K.G. George, the iconoclastic Malayalam filmmaker who passed away on September 24, dangerously pursued that famous adage of Jean-Luc Godard: ‘cinema is truth 24 frames a second’. The celebrated climax of Aadaminte Vaariyellu (1984) is ample evidence: hordes of embittered and impoverished women storm out of a ‘rescue home’, often a hellhole of untold oppression, pushing away the camera and the crew led by George himself, upsetting the very film they are part of.
The scene literally toppled patriarchy, even if for a stunning moment, immortalising itself in celluloid history. In his surprisingly small oeuvre of 19 films, George took up themes ranging from familial violence to political satire; from man-woman relationships to nail-biting investigations. In all of them, he left the indelible mark of a master craftsman. Curiously, never even once was he conferred the best director in Kerala state film awards in all the two decades he was active.
Kulakkattil Geevarghese George was the chronicler of the Malayali psyche in post-industrial Kerala. He portrayed the dynamics of a state that went through rapid socio-economic changes. He repeatedly and unabashedly sketched a people who, despite having high education and exposure, miserably failed in achieving gender justice. Unlike his contemporaries and fellow trailblazers Bharathan and Padmarajan, George made decisively political statements out of his frames, from his first movie Swapnadanam in 1976 to the last in 1998 (Ilavankode Desam). As evident from the patronage his films receive from across generations in the Internet era, George’s films have not only aged well, but they actually renew sensibilities and reveal new meanings as years come and go. One has to remember that this filmmaker stopped making movies a quarter of a century ago.
Born on May 24, 1946, at Thiruvalla in central Kerala, George started to make an earning quite early on, helping his father Kulakkattil Geevarghese Samuel paint lorries and travelling from place to place. Books, theatre, and movies were part of his life and he gave credit to his mother Annamma for introducing serious literature to him and supporting his studies through difficulties in FTII, Pune, where he enrolled in 1968. George began his filmmaking career as an assistant to the legendary director Ramu Kariat. His directorial debut, Swapnadanam, marked the arrival of a bold new voice in the Malayalam film industry. A study of the human psyche, Swapnadanam was an urban tale of man-woman relationship, with the woman unapologetically claiming her place. The commercial success of the movie led to a series of box-office flops borne out of his over-confidence, as George himself observed later. Nevertheless, movies like Mannu (1978) and Rappadikalude Gaatha (1978) dared to deal with novel subjects. While Mannu was (prophetically) about a deity being “unearthed” from a tenant’s land forcing him into eviction, the latter portrayed a woman addicted to alcohol, a rather unconventional theme for the times.
George often turned to literature for making many of his well-received films. Ulkkadal (1979), acclaimed as the first campus film in Malayalam, was based on the eponymous novel by George Onakkoor. Kolangal (1981) was based on a novel by P.J. Antony and shows numerous lives getting ruined by rumour-mongers, debunking the myth of ‘rural innocence’. The next year saw the release of what is considered George’s magnum opus, Yavanika (1982). Set as a crime thriller against the backdrop of a professional drama troupe, the movie transcends genres. Yavanika marked George’s arrival as a classic filmmaker, a position he cemented with gems such as Lekhayude Maranam Oru Flashback (1983), Aadaminte Vaariyellu, Panchavadippalam (1984), Irakal (1986), Kathakku Pinnil (1987), Mattoraal (1988), and Ee Kanni Koodi (1990). From a gritty circus tent (Mela-1980) to sprawling bungalows of cruel landlords (Irakal, Aadaminte Vaariyellu) to the glittering world of cinema (Lekhayude…), George’s films were set in diverse milieus and he confidently owned them all.
For the political satire Panchavadippalam, a laugh riot based on a short story by Veloor Krishnankutty, George assigned cartoonist Yesudasan to write the dialogues. A veritable mirror to Indian polity, the film remains a timeless classic. All of its protagonists – members of a panchayat governance council – are named after characters from history and legend, from Dussassana and Mandodari to Ishak, Anarkali, Barabbas, and Jahangir. Their panchayat is a microcosm of Indian democracy as we see it even now, witnessed by a hapless common man in the movie, as if a nudge to R.K. Laxman’s iconic cartoon character.
The way George showed women in his movies – as full citizens with equal rights and as human beings allowed to falter – has always been highlighted by viewers and critics alike. That Kerala society, despite its high literacy and social indices, remains far behind in gender equality, makes his approach to the female ever relevant. Alice, one of the three lead women in Aadaminte Vaariyellu, while in the process of committing suicide, is shown emerging out of her bedroom in a state of ecstasy and stupor resulting from an overdose of sleeping pills. In a desperate expression of her inner turmoil, she almost lifts the telephone receiver but fails. Alice collapses and dies while reaching across for a chair in the verandah, with the family’s pet dogs as witnesses. Just as in life, she is denied dignity in death too. The scene is as powerful as some of the lines she utters earlier in the movie. George’s repertoire is replete with such visual cues. Mattoraal is an account of marital dissatisfaction where the woman leaves her secure middle-class family to live with a car mechanic. Nothing is said about her frustration but a gaze of emptiness and apathy she extends to her husband when he takes her and the children to the beach, says it all.
Irakal, evoking all the horror of the Emergency years, dissects a landlord’s family and mercilessly pulls out the exigencies of money and muscle power. George once remarked that he never aimed to create movies that completed a hundred days, but those that remained for viewers to engage in. Irakal duly came to be discussed once again when Joji, set in similar family surroundings of a plantation owner, was released amidst COVID in 2021.
Ee Kanni Koodi was a movie released in 1990 but failed to win the appreciation it deserved, the fate of many a K.G. George movie. The protagonist is a woman forced into prostitution, who faces her plight head-on, treating it only as a job to support her only child. When she is found dead and a probe is launched, her past as an intelligent and artistic young woman unfurls before the viewer. The film raises sharp questions and makes strong statements about the manipulative morality of patriarchy. Its failure at the box office was a pointer to the new era the Malayalam film industry was entering post-liberalization. George willingly withdrew himself from the brazen machismo and market-driven sensibilities of the time but always hoped to make a comeback if things turned conducive. The time never arrived as ill-health too dealt a blow to his plans.
As K.G. George passes away after long years of assisted living, it feels apt to remember a line from one of his earlier movies, Mannu. In it, the mother of the upper-caste, upper-class landlord categorically proclaims that had she opened her mouth earlier, hell would have befallen their edifice long ago. George never waited to strike where it hurts and the reverberations are still being felt wherever Malayalam cinema is talked about.
Rasmi Binoy is a journalist and author based in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.
