Amma Ariyan
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''Amma Ariyan'' () is a 1986
Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of ...
-language experimental film directed by
avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...
filmmaker
John Abraham John Abraham (born 17 December 1972) is an Indian actor and film producer who works in Hindi films. Known for his stoic action hero persona, he is a recipient of a National Film Award along with nominations for four Filmfare Awards. Abraham ha ...
. The story revolves around the incidents following the death of a young
Naxalite Naxalism is the communist ideology of the Naxalites or Naxals, a grouping of political and insurgent groups from India. It is influenced by Maoist political sentiment and ideology. Inspired by Maoism, Charu Majumdar wrote the Historic Eight ...
, upon whose death his friends travel to the village where his mother lives to inform her of the death of her only son. ''Amma Ariyan'' is considered to be a complex movie and was one of the biggest experiments in
Indian cinema The cinema of India, consisting of motion pictures made by the Indian film industry, has had a large effect on world cinema since the second half of the 20th century. Indian cinema is made up of various film industries, each focused on p ...
when funds were raised to make a film without giving the slightest heed to its commercial viability. Since its release in 1986,
critics A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as art, literature, music, cinema, theater, fashion, architecture, and food. Critics may also take as their subject social or governme ...
have read several layers of meaning in its story. The film was the only South Indian film to feature on
British Film Institute The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves filmmaking and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...
's Top 10 Indian Films list.


Plot

Preparing to leave for
Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, but spread chiefly to the west, or beyond its Bank (geography ...
, Purushan bids his mother goodbye, promising to write to her regularly. In the thinly populated forest area of
Wayanad Wayanad () is a district in the north-east of the Indian state of Kerala, with its administrative headquarters at the municipality of Kalpetta. It is the only plateau in Kerala. The Wayanad Plateau forms a continuation of the Mysore Plateau, ...
in northeast
Kerala Kerala ( , ) is a States and union territories of India, state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile ...
, the jeep in which he is traveling is stopped by the Police, who take possession of it to carry a dead body found hanging on the wayside tree. The dead man's face looks familiar to Purushan. He becomes restless and is seized with a pathological obsession to find out the identity of the deceased. Against the wishes of his girlfriend, he abandons his trip to Delhi and sets out to seek his friends who may have some clue. Purushan meets journalist friends, doctors, and finally a veteran comrade, fondly addressed as Balettan who identifies the dead as the fellow musician who accompanied Satyajit, the guitarist. Satyajit confirms the deceased is his friend Hari, the
tabla A ''tabla'' is a pair of hand drums from the Indian subcontinent. Since the 18th century, it has been the principal percussion instrument in Hindustani classical music, where it may be played solo, as an accompaniment with other instruments a ...
player. Together they decide to inform Hari's mother who stays in
Cochin Kochi ( , ), formerly known as Cochin ( ), is a major port city along the Malabar Coast of India bordering the Laccadive Sea. It is part of the district of Ernakulam in the state of Kerala. The city is also commonly referred to as Ernaku ...
. They set out on a long eventful journey from the northern highlands of Wayanad to the Southern port city of Cochin. As they move from
Kozhikode Kozhikode (), also known as Calicut, is a city along the Malabar Coast in the state of Kerala in India. Known as the City of Spices, Kozhikode is listed among the City of Literature, UNESCO's Cities of Literature. It is the nineteenth large ...
to
Beypore Beypore or Beypur (, formerly Beypoor) is an ancient port town and a locality town in Kozhikode district in the state of Kerala, India. It is located opposite to Chaliyam, the estuary where the river Chaliyar empties into the Arabian Sea. Beyp ...
,
Kodungalloor Kodungallur (; formerly also called as Cranganore (anglicised name), Portuguese: Cranganor; Mahodayapuram, Shingly, Vanchi, Muchiri, Muyirikkode, and Muziris) is a historically significant town situated on the banks of river Periyar on the M ...
,
Thrissur Thrissur (, ), Renaming of cities in India, formerly Trichur, also known by its historical name Thrissivaperur, is a city and the headquarters of the Thrissur district in Kerala, India. It is the List of most populous urban agglomerations in Ke ...
, Kottapuram,
Vypin Vypin (, Cochin Portuguese: Isla Santa) is one of the group of islands that form part of the city of Kochi, in the Indian state of Kerala. Vypin forms a barrier island which lies between the Arabian Sea in the west and the Cochin backwaters ...
, and finally to
Fort Kochi Fort Kochi ( , ; Cochin Portuguese: ''Cochim de Baixo'', , Tamil: ''Koçhé Kōtàì''), formerly also known as Fort Cochin or British Cochin or Old Kochi, is a region of Kochi city in Kerala, India. Fort Kochi takes its name from the For ...
, the group swells as they meet many mothers and their sons and relatives who have known Hari; some had known him as a tabla player, some as Tony, the jazz drummer, and others as a silent political activist, a victim of police brutality, and a loner. And for others, he was a drug addict and one who used to drown his sorrow and pain in his music. Through their recollections, Hari's rather diffused identity unfolds. His classmates remember Hari as an introvert, weak and indecisive. His worker comrades identify him as a staunch revolutionary with strong resistance and willpower. But then what went wrong? The colonial past of the places, what they took from us and what they left behind as well as the people's protests and uprisings, the region witnesses, and their heroes and victims are integrated into the narrative, by way of information as well as critique. While reporting to his mother about Hari and his friends and their mothers on his southbound journey, John also reconstructs the history of the land through a series of class struggles, student protests, and workers union clashes that took place in the region where Purushan traversed. Starting with the medical students agitation against commercialization of medical education, to a short dialogue with Karuppuswamy, the unfortunate victim who had lost both his legs in a colliery workers struggle for better wages and human dignity, in Kottapuram, to Vypin island where several mazdoors (labourers) either died or lost their eyesight in the man-made hooch tragedy, to the Citizens group's forcible taking over of rice and sugar hoarded by unscrupulous black marketer traders and distributing to ordinary people at fair prices and giving back the money collected to the traders, to the manipulated fight between workers of two feuding unions in a Mattancherry street in Fort Kochi, where four fishermen had died, and also some targeted working-class leaders in a fake Police encounter, an abortive factory workers strike extending solidarity to the retrenched women workers in Fort Kochi, are some of the long list of peoples protests and struggles reported with deep concern and feeling by Purushan in a long letter to his Mother. As Purushan and his group wait for Hari's mother to come out of the Baptism ceremony from the church, they analyze their own past, noting the emerging debate focusing on the romantic evasions and tragic failures of the extremist movement. When Hari's mother finally turns up and faces the youth congregation, she asks "Suicide wasn't it?" The film ends with Purushan's mother watching Hari's mother wiping her tear.


