Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

‘Cinema survives on content’

— Photo: C. Ratheesh Kumar

Filmmaker Lenin Rajendran addressing a ‘Meet-the-Press’ programme in the city on Saturday. Producer B. Rakesh looks on.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Cinema survives on good content, and there is inherent danger in the view that cinema is all about technical perfection, filmmaker Lenin Rajendran said here on Saturday.

He was participating in a Meet-the-Press programme held at the Thiruvananthapuram Press Club.

“Technical perfection can be bought; but not quality content. If technical excellence is the ultimate parameter of quality cinema, the greatest movies would be those produced by Hollywood. However, what the world acknowledges as best cinema comes from Europe.”

Mr. Rajendran said the prevailing situation in Malayalam filmdom was such that that everything had become commoditised and any debate on the quality of films had lost relevance. It was only because the films of Malayalam’s superstars were released after the Ramzan month that a clutch of other “good movies,” were released during that month. These films are proof that there is still an audience in Kerala for good movies.

Mr. Rajendran said his movie ‘Rathrimazha’ was an attempt at portraying the angst of an artist — a dancer who seeks to make it big in his field. The film adopts a narrative with a difference. The dialogue is poetic at times — when the characters are in their dream worlds — and ‘normal’ when the characters come back to reality. “I am in my 26th year of making films. I had more trouble trying to reach Rathrimazha to the theatres than I had with Venal, my first movie. Though I feel I have evolved over the years, I actually walked backwards to reach ‘Rathrimazha’ to the theatres,” he said.

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