Painful frames linger on, as master auteur Shaji N Karun bids adieu

New Indian Express

29-04-2025

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: An array of frames that capture the poignancy of pain, be it the pathos of an unending wait, eternal search for the unknown, heartfelt silence, a deep sense of solitude or an intense interior yearning.
Master auteur Shaji N Karun, who chose to tread his own path in Indian cinema, often defying norms of not just popular but parallel cinema too, is no more.
The 73-year-old, who was battling cancer breathed his last at his Vazhuthacaud residence in the state capital on Monday. The funeral will be held at Santhikavadam on Tuesday.
A cinematographer-turned-filmmaker who brought global acclaim to Malayalam cinema with a brilliant kaleidoscope of films spanning over a five-decade-long career, bid adieu hardly two weeks after receiving the JC Daniel award.
Shaji has the rare achievement of three back-to-back films making it to Cannes - Piravi, Swaham and Vanaprastham.
Pain was ever the leitmotif - the pain of the unspoken, solitude and yearning that lingers on. He chose to portray them through a brilliant interplay of silence and the cinematic medium. "Politics has its base in pain. See, my movies document pain and its mytiad portrayals. That's how political my movies are," he once said.
Often he chose a narrative interpersed with long silences and pauses that conveyed so much better than loud frames and ponderous dialogues. His stories were subtle yet tinged with prophetic vision.
In his directorial debut, Piravi, which tracks the gruelling pain of a father's wait, the compelling narrative left the audience speechless and overcome with an ache that defied description. The movie serves to be a caustic pointer to the disturbing saga of custodial deaths.
Swaham too depicts waiting, but of a different kind. Vanaprastham, which elicited one of the career-best performaces from Mohanlal, too was another sketch of yearning - this time that of a Kathakali artist, who goes through the myriad hues of love, life, isolation amidst a complex societal structure.
Shaji was an extremely selective filmmaker when it came to his cinematic creations. He was immune to the glitter of the industry. Even the well-established norms of arthouse movies failed to woo him. He was someone who refused to remain stagnant. "I tend to forget a film, once it's done. If not, I would have to carry its baggage," was his motto.
Beginning his career as a cinematographer, Shaji quickly established himself as a master of visual story-telling. He blossomed well in thr company of masters with whom he joined hands - be it G Aravindan, KG George or MT Vasudevan Nair, with whom he worked for films like Manju. That he successfully wielded the camera for the widely-popular, yet artisically brilliant KG George movies too, showed his multiple talents.
Yet it was the Aravindan- Shaji combo that presented Malayalam some of the evergreen classics of the 70s. Right from Kanchana Seetha, to Thamp and Kummatty, each silently conversed with the audience through well-lit frames that captured the magic of a black-and-white era.
"Aravindettan used to share just four-five pages. Thamb had no screenplay at all. So, I turned the camera into a common man's perspective. That's where it got its form," Shaji once shared with TNIE on the making of Thamp, and the peculiar bond that he shared with the master auteur. They used to understand each other so well.
His contributions to Malayalam cinema are not limited to his movies alone. Shaji played a significant role in the setting up of the State Chalachithra Academy. Similarly, the filmmaker played an undeniable part in establishing the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK).
Ironically, Shaji N Karun was seldom mentioned among the top league of art-house filmmakers in Malayalam, despite being a filmmmaker who unleashed visual magic through his wide panoramic canvasses. He's known for his almost-meditative black and white frames. The lights fade, yet the shadow lingers on!