Hailing from Valuthoor near Amba samudram, Mr. Swarnavel is a product of the Film and Television Institute, Pune. He started his career in the television and advertisement industry and later made corporate films, retaining his focus on documentaries. He took his documentaries such as ‘Thangam’, ‘The Indian National Army’ and ‘Villu’ to international festivals through the forum Alternative Spaces for Film and Video, of which he was a part .

‘Thangam’ was a poetic foray into the life of a 13-year-old girl working in the beedi rolling sector, while ‘Villu’ explored the functioning of a group of ‘villupattu’ artists belonging to different castes in a caste-conscious set up. He got Simona Paggi, editor of films such as ‘Life is beautiful’, ‘L’America’ and ‘The Stolen Children’, to edit his documentary. Now a research scholar at the University of Iowa, he also teaches film studies. “The last semester was on Hitchcock and Chabrol,” he says.

“You may ask me how a documentary filmmaker could be equally passionate about feature films.

“Celebrated filmmakers have made extraordinary documentaries,” he says, citing Satyajit Ray’s documentary on dancer Balasaraswati and Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s documentary on Kathakali exponent Kalamandalam Gopi as examples.

In the early 1930s, when sound was at its infancy, gangster films were well received. Interestingly, James Cagney’s ‘Public Enemy’ and Howard Hawks’ ‘Scarface’ had elements of a documentary. “Many scenes were shot on location, in a way documenting the New York city of the Thirties,” he explains.

Some of the greatest experiments happen in the sphere of documentaries. The low budget and the space the medium offers makes this possible, he says. “French cinematographer Raoul Coutard worked in Godard’s ‘Breathless’ and ethnographic documentary filmmaker Jean Rouch’s ‘Chronicle of a Summer’ simultaneously. Coutard’s signature style of long takes using a hand-held camera is visible in the documentary too.”

“Even in our very own ‘Anubhavi Raja Anubhavi’, the Madras shown in the background is a documentation of the city then. The perception of documentary film making as a ladder to graduate to feature film making is, therefore, not true.”

Speaking of current trends in Tamil cinema, he says films such as ‘Kadal’, ‘Veyil’, ‘Mozhi’ and ‘Paruthi Veeran’ have pushed the envelope of mainstream Tamil cinema.

“At a time when villages are portrayed in pastel shades... just for nostalgia, with heroines swaying their white duppattas and dancing, films such as ‘Paruthi Veeran’ try and capture the authentic spirit of a village in relatively greater depth. It was well-received by all the sections of the audience. ‘Veyil’ has interesting re-inventions in the screenplay while ‘Kadal’ takes traditional story-telling one step forward. “‘Mozhi’ is a feel-good film giving depth to Jyothika’s character.”

Mr. Swarnavel is now working on a script for a feature film. “The script draws from my interest in the gangster film genre.” As part of his research he is also interviewing veteran technicians of the Tamil film industry such as P.N Sundaram.

“I want to create an archive on Tamil cinema at our university to help students later.”

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail