Over the years, whenever I hear movie-makers talk of their “bold” themes, I think of Sila Nerangalil Sila Manithargal, the first Tamil film ever to win national honors when its protagonist, Lakshmi, took the best actress accolade in 1976.
On a rainy night, an orthodox Tamil Brahmin college girl accepts a lift from a stranger. It ends in a sexual encounter that is ambiguous as to consent – did she go along willingly, or was her unresisting acceptance born of her helplessness?
Back home that night, she tells her mother of the encounter; her brother, the family bread-winner, is outraged and throws her out of the house. The girl moves out of the city, finds refuge in another where she shelters with a relative, finishes her education, finds a job, and makes a life for herself, her professional success soured by the recurring need to resist the sexual advances her single status attracts.
Random chance puts her vis a vis her rapist. She demands time with him. Her intent is not to make life difficult for him but to seek answers to a question that has haunted her: what really happened that rainy evening?
The answer to that question sets up the rest of the movie, which explores the friendship that develops and deepens between them.
The Tamil litterateur Jayakanthan, winner of the Jnanpith and the Sahitya Akademi awards, wrote that novel in 1970, drawing in some part on his own personal experience of an adulterous relationship. It was translated to film in 1976 (winning for actress Lakshmi the first of her two National Awards), and its success served as release for writers and film-makers who, shackled by the need to adhere to conventional cinematic tropes, were unexpectedly empowered to explore the fifty shades of gray that make up the sum of human relationships.
Jayakanthan further fueled that fire with his own follow up novel Oru Nadigai Naadagam Paarkiral (1971), choosing this time to explore the tensions within marriage when the wife is the more accomplished and financially successful – a theme he explored through the story of a stage actress and the widowed drama critic she married.
To sceptical producers scared that such themes would provoke outrage, Jayakanthan’s work was the perfect answer: the older generation was simultaneously outraged and challenged by his serial assaults on dogma; the young (like me) saw in his work (and the films made of some of them) a Cliffs Notes to their awakening sense of self.
Padma Bhushan Jayakanthan passed away on April 8; in the wake of the news, I read through his Wiki entry and skimmed an archival profile published on Tehelka.
The essence of the man however is contained in his 40+ novels and scores of short stories, and in the stunningly progressive movies that some of them resulted in. I watched one — Sila Nerangalil… — last afternoon and vowed to treat myself to another – Oru Nadigai… – at night.
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On a rainy night, an orthodox Tamil Brahmin college girl accepts a lift from a stranger. It ends in a sexual encounter that is ambiguous as to consent – did she go along willingly, or was her unresisting acceptance born of her helplessness?
Back home that night, she tells her mother of the encounter; her brother, the family bread-winner, is outraged and throws her out of the house. The girl moves out of the city, finds refuge in another where she shelters with a relative, finishes her education, finds a job, and makes a life for herself, her professional success soured by the recurring need to resist the sexual advances her single status attracts.
Random chance puts her vis a vis her rapist. She demands time with him. Her intent is not to make life difficult for him but to seek answers to a question that has haunted her: what really happened that rainy evening?
The answer to that question sets up the rest of the movie, which explores the friendship that develops and deepens between them.
The Tamil litterateur Jayakanthan, winner of the Jnanpith and the Sahitya Akademi awards, wrote that novel in 1970, drawing in some part on his own personal experience of an adulterous relationship. It was translated to film in 1976 (winning for actress Lakshmi the first of her two National Awards), and its success served as release for writers and film-makers who, shackled by the need to adhere to conventional cinematic tropes, were unexpectedly empowered to explore the fifty shades of gray that make up the sum of human relationships.
Jayakanthan further fueled that fire with his own follow up novel Oru Nadigai Naadagam Paarkiral (1971), choosing this time to explore the tensions within marriage when the wife is the more accomplished and financially successful – a theme he explored through the story of a stage actress and the widowed drama critic she married.
To sceptical producers scared that such themes would provoke outrage, Jayakanthan’s work was the perfect answer: the older generation was simultaneously outraged and challenged by his serial assaults on dogma; the young (like me) saw in his work (and the films made of some of them) a Cliffs Notes to their awakening sense of self.
Padma Bhushan Jayakanthan passed away on April 8; in the wake of the news, I read through his Wiki entry and skimmed an archival profile published on Tehelka.
The essence of the man however is contained in his 40+ novels and scores of short stories, and in the stunningly progressive movies that some of them resulted in. I watched one — Sila Nerangalil… — last afternoon and vowed to treat myself to another – Oru Nadigai… – at night.