Adoor Gopalakrishnan on his mother’s powerful influence on him and how the female roles in his films shaped up

Renowned filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan is best known for his cinema of minimalism and austerity but one that is also replete with an overarching political perspective and grounded in recent history. Women have held a key place in his films. He talks here about how that has happened. Excerpts from an email interview:

Be it Swayamvaram back in 1972 or Pinneyum recently, women have held a key place in your films. How would you look back at the portrayal of women in your enviable body of work?

In hindsight I realise that women simply take over the key positions in my films. This happens naturally, not by force. Swayamvaram starts off as the story of a couple who decide to get away to an unfamiliar town and start life together far from their families. In the face of stark unemployment, they encounter some harsh realities. Eventually, the man dies and the woman is left alone. She takes on the pivotal role, with a child to bring up and an uncertain future. I was really worried about her. That is why I kept her vacant look in a freeze at the end of the film.

Who are the women in your life personally, or in the public sphere, who have been the inspiration for your characters/ stories?

My mother has been a great influence. My parents’ relationship was quite strained when we were young. Eventually, my parents chose to live separately, my mother in our family house and father in his places of work. It was like our father had abandoned us. My mother was left to fend for herself. Though she belonged to a well-to-do family and managed things on her own, it was not an easy task to look after four of us, giving education and care. My mother was not the complaining type. She was very gentle but had a strong will. In the midst of crises (we had very many) she kept her calm and we children used to wonder how she could be so bold and determined.

With father absent most of the time, we enjoyed extra freedom at home. But none of us ever misused her trust. She had a very refined taste in classical music and theatre forms like Kathakali and literature. She appears in the form of two characters in Kathapurushan — as the sickly mother of Kunjunni, the protagonist, and as his strong and regal grandmother.

Is there any actress you have kept going back to in your films?

One actress who has appeared most in my films is Lalita. She is a great actor. Of course there are others like Sarada (in Swayamvaram and Elippathayam). Kavya Madhavan is another great artiste, much younger than these two. I was very impressed by her dedication and sincerity in bringing a difficult role to life with her impeccable performance in Pinneyum. Aranmula Ponnamma, who acted as the grandmother in Kathapurushan, is the oldest among my favourites.

A lot of your films hinge on the man-woman relationship. In Mathilukal, the woman’s voice is the character and the driving force for the man...

Mathilukal is based on a short story by the celebrated author Vaikom Muhammad Basheer. The story is marvellous in its inventiveness, humour and humanity. It was quite a challenging subject to handle. It is centred around Basheer, who had been jailed for treason. Having already spent years in lock-ups, his promotion to the central jail was in some way a relief as he can get the treatment of a regular prisoner. While being led to his cell, he hears the muffled laughter of a woman from across the huge wall. For someone who has had no contact with women for long, it is a pleasant surprise to relish a feminine voice. He is being taken to a cell close to the women’s ward, he is told. The exchange of dialogue between the two is filled with desire and longing. It is an exchange of raw feelings from man to woman, woman to man. A love relationship is established and they plan to meet in the dispensary. But before the rendezvous takes place, Basheer is released. He doesn’t want to leave but cannot stay back. The challenge was to find a voice that was expressive, enchanting, loving and coquettish. It took months of voice tests before I settled on Lalita. Many people have appreciated the sensuous impact of those long dialogues between two people separated by a high wall.

Would you call Naalu Pennungal your most gender-oriented/ feminist work so far? Or would you resist the label? Which is your own personal favourite woman and film from your body of work?

I was to make a film based on Gyanpeeth Awardee Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai’s work. I went about it earnestly, going through his large body of work at one stretch. Practically all his novels had been made into films and I did not want to remake any. So, I focussed on his short stories, almost 400 of them. I chose four I liked best and titled the project Four Women. These four stories were unrelated in period, characters or status in society. The first was about a sex worker in the pre-Independence days. The second was about an independent farmhand who supports the family on her daily wages. The third was a childless housewife from a lower-middle-class family, and the fourth was an educated, unmarried girl from a well-to-do family. Together, these independent stories, when seen together, communicate the idea of a slow but steady rise of awareness and assertion in the women. I do not think it is a feminist film. Such categorisations are problematic, I believe. And I cannot choose a favourite from them. They are all dear to me. I enjoyed making each film and invested my best in them.

Any characters and actresses from other cinema who you think have been significant in giving voice to women’s concerns?

I think Jabbar Patel’s Umbartha does. And Smita Patil in the protagonist’s role in Umbartha. Satyajit Ray’s Aparajita is a great example and the role is played by Karuna Banerjee. Yet another is A Climate for Crime (Oru Pennum Randaanum). The role is played by Praveena.

Do you think mainstream cinema is evolving towards breaking the stereotypes surrounding women in films or is it still stuck in a warp?

I think there are welcome departures in commercial cinema, but they are few and far between.

Are women filmmakers better equipped to deal with women’s issues? or can men deal with them just as well? Do these gender divides have any point?

Gender divides hardly matter in cinema. What is needed is a certain degree of sensitivity and faith in the equality of the sexes.

namrata.joshi@thehindu.co.in