Adoor Gopalakrishnan

Swayamvaram is a Malayalam feature film written and directed by Adoor Gopalakrishnan. Critically acclaimed upon release, the film marked Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s debut in feature film. The film starkly portrayed the middle class angst of the post-Nehruvian society and the transition of Kerala’s middle class into a modernist society. Although the economic and social crises of the middle class is pervasive in the film, the emphasis is on the existential problems at an ontological plain. This film marked a transition in Malayalam film aesthetic as it was the first break with social realism and an attempt to come to terms with the disillusionment in ideologies.Read More »

Adoor’s second feature film made five years after Swayamvaram achieved commercial success in Kerala, while reaching an artistic height.

Its structure is that of a festival in a village temple. I wanted to create an intimate experience of everyday rural life. It is structured in such a way as to look natural, as if there are no outside interventions. During the course of the film, the festival comes full circle, parallel to it is the inner development of the character as well.Read More »