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Journalism of Courage
It wasn’t like the movies he grew up watching, where love announces its arrival in a momentous fashion. Dileesh Pothan’s love for cinema grew on him slowly and imperceptibly. It took shape over the many afternoons he spent as a child in darkened movie halls amidst whistling fans, transfixed by the flickering images on the big screen. Pothan would frequently accompany his father, KP Philip, a film representative, on his work visits to movie halls around Kerala. “My father would often make me sit inside the hall, while he went about his business, but the film would usually be half over by the time I had begun watching it. So I would stay on for the next show, and watch the movie again, this time from the beginning,” says Pothan, “Cinema felt like a fantasy. It was like watching dreams unfold on the screen before me.”
To anyone who has watched the two films directed by Pothan — Maheshinte Prathikaaram (Mahesh’s Revenge, 2016) and Thondimuthalum Dhriksakshiyum (The Mainour and the Eye Witness, 2017) — that intense love for cinema is evident in each carefully conceived frame. Both films, lauded as much for their deft storytelling as for the performances that Pothan extracted from his actors, have won over moviegoers and critics alike. Maheshinte Prathikaaram, Pothan’s directorial debut, tells the story of an ordinary man from Idukki who, after getting beaten up in a fight, vows to stay barefeet until he has avenged his humiliation. The film is a quirky take on the usual revenge drama, substituting violence with humour. It won Best Feature Film in Malayalam at the National Film Awards last year. It also fetched its writer, Syam Pushkaran, the Best Original Screenplay award.
Pothan’s next feature, Thondimuthalum Dhriksakshiyum, plays out in the arid Kasaragod district. The movie recounts the desperate stand-off between a petty thief and a young couple he has robbed; it won Pothan his second consecutive National Award for Best Feature Film in Malayalam, besides the Best Original Screenplay award for writer Sajeev Pazhoor, and the Best Supporting Actor award for Fahadh Faasil. “I see these awards as a huge vote of confidence in my favour and they reinforce my responsibility to my art,” says Pothan, but, he adds, “I don’t believe that films can be compared to each other as each one is a work of art and deserves appreciation on its own merits.”
As a boy growing up in the 1980s and early ’90s in Kuruppanthara, a village in Kottayam district, Pothan would try to watch any film he could — in cinema halls or by renting VHS tapes to watch at home. “My friends and I would then sit around and discuss the stories of the films that we loved, and would swap ideas about them. But I can’t say when I decided to work in films. It happened quite organically,” he says.
While he had dreamt of joining a film school like Pune’s Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) immediately after school, on his parents’ insistence, Pothan pursued a B.Sc in Computer Science from St. Philomina’s College in Mysore. By 2006, however, he was ready to give the film industry a real shot. He worked on short films, television serials and, over time, worked as associate director in movies such as Salt n’ Pepper (2011), 22 Female Kottayam (2012) and Idukki Gold (2013). During this time, he also started acting, beginning with Salt n’ Pepper in which he appeared as a film director. Pothan continues to act even now. He has appeared in recent releases such as Njandukalude Naattil Oridavela (2017) and Pullikkaran Staraa (2017). “But acting is just something I do. It’s not a passion like filmmaking is,” he says.
Maheshinte Prathikaaram grew out of a story that Pushkaran told him one day while the two of them were working on the script of Idukki Gold, which was being directed by Aashiq Abu and for which Pushkaran was one of the writers. Pothan recalls, “He told me about an incident in his town, about a man who was once beaten up during a fight and how that man swore he wouldn’t wear slippers until he had avenged the beating.” Pothan, who had until then struggled to make a film of his own, saw the story’s dramatic potential immediately. “I connected it with some memories of my own, of people whom I had observed in my village; and, slowly, the plot of the film grew… To tell you the truth, I don’t approach cinema from the technical aspect. For me, it’s really about the story.”
It would be another couple of years before the script was finalised and Pothan could begin working on his film. Faasil, with whom Pothan had worked in a few movies, agreed to play the protagonist, Mahesh, and director Abu came on board as one of the producers instead. Despite a slow start, Maheshinte Prathikaaram picked up quickly at the box office. Winning a National Award for this film, Pothan says, was a huge confidence booster. It proved, as much to himself as to anyone, that he has what it takes to be a filmmaker.
Pothan is now recognised as one of the leading filmmakers of contemporary Malayalam cinema, who, after what’s generally seen as subpar content produced at the start of the new millennium, are reshaping the craft in the region. In the realism and wit of Pothan’s charming debut, in fact, one can see echoes of what directors like Sathyan Anthikad and Priyadarshan had brought to Malayalam cinema during the so-called “Golden Age” of the 1980s, with movies like Nadodikkattu (1987) and Vellanakalude Nadu (1988). These films were rooted in ordinary lives and relied on the foibles of their characters to drive the plot — something Pothan deploys to great effect too. “What happens in the moment, how a character behaves. In each of our lives, there are certain moments that have the potential to change everything, depending on how we react. Those are the little stories that I’m trying to capture,” he says.
