YouTube Premium (coming soon)Kummatty(1979)
A trickster magician descends upon a village in Malabar, India, year after year, drawing children whom he transforms into animals through sorcery.
Directed by G. Aravindan - With Kuttyedathi Vilasini
A trickster magician descends upon a village in Malabar, India, year after year, drawing children whom he transforms into animals through sorcery.
Across a dirt road, the circus truck comes to a village. The tent goes up. Schoolboys run to the tent. Village women come and watch an acrobat roll a hoop across a tightrope. A lion leaps from the edge of one stool - across darkness - on to another stool. A gap-toothed old woman gazes at a goat on a tight rope; her eyes are wide with curiosity. For three days the circus makes small ripples in the life of this village. Municipal permits are required. At a toddy shop, a soldier befriends the circus strongman; a pump attendant sits on a rock each day watching a village girl bathe and dry her hair. The dwarf brings back to the circus a watermelon larger than his head. In the film's three days, we, the viewers, learn the geography of the village: the banyan treewith leaves like transparent film, the shining water, the light on the sand at sunset. When the circus leaves the village, it leaves us. The narrative says: The circus comes and leaves; life goes on.
A young man narrates two conflicting accounts of his life, changing the details and incidents in both, as he slowly approaches madness.
Esthappan is a fisherman, who lives in a seashore colony. His story unfolds through narrations by other fishermen about his miraculous acts. Through the contradictory statements of these people, a mystical figure of Esthappan unfolds.
Unni is the last male heir of a decaying feudal family in rural Kerala. His inability to accept the socio-economic changes of a new society causes him to gradually withdraw into isolation and paranoia.
The film interprets a story from the Uttara Kanda of the epic poem Ramayana, where Rama sends his wife, Sita, to the jungle to satisfy his subjects. Sita is never actually seen in the film, but her virtual presence is compellingly evoked in the moods of the forest and the elements. The film retells the epic from a womens' liberationist perspective, and is about the tragedy of power and the sacrifices that adherence to dharma demands, including abandoning a chaste wife.
The protagonist of the film is a young artist (Balachandran Chullikkad) who lives with his father, a radical friend, a sportsman and a music-loving young woman. His world collapses when his father dies, the radical friend leaves him, the sportsman friend gets injured in an accident and has to give up sports and her family takes the woman away to another city.
A mad scientist injects a woman with an untested growth serum. She dies, but gives birth to a full-grown monster.
The film starts in the early 1950s showing Sreedharan, the protagonist, as a very popular communist leader and trade union activist. He is forced to go underground after his name was associated with the murder of the owner of a tile factory. He is considered to be dead by his party and they even erect a memorial for him. But he makes an unexpected comeback almost 10 years later, after the first communist ministry gained and lost power in Kerala and after the Communist Party of India has split. On his return, he spends his time sleeping and drinking. His come back is first a puzzle and then an embarrassment to his comrades and family. As the disappointment on his new face grows, he is found murdered. The film ends when both the communist parties jointly celebrate his martyrdom.
Set in Nainital, Manju is about Vimala Devi, a teacher in a boarding school, who waits in hope for the winter of her discontent to vanish. Another important character is Buddhu, who waits for his Englishman father to return to Nainital. Loneliness and endless waiting are recurring motifs in the film.
Susamma, who was raised by her maternal uncle after the death of her mother, joins the Indian Army as a nurse during WWII. She experiences many ups and downs, but stays true to her profession.
