Synopsis
In a little village in the state of Kerala in South India,
a frail but dogged old man Chakyar (Premji) waits in hope
for his missing son Raghu to return. Raghu had disappeared
the month earlier during a political demonstration banned
by the 'State of Emergency.' In the hope of news, the old
man goes daily by boat to the pier, which is the terminus
for the bus that runs daily between his village and Trivandrum,
and waits patiently at the bus stop for Raghu's return. Learning
of the boy's arrest, he goes to Trivandrum to meet the Home
Minister, once his protégé. He returns to the
village reassured that his son will eventually return. The
man's daughter (Archana) however doesn't share her father's
optimism and through her own investigation learns that her
brother probably died in police custody after being tortured
but she cannot bear to tell her father who continues to hope
and search. However the old man's grip on reality is slipping
fast and he starts dreaming his son is with him...
The film
Piravi
is perhaps one of the most stunning directorial
debuts in post-independent India. Certainly
since Satyajit
Ray's Pather
Panchali (1955) no other Indian film
has made the kind of impact internationally
that Piravi has. The film, made in
Malayalam meaning Birth, has been screened
at 43 International Film Festivals and has
claimed 12 international awards including
the Sir Charles Chaplin Award at Edinburgh
and the Camera d'Or at Cannes besides 10
awards at both the National Level and State
Level in India; every one of them deserved
one might add.
Piravi
is based on the 'Rajan Case' that occurred
in Kerala during the time of the emergency
in 1978. The Chief Minister of the State
attended a college function where a boy
sang a song against him. The boy was caught
by the police, brutally tortured in the
police station where he died. After the
Emergency, the boy's father filed a case
against the government thus sparking off
a big debate. But Piravi is not a
documentation of that incident. It is primarily
a moving and poignant story of an old man
in search of his missing son. Piravi's
purpose, Shaji said, was to expose corruption
in society particularly the police. What
disturbed him was political oppression,
an on going phenomenon not only in India
but the world over - that unless a human
being can pull strings and unless he can
wield clout, he is a nobody. The perpetual
conflict between the liberty of the individual
and the unbridled authority of the state
as shown in Piravi makes as powerful
a political statement as any.
But
the heart of Piravi, its political
statement notwithstanding, is its humane
touch as it evokes the helplessness every
citizen faces when he has to confront an
oppressive system. The film on one level
is an intensely personal human drama revolving
around the anguish of a father, mother and
sister for the missing boy, Raghu. Silences
and sounds piled on each other create the
mood of longing for the one who has gone
away. But save a brief flashback of Raghu
as a young boy, we don't even see a photograph
of his in the entire film. By being absent
he looms over the film as well in the hearts
of his bereaved family. The decision to
keep Raghu out was a deliberate one says
Shaji. To quote him,
"I
felt his unseen presence was more effective
than a tangible character in flesh and blood.
This way the audience could identify with
him more inseparably. Make him a creature
of their own imagination."
As
a director Shaji shows a mastery of images,
nuances and cinematic technique as he draws
an organic circle of a universe around the
film, taking the viewer to a quiet, virginal,
untouched village where there is an invisible
presence of nature that is an undercurrent
throughout the film. In fact few films have
made such splendid use of the elements of
nature, of the monsoon, of rain as Piravi
has. You can almost smell the monsoon that
permeates Piravi. Once again quoting Shaji
in an interview given to British Television,
"The
monsoon has played a very important role
in the film. I have used it as a symbol
many times. Monsoon to me gives a feel of
birth. Water is the origin of life and that
is known to everybody. During the monsoon
you have a loss of time because you don't
see the sun. That gives the indication that
the film is about a loss of judgement."
Shaji
uses the boat and boatman as a kind of connection
of hope. When you look from one side of
the river, you get a feeling of hope at
the other side. Once you reach there you
find no hope at all. What you hoped for
is lost. That is why he has used the river
with its two shores and the boatman as the
link between hope and reality.
If
one person is the life and soul of Piravi
it is without doubt Premji in the central
role of the old man trying to trace his
missing son. Over 80 when he did the film,
he responds with a performance that is at
once brilliant and astonishing. A veteran
of the pre-independence theatre movement,
Piravi is a rare foray into screen
acting for him. What's commendable about
his performance is the way he adapts to
the cinematic medium. It is a very internal,
very deeply felt performance with his eloquent
facial expressions speaking volumes. Archana
supports him perfectly as the daughter who
tries on her own to find out what happened
to her brother. About her role in the film,
Shaji said that Kerala is the only state
in India where girls and boys have equal
standards of literacy. Many women in Kerala
go out, seek jobs and support their families.
They have the capacity to think and to understand
what is happening around them and this is
what he has tried to portrayed through her.
Piravi is greatly enhanced by Sunny
Joseph's evocative camerawork. Sunny had
earlier assisted Shaji, originally a cinematographer
himself, on four feature films. In Piravi
however Shaji correctly concentrates on
the directorial aspects of the film leaving
the camerawork to Sunny who is clearly inspired.
The damp climate of the rain-drenched village,
the cloudy sky and the darkness that slowly
descends on Chakyar's life are captured
beautifully. The visuals of the elemnts
of thunder, lightning and rain are used
to stunning effect. To quote Sunny,
"Since
most of the day exterior shots were to be
done in actual rain, we did not use any
lights neither any reflectors for those
scenes. Completely available light. And
two thermocol sheets. It was really interesting
the way we started our day..all of us would
wear a rain coat and plastic hat and just
move out. The camera had a big umbrella
and a plastic sheet to protect it. What
we used to do was if we saw any rain approaching
then we would get ready for a scene with
rain..that is how we shot the most celebrated
rain sequence in the film. We were shooting
another scene. Then saw the rain approaching
..got ready for the rain scene...placed
the boatman in the boat...and there it is."
Piravi
has
been acclaimed worldwide and rightly so.
Quoting Michel Egger in the Catalogue of
the Fribourg International Film Festival,
"The
force of Shaji N Karun's film Piravi is
not solely of telling a magnificient and
simple story, of developing the thematic
content richly but also of having a true
idea of cinema."
Or
British Television which called Piravi...
"...a
remarkable new film hailed as one of the
best to come out of India for years."
While
closer to home quoting Maithali Rao in the
Sunday Observer,
"It
is not often that a film leaves you so profoundly
moved that comment seems an intrusion."
Piravi
has
led to a distinguished directorial career
for Shaji as he followed it up with Swaham
(1994) and the Franco-Indian Co-Production
Vanaprastham (1999), both of which
have also been highly acclaimed.
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