also the ones I passed through in my life. So it is an emotional journey through personal experience, and through recent history. Various landmark events during the last four decades like the Independence, assassination of Gandhi, Communist Rule, land reforms, emergency, the Naxalite movement etc, till the 80's when Nayanar comes to power in Kerala, is there in the film. Actually it is not narrated through flashbacks that look back upon history, but it is depicted as happening in the continuous present. The viewer is not taken into the midst of the happenings but is made to experience their impact on the lives of the people involved.

The assassination of Gandhiji is a major event in the film. Was it so in your life?
Yes. I wept for a whole day upon hearing that news. I had great respect and admiration for the man about whom I had heard from my parents and elders. So it was a tragedy of unimaginable proportions.

As the film progresses, there is a gradual shrinking of space that Kunjunni inhabits, from the vast expanses of the paddy fields and the taravad, he descends to a small house and a little piece of land in the end.
He finds his own little space. There he also overcomes his inhibition, his stammering, maybe temporarily. But even that is a significant development in living.

Has this lack, this shortcoming something to do with his self-expression / creativity?
There is some sort of a vague incompleteness in him from the very beginning. There is a longing for absences, like his father. As he grows up he understands that he was part of a feudal past that survived on the sweat of others. At the same time, he is open. There is this maternal uncle of his who goes abroad to study and becomes a follower of Gandhi, later an extremist and in the end moving to the other extreme, that of spirituality. So there is such a strain in that family. And it is through his own experiences, his brush with reality and ideals, that he attains his commitment in life. He has to make his own discoveries from all these. From the beginning he is open and is never stubborn. He looks forward to goodness in society and fights for it his own way and in the process evolves as a person of integrity and confidence.

Kunjunni in fact welcomes the land reforms despite personal loss.
Yes. His mind is a highly impressionable one, hence his efforts to become a writer etc. Initially he wrote romantic pieces, something his comrade friend teases him about. But when he begins to move towards reality, his work is unwelcome to his comrades, it embarrasses them and it gets duly banned. He has come past the romantic period in his life and work.

I thought that narrating the personal experience of an individual was as important as narrating grand events like the world wars. It is particularly so when there is a certain universality to it.

When movements motivated by even the most idealistic approaches become victorious they tend to become establishments, and spend most of its energies to retain and maintain the status quo. And it creates intolerance. Even a little doubt is not tolerated. Hence we need to fight the demons all along. That is what the storyteller's tale is about. The defeated prince who takes refuge in the forest fights the demon knowing fully well that he may lose the battle. But even then he is not ready to compromise.

It is a universal story about the indomitable human spirit of resistance against evil even at the face of certain defeat. That is why the Prince asks the demon "How can you be so sure that you will always win?" The demon represents the establishment that gets encrusted from time to time.

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