Find the subtle message in this film about a bygone golden age
Prakasan is off to the Mumbai Film Festival later this month. Other festivals are lined up. Why should you watch this Malayalam flick? Because it’s a montage about what life was like — till we all moved to the city
Once upon a time, I was Prakasan. You too. We all were. That was not hundreds of years ago. Just a couple of decades back when we lived in hamlets. Rustic and serene. We dived into flowing rivers and placid lakes. A big splash of freshness energised our souls. We bit into the Alphonso mangoes mama plucked from our own backyard. We deep-fried the giant danio dad fished from our own paddy fields. No one visited vegetable shops. We never had one. We ate the eggs that mama’s “Juliets” laid in the laundry basket. Their “Romeos” that dustbathed in the garden lay down their lives to satiate our guests. Life was a drop of nectar. As sweet as the juice that the palmyra trees brewed overnight.
Later on, I ceased to be Prakasan. You too. We all did. We hit the fast lane on the highway to urban life. All those pastoral images disappeared in the rearview mirror. We now pay to swim. The sharp odor of chlorine, mixed with pee and sweat, haunts you the whole day. We pay a premium for free-range eggs in hypermarkets. We shop-hop for organic greens after reading horrific pesticide stories on Facebook. The apple is waxed. The chicken is botoxed. The spinach is sprayed. Life is a drop of poison. As venomous as the mind of an urban society lurching behind pseudo moralism and pretensions.
Prakasan, Dubai-based filmmaker Bash Mohammed’s second project, is not exactly about apples, mangoes or spinach. Neither is it about eggs and fish. Yet his montage of contrasting images tells us about the urgency to stop the abominable rot. The movie is a portraiture of two distinct landscapes and two entirely different mindscapes. After viewing the first cut of the movie a few months ago (Ssh!… Bash wasn’t aware), I was certain he has repeated what William Blake did with Songs of Innocence and
Experience over two centuries ago. Blake’s works juxtapose the innocent, pastoral world of childhood against an adult world of corruption and repression. Bash contrasts the innocent, organic world of a forest settlement, where time and money are of no value, against the urban world of corruption, deceit and pretensions. “What is the need for you to go now? What will you get anyway — money? And what do you need money for, here?” friend Maathan asks protagonist Prakasan, as he embarks on a dream journey to the industrial city of Kochi, to take up a government job.
Prakasan, which has been invited to this month’s Mumbai Film Festival, is a multi-dimensional film in its approach, treatment and purpose. While the protagonist’s life in the forest is brought out in vivid colours, a reflection of his mindset and life, the frames get greyer in sync with the ugly underbelly of city life. The pace of the film picks up as the mindset changes from that of a carefree tribesman to a timestarved urbanite.
Bash denies Prakasan is an attempt at reviving parallel cinema, though it has the semblance of one that’s straight from the Adoor Gopalakrishnan era of movies. “I am against such classification. Prakasan is about you and me. A universal subject treated with montage-like absolute realism. It is a movie to be watched by everybody, not a certain class of society.”
Isn’t it crazy to make an experimental movie at a time when the Indian film industry, especially Malayalam, is rage with new-gen productions that defy all norms to sway the youth? “Passion makes every craftsman crazy. I am not a fulltime filmmaker. I have a job in Dubai where I work long hours. My projects are born out of my love for cinema and pure determination. I love nature and it’s a subject I had nursed for some time. Prakasan was made to feed my soul more than anything else. And I am happy about the way it has taken shape after the second cut. At the end of the day, if the world can cull a message or two, it’s a bonus,” says Bash.
“Prakasan isn’t meant to be an educational film,” he adds. “But a fair amount of nostalgia about a golden age leaves a subtle message. It tells you how paradise is lost and how it is regained.”
Bash’s debut film Lukka Chuppi, which was selected to the Indian Panorama of the 46th International Film Festival of India and New York Indian Film Festival 2016, was an experimental film, too. Set in a single space, the movie, Lukka Chuppi focuses on the 24 hours that six friends spend together after a long gap. The movie earned a special mention for one of the lead actors at the Indian National Film Awards, as well as a Special Jury Award at the 46th Kerala State Film Awards. Bash’s effort to avoid melodrama all through
Prakasan is commendable as the movie skirts political sensitivity involving a tribesman. All’s well that ends well. So you think, and let out a sigh of relief as the curtain comes down on the urban travails of a villager uprooted from his natural environs, but Bash’s fecundity of imagination takes the climax to a much higher level. He makes us hold our collective breath a few seconds longer with a twist in the narrative. A shockingly beautiful twist.
Prakasan was filmed in 94 locations in 24 days on a shoestring budget. “So you can imagine the effort that has gone into the making of the movie,” explains Bash. “We were forced to evacuate from a sensitive area in the Wayanad forest as there was a Maoist threat. Slippery terrain made our lives miserable. Many locations were hard to access.”
The movie’s Dubai connection runs much deeper — scriptwriter Rajeev Nair is also based here.
“Prakasan is about one’s sense of identity. Life and people change. But how do you hold on to your identity? Or is it even relevant today? That’s the talking point here,” says Rajeev.
“The script and film evolved with a lot of give-andtake by every member of the film’s cast and crew. And what you see is Bash’s vision: He took the bold step not to play by the rules, go by formula or make pretentious statements. If nothing else, Prakasan is outright honest.”
As Bash is bracing to rub shoulders with the industry’s big names at the Jio Mami 19th Mumbai Film Festival with Star, another international event has come knocking on his doors. But he is tightlipped about details due to an embargo. So move over Kochi, it looks like Prakasan is going places. suresh@khaleejtimes.com Suresh is senior editor at KT. He’s heavily influenced by Ulysses
I am not a full time filmmaker. My projects are born out of my love for cinema and pure determination. I love nature and it’s a subject I had nursed for some time. Prakasan was made to feed my soul more than anything else. Bash Mohammed, filmmaker