Cast

*Kunhulakshmi Amma as Purushan's mother *Harinarayan as Hari * Joy Mathew as Purushan *Maji Venkitesh as Paru *Nilambur Balan


Production

The incidents that led to the production of ''Amma Ariyan'' are striking. A group of young friends of
John Abraham John Abraham (born 17 December 1972) is an Indian actor and film producer who works in Hindi films. Known for his stoic action hero persona, he is a recipient of a National Film Award along with nominations for four Filmfare Awards. Abraham ha ...
who wanted to make it into a "people's movie", constituted the Odessa Collective, aiming at production and exhibition of good cinema with active participation of the general public, without the intervention of market forces. They raised money for the film by traveling from village to village and house to house, beating drums, singing and putting up skits and short plays at street corners and asking for contributions for the 'people's cinema'. They collected the fund needed for the production of a movie. It was Odessa's first film and John's last ''Amma Ariyan'' re-wrote all the conventions of
filmmaking Filmmaking or film production is the process by which a Film, motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, beginning with an initial story, idea, or commission. Production then continues through screen ...
.Ameet Parameswaran 2015. "Contemporaneity and the Collective: The Reportage in ''Amma Ariyan''", in Satheese Chandra Bose and Shiju Sam Varughese (eds.). ''Kerala Modernity: Ideas, Spaces and Practices in Transition''. Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan, pp. 109-125. The film is made in a
documentary A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...
style. As a part of the technique of intertwining fact and fiction, the filmmaker shot many actual
leftist Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy either as a whole or of certain social hierarchies. Left-wing politi ...
political strikes that took place in
Kerala Kerala ( , ) is a States and union territories of India, state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile ...
during that time.


Awards

*
National Film Award for Best Cinematography The National Film Award for Best Cinematography is one of the National Film Awards presented annually by the National Film Development Corporation of India. It is one of several awards presented for feature films and awarded with Rajat Kamal (S ...
- Venu


References


External links

*
Amma Ariyan - Cinema Of Malayalam








{{John Abraham (director) 1980s avant-garde and experimental films 1980s Malayalam-language films Indian avant-garde and experimental films Films directed by John Abraham Films whose cinematographer won the Best Cinematography National Film Award Crowdfunded films