Man of the Story

The new film by Adoor Gopalakrishnan covers a politically tumultuous time (1937 to 1980) in the modern history of Kerala, a state in South India that was, incidentally, the first to democratically elect a Commmunist Government, in 1959. The beauty of the film though, is that Kerala'+»+ political history is not the main focus; instead, the film follows the life from childhood to adulthood of Kunjunni, a petit bourgeois country boy turned leftist radical. As a child, Kunjunni lives with his mother, her land-owner family and their loyal servants. He's emotionally hypersensitive - he has a nagging stutter an cries at the slightest provocation. Jumping ahead in time - as the film does in several places - we find a young adult Kunjunni who is studious and full of ideals. And like his uncle he's fallen in with the Communist Party, which leads him to trouble with the law.The human elements of the story are always in the foreground of this gently paced film. We watch the family as they gather to watch Kunjunni's uncle (who has shown up unexpectedly) eat his dinner - a touching, quiet moment of familial bonding. And Gopalakrishnan often stops to dwell on rituals such as bathing in the river, or walking through a lush, green landscape. It+»+ a down-to-earth, humanitarian approach to understanding the region's complex history. (Kurt Wolff, San Francisco International Film Festival)