Interview: Adoor Gopalakrishnan

ELIPPATHAYAM

The Unni of ELIPPATHAYAM is the exact opposite of Sankarankutty. While the latter's is a constant movement into the outer, the other is constantly moving inward, withdrawing. While one plunges into the world and its experiences, the other is intimidated by it. Sankarankutty floats around in the world without exerting a will of his own.

ELIPPATHAYAM is also your first colour film. Is the use of colour thematically significant?
I have used the primary colours, green, red and blue for the three sisters. They are all of one family, and so if you mix them all you get colour white. The youngest was given red to signify vitality, freedom and revolt. It is shades of green for the eldest sister, which signifies earthiness, practicality etc. Rajamma is given blue, for generosity, nobility and doom. Vertical lines suggest unrest. So I gave Unni white shirts with vertical stripes.

The end of the film is enigmatic. It looks almost as if Unni is seeking our sympathy with folded hands.
Actually it is the typical posture of a rat-wet and shivering. It is a posture common to all rodents. He is not begging for our mercy as many think.

People who threw him in the water wanted him to drown. And the end is a coming out of an experience. You should not succumb to an experience, in which case you won't be able to benefit from the experience. If you succumb to an experience, that is a dead end and nothing comes out of it. It is like capital punishment, where the victim is denied the chance of learning from experience and to change. Till that moment none of the tragedies, of those near and dear to him, has affected him. He was so engrossed in himself. So he needed a sort of physical punishment, a strong jolt, to come out of it. He was a man who refused to take his bath if the water was below a particular temperature. Now he is thrown into the pond in the dead of the night. That is the crowning experience of his life. That might work. He is rising from the pond with a possibility of change writ all over him.

The film is trying to explore the question, what is being? It is an incisive examination of what constitutes an individual. In close scrutiny, a person is made out of his actions and interactions. It is always a give and take. For Unni, it is always takes and no gives, while for his sister Rajamma it is always giving and no taking. There is no individual sans the society, which is what ultimately gets clear.

In the film most of the representatives of the outside world are aggressive. For example, the eldest sister, the man who he meets in the darkness, the woman labourer etc. Is he a character who is trying to avoid the harsh reality of the world with which he can't cope?
The house is actually an island anchored in the past and he is trying to hold on to its ground in vain as it shakes and shivers in mild to harsh tremors unleashed by the unkind world outside.

But the world outside is not that harsh or cruel to everyone. It does take kindly to Rajamma when she is sick and neglected. They are full of concern and kindness.

When I saw ELIPPATHAYAM some years back, I felt that Unni was a pathetic character, when I saw it now I felt he was actually cruel, totally insensitive to the pains of others.
He is scared of everything outside. He is afraid of love, because that means sharing, stepping out of oneself. The film is structured as a constant closing in. The successive movements of the film are from the outside to the inside. In the initial sequences, he is found going out, in the garden etc. Later he is seen on the veranda, and then he moves inside and lastly into the chamber. The world and the people are all outside the frame. They only appear in the end to catch him.

Basically he doesn't want to be bothered. He doesn't want to take the pains of finding a groom for his sister, which he knows will invite trouble about division of property etc. He is a man who is totally engrossed in himself. Throughout the film you see him preening himself; manicuring his fingers, trimming his moustache; oiling his body. He doesn't share his fears, dreams or thoughts with anyone. He is obsessed with himself. That is why he gets upset when his torchlight breaks. He is not able to contain even that. The past weighs on him. Though he has nothing to lose, he believes that he has much to lose.

When it was screened in Calcutta, Mrinal Sen came and told me ''You must have gone through intense trauma to make a film like that". He was right. I wrote the script of ELIPPATHAYAM when I was going through a very painful period. I had to leave Chitralekha, which I had founded and built up over a long period of my youth. There were a lot of misunderstandings between friends and parting of ways. It was in 1979. I made ELIPPATHAYAM in 1981, the intervening period was a tormenting one in my life. It prompted me to look at myself incisively.

It was also a script that I wrote fast: it took only two weeks to complete the first draft. MUKHAMUKHAM took the longest period to complete-a couple of years.

ELIPPATHAYAM is also one of the most finely structured of your films.
Actually the film consists of six departures; first three are rats, and then three human beings. The first departure is that of the youngest daughter. We don't see it, it is only reported. The second is that of his devoted sister, whom the people carry away to safety / death with affection and compassion. As for him, who refuses to change, he is hunted around, caught and forced out. So what each one gets from the outside world is what one has given. It all depends on how you look at the world. If you are afraid of it, they will scare you. If you want to accept it, they will receive you, and so on. There is always something abstract about the 'world'; it is what we make of it. Unni is someone who has cut himself off from the world. So the world has also forsaken him, which is signified by the shot of a child being pulled away from crossing the entrance to the house. It is only then that he realizes that he is totally alienated from the world. Then there is the ameen from the court who comes to serve a notice on him.

The economic base of that family is also very clear in the film. They have some paddy, coconut trees, pepper etc. If there is a short fall in any of these, the family won't be able to make two ends meet. So Unni can't afford to divide the property. And the sloth is his legacy.

The use of music in ELIPPATHAYAM is striking. You usually use music to underline something or to emphasise, like in ELIPPATHAYAM.
I would say, as a counterpoint or as a leitmotif. M B Srinivasan and myself discussed a lot, rehearsed even more and then recorded a theme music for this film. Actually it is a musical piece that can't be hummed. It suggests disintegration, a feeling of constant falling like half finished sentences. Only in the end, when he rises from the pond, is the full score used.

Then there is the musical sub-theme that evokes the mood of a sacrificial ritual. And it is not the normal reproduction of any musical instruments. We recorded it using musical instruments like 'tambura' and 'ghungru'. Then the tape was run at a slower speed to create the eerie effect we wanted. This music is used for the rat drowning sequences.

Among your protagonists, Unni is one character that doesn't have any redeeming features.
That is what he is. The film is trying to explore the question, what is being? It is an incisive examination of what constitutes an individual. In close scrutiny, a person is made out of his actions and interactions. It is always a give and take. For Unni, it is always takes and no gives, while for his sister Rajamma it is always giving and no taking. There is no individual sans the society, which is what ultimately gets clear. That is why there is nothing redeeming about him. There is a pathetic / pathological inevitability about his being. But there is also something comical about him.

We are also like Unni on many occasions; many a time we also get stuck in the comforts of a particular situation and wish the world away; any disturbance would upset us. You gradually become pathetically dependant like Unni who can't even think of living without his sister.

Their relationship borders on the incestuous.
He is over dependent on her. And she is caught in the bondage of familial duties and relationships. But she also has hopes of getting out of it all, which is evident from the keen interest she shows in the marriage proposal. It is actually one's relationship with the immediate world around and the nature of its intensity that determine his/her character. Rajamma wants to protest but doesn't. What is suppressed gets expressed as her illness.

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