Vi segnalo l'articolo Malayalam Cinema: Frames of Small Things, di Divya Unny, dedicato alla recente evoluzione del cinema in lingua malayalam e pubblicato ieri da Open:
'Syam Pushkaran, the writer of Kumbalangi Nights says, “There has been a very conscious attempt to look at the kind of stories we need as a society, and the lives of real people around us. A film like Kumbalangi Nights that speaks of insecurities within a family, selflessness among strangers, a kind of fearlessness in new love, brings to the fore those stories. When we show a man’s vulnerabilities or strip his ego down on screen, we are not trying to defame a gender or a person, but asking if we need to take a hard look at ourselves and our conditioning.” (...)
With homegrown stories told in the most visually intriguing fashion, these films are so local that they are global. You can see, smell and taste Kerala in them. Coconuts being scraped, banana leaves being chopped, fresh tapioca getting fried, pork being sold, fishnets being laid out, paddy being farmed - from foods to festivities, nuns and nurses, from toddy and tea shops, to buses and motor boats, from pointless strikes to churches and mikes, the filmmakers proudly evoke their state’s culture as a backdrop for their stories. (...)
You begin to empathise, answer questions, and marvel at the irony of life thanks to everyday characters within these films who are neither black nor white, but just human. (...)
With OTT platforms these films can now reach a far wider audience thanks to the subtitles. (...)
For many, the evolution of Malayalam cinema is categorised broadly as the pre and post Chemmeen (1965) era. The film on the lives of rural fisher folk in Kerala and social prejudices against them was an adaptation of the award-winning novel by the legendary author Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai, and became a cinematic benchmark. (...)
For those who have grown up on Malayalam cinema, there’s never been a lack of realism and stark humour. Priyadarshan’s films especially of the 80s and 90s painted the common man in unusual ways. Actors like Mohanlal became the face of that common man. However, it can’t be denied that much of commercial Malayalam cinema till recently was driven by the male protagonist, and his transformational powers. Both Mohanlal and Mammootty were flagbearers of this power for over four decades, and that’s now changing. The ‘Lalettan’ and ‘Mamokka’ (how the actors are lovingly referred) monopoly is slowly fading, spelling the end of an era in Malayalam films. (...)
All the characters are so well fleshed out, one can never predict where the story will lead. (...) Almost dissolving the very idea of a ‘protagonist’ in a film, and thereby setting a new foundation for cinema. No character is on a moral high-ground and you almost feel like you know them'.
