"Aren't
there umpteen things that have become useless?
Aren't there many memories that we have dumped
in the godown?" - Poonam Rahim, film distributor
Film society movement in Kerala is one that evokes
a lot of passion, resentment and also derision.
Passion because it opened up a new world of experience
and narratives to a generation of youngsters;
resentment because many 'local' image-makers feel
that cinephiles of the movement, in their self-engrossed
indulgence with European masters, didn't do justice
to them by taking their 'experiments' seriously;
and derision on the part of people from the industry
and also from the television-fed generation who
were baffled by the religious fervour and fanaticism
of the film society cineastes. Definitely, in
the Malayalam cultural scene, film society movement
is something that one can only love or hate, but
never ignore.
 KR
Manoj's documentary 16 mm – Memories,
Movement and a Machine is an attempt to look
into the innards of the period, unwinding images,
memories, and also bitterness. It is a journey
at two levels: on the one are the first person
narratives of those who were part of its history:
film society organizers, activists, members, critics,
filmmakers etc. On the other are images that try
to capture the enigma of this cultural interface,
a machine entering the lives of a generation of
young people and changing their lives for ever;
the coming into being of a new kind of collective
in the altar of cinema, something akin to spiritual
groups who create and share certain esoteric symbols,
rituals and ceremonies, and with their own gods
and goddesses, the sheer experience of watching
narratives from alien, faraway places or virtually
'reading' them through English subtitles. There
you find huge neon sign boards and hoardings of
western masters blazing above our all-too 'local'
streets and surroundings, and a soundtrack from
some alien language 'speaking' over the visuals
of malayalee faces, street crowds and scenes from
Kerala towns.
So, the format of the film tries to vibe with
the unsettling experience and cultural shock of
a very provincial malayalee suddenly entering
the world of European narratives, and most surprisingly,
actually finding his ways and even refuge there.
In the film, an activist says, "It was through
those films that we eagerly awaited week after
week that countries like Hungary, Poland, and
Czechoslovakia became more familiar to us than
even our own neighbourhood towns. In a way, we
were turning into global citizens". For instance,
the slogan of one of the film societies –
Dialogo, in Calicut, was "Join Film Society
and See the World!"
Working as a counterpoint to these narrative streams
are the words of Poonam Rahim, a film distributor
from Trichur, who looks at the history of the
'movement' from the point of view of the material
– the material of celluloid film rolls,
reels and the machine called a 16 mm projector.
For him with the movement, certain films and certain
kinds of films suddenly become popular, a new
class of viewers comes into being, creating a
demand for that noisy machine and the tattered
prints. It could only be sheer passion that could
have made people sit through the screenings of
such horrible prints, something the film enthusiasts
from DVD-generation would not be able to imagine.
The shots of his godown says it all.
 The
film resists nostalgic gloating over a glorious,
bygone era, and anchors itself in the details
of the period: the kind of people it touched and
transformed, the brochures and booklets it produced,
the passion it generated, and the ripples it created.
In the process, 16mm – Memories, Movement
and a Machine reveals itself as many things
for many people: a tool, a burden, a sensuous
object, an antique object, a obsolete equipment;
it is a 'weapon' for social change for some, a
nostalgic memory for certain others, a screening
equipment that desperately needed to be lightened
and made user-friendly for certain people, while
for others it was a means of livelihood. Like
any other machine, with the coming of new post-celluloid
technologies it has practically become redundant,
but it still burrs on in the mind of a generation
of cineastes, which is what the film is trying
to elaborate.
The film has won the award for the best documentary
at the recently held VIBGYOR, Thrissur and Manjeri
International Film Festival.
Dr C S Venkiteswaran, is a Kerala based
film critic who has won state and national awards
for film criticism. He is now Director, School
of Media Studies, Kochi, Kerala. He writes regularly
about film in various national and international
journals.
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