Feb 14, 2019

Death of Insane (Unmadiyude Maranam) - review




“Some sort of pressure must exist; the artist exists because the world is not perfect. Art would be useless if the world were perfect, as man wouldn’t look for harmony but would simply live in it. Art is born out of an ill-designed world.” ― Andrei Tarkovsky


What is Art? We come across many definitions and connotations about Art. However when we closely observe these definitions, we observe that the class characteristics makes all the difference.  The power centers or the ruling class ‘artistic’ minds tend to define Art as ‘entertainment’ and anything ‘non-entertaining’ becomes ‘Art’. Isn’t this a little weird! So what is ‘Art’ then?


“Art is Dissent”. In an unjust society, the definition of art is to be arrived with its purpose, because it’s a powerful medium of communication. In the historical course of development all aspects of human activity has evolved and transformed. A collective all inclusive social set up slowly disintegrated resulting in an unjust world giving birth to different living standards, the rich and the poor, the power and the powerless, the rulers and the citizens, the owners and the slaves -  otherwise called the Class society.  


As the Class society evolved, human values, beliefs and culture also evolved but unfortunately to protect that particular exploitative socio-political set up.  Art that was a medium of communication, later a part of expression that was entwined with the labour and living conditions of the people lost its collective-expressive-reflective nature and got appropriated by the ‘ruling class’. With the emergence of STATE (Government) Art became Alienated. A free form of expression was subjected to ‘censorship’, a structured and controlled form of expression. Art was seized by those power centers as a propaganda tool. In the due course art had its classifications such as ‘classical’ vs ‘folk’, ‘mainstream’ vs ‘alternate’, ‘commercial’ vs ‘Artistic’ and so on. (The politics of evolution of Art by itself is a long topic. I stop it here and get on to the topic)


Karl Marx said, “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it.” [The German Ideology]


People who gain this social class consciousness (knowingly or unknowingly) become the ‘alternate’ or ‘artistic’ voice in the society and the rest become the ‘entertainers’ in the ‘market’. While the ‘commercial’ artists want to ‘construct’ a false reality (which is highly saleable) the alternate-conscious artists have always been thriving to reflect the reality, the dynamics of power and its ill effects on the society. We have hundreds and thousands of such true artists in history and we are still counting!


Sanal Kumar Sasidharan who chose cinema as his medium of expression and discourse with the society is one such alternate-conscious artist. Sanal’s film language is uncustomary not only deconstructing the ‘grammar’ of ruling class film making, but reconstructing a new grammar and hope for the next gen.


Ozhivudivasathe kali, S. Durga and now Death of Insane (sorry I missed Oral pokkom). Though these three films are of different stories (sambavangal!) they have a common connect.  They all expose shame, reflect and confront Power – The STATE power and the power of the Ruling Class and Caste. We are no more audiences in Sanal’s film. We become witnesses.


In Ozhivudivasathe kali and S. Durga he narrates an incident and takes us to a politically conscious state. In his narrative, there is always an invisible character that plays an important role. It is US, our conscience!  We see a few characters indulging in some act and casual conversations of daily life, but as the film goes by we experience a sense of edginess. No punch dialogues, not many cut shots or close-up shots compelling us to boil or cry! Simple narrative, yet hard hitting.


The incidents and characters narrated in his ‘stories’ are not heroic, but a reflection of our day today life and that’s probably the reason that we become a part of the film. This is one of Sanal’s tactics to ignite the consciousness of the people. Hence his films  becomes a powerful Political Parody.


Death of Insane is Ultimate in this series. Yes to me his films are a series of Socio-Political discourse, exposing, shaming, questioning and confronting hegemony and hypocrisy. While ODK and S.Durga were a simple straight narrative, Death of Insane takes up a highly creative ‘artistic’ form of narrative. It is visually entertaining and politically igniting; rather it is a ‘poetic war’!


In a country where the state even interferes in our food culture with beef ban, it is not too far for it to peep into our bedrooms. In Death of Insane, Sanal presents such an ‘imaginary’ situation with a hilarious disclaimer and then spins into a territory so unexpected. The film starts with a third person narrating the problem of an ‘insane’ person. All he does is dream! Is dreaming a problem? Not really, dreams are never a problem for the concerned, but become a problem for the STATE, Power Centers, exploiters and the Ruling Class! Yes trust me Sanal is talking only about dreams in this film and in the end we realize that Dream is mightier than Sword!


Through the ‘insane’s dream the state and cultural barbarism is being dwindled with a combination of idylic landscapes, realistic visuals and surrealistic graphical visuals. Sanal isn’t mocking at any political figure or party, but his metaphor does it! This is the artistic style that Sanal has mastered making him an original, bizarre, entertaining and at the same time an enlightening film maker. His uniqueness lies in the instructive comedy. Yes I call this a Genre by itself – ‘Instructive Comedy’! You may have a laughter-blast, but you got to act on the misery that is being portrayed in the film. The narrative would drive the aware audience to act and alert the unaware that their silence is betrayal to humanity.


 This is the purpose of art. Awaken the socio-consciousness! Though Sasidharan calls Unmadiyude Maranam as his personal reaction following the oppression, censorship and atrocities of the right wing groups on his films, especially S. Durga, it is a critical, philosophical, phenomenal dissertation representing the concerns of all the dissenters. Afterall, Personal is Political and there is no way out there, but to expose, question, resist and fight these fascists. Sanal Kumar Sasidharan does it in an eccentric manner in Death of Insane challenging the dream catchers!


Thanks to #IFFC organized by Thamizh Studio Arun for screening such artistic films that are banned and excluded by State and Religious Fundamentalists 

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