The Other John

That picture probably best typified one of India’s most radical directors, mentored at the Film and Television Institute of India by none other than Ritwik Ghatak—a tramp who leaned towards Maoism, was wedded to Bacchus, and was concerned with nothing but his cinema which tore into society’s injustices and hypocrisies.

The four films the former LIC employee made—Vidyarthikale Ithile Ithile (This Way Students, 1971), Agraharathil Kazhuthai (A Donkey in a Brahmin’s Ghetto, 1977), Cheriyachente Kroora Krithyangal (Wicked Deeds of Cheryachan, 1977) and Amma Ariyan (Report to Mother, 1979)—were influenced by his revolutionary ideals (though he was never a member of any political party) and each created a bigger furore than the other.

So much so that the second one in Tamil, a biting satire on Brahminism, was banned at the behest of Brahmin lobbies in New Delhi.

It was with his last work that the director, who passed away in 1987, got as close as he could to realising his cinematic ideal.

Amma Ariyan was made by Odessa, a collective founded by Abraham that sought to make and exhibit cinema by doing away with the concept of capital in film production, by seeking active participation of the public, and without any involvement of market forces.

Abraham and his band of followers raised money for the film from villagers, labourers and the like, and it was displayed across the state for free.

Odessa’s idealistic aims were worth a shot in the early ’80s when the world was still bipolar and communism was a god that had yet to ignominiously fail.

But exactly 17 years after Abraham’s death, at a time where Marx appears on fancy tees and communist terminology is as dated as Latin, Odessa still surprisingly lives and is on course to shoot its third film. The Hounded Mind is based on the story of a Naxalite who worked among the adivasis and was killed by the police in a fake encounter in the early ’70s in Kerala, and it also depicts the mental agony and confession of the constable who shot him.

The process of film-making is still the same, says 47-year-old CP Satyan, the collective’s torch-bearer since 1987 and a former associate of Abraham. “We’ve collected about Rs 2 lakh from the people and have begun shooting in this month in Kerala. We’ll start our next round of collections when we need money again,” says the slight, bearded director, whose earlier documentary and Odessa’s second, The Journey So Far (on the life and times of poet A Ayappan) won rave reviews at last year’s South Asian film festival in Kathmandu.

The collective, which has a library of more than 200 rare world classics, also stages screenings of films in remote villages and holds film workshops in towns.

“We take a projector and go off into the villages or wherever we are invited. There is no transaction involved; it’s just a means of propagating good, non-commercial cinema,” says Satyan, who refused offers from overseas channels that wanted to buy Odessa’s earlier film, The Journey So Far.

Because “the film is not ours. It is the people’s. If we sell the rights, that would mean profiting from it which is not what we want to do,” says Satyan, whose film, like Odessa’s others, has the collective’s supporters acting in it.

Its well-wishers and supporters might constitute a fair number, but the obvious question can’t but be put forth—about whether there is indeed space today for Odessa and a future for it? While one can anticipate the direction of the response, the unwavering conviction it carries is admirable.

Says Satyan, “According to John, every form of art has to have a purpose and an obligation to society. Which is what we believe in even in this consumeristic age, and as for Odessa, somebody somewhere will come forward to take on the mantle once my time’s up.”