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Cracking through yellow-tinted glasses

REFLECTING SOCIETY: A still from ‘Yellow Glass’, a short film premiered at the Sports Council Hall in Kozhikode recently

Kozhikode: The invasion of market forces with its greed and callousness towards human susceptibility, often inconspicuously backed by the authorities and the media, is the focal point of Yellow Glass, a short film by Harshad, which was premiered at the Sports Council Hall here recently.

The 20-minute film captures the predicament of a pharmacist, who, the director says, can be any other person in society, caught between the pressures from the authorities and society to wear a yellow glass as a remedy to an ‘epidemic,’ though he is wise enough to understand the so-called ‘disease’ as a ‘normal human condition.’

The film, alluding to a range of issues faced by the human being in current society, points to the obvious threats posed by market forces towards an individual’s freedom to take independent decisions in social life.

When an eye-disease spreads, the State decrees that every citizen wear a pair of glasses as an antidote. People stumble over one another to pay for the antidote that promises to keep them safe from the ‘dreaded epidemic,’ triggering widespread alarm. Panic and passion is whipped all over as “The Forces” gleefully reap the harvest.

“In an exceedingly market-driven world, it is extremely difficult to discern between what is essential for life and what would take one for a ride,” Harshad says.

Because such invasions often come with serious implications on diverse aspects of human life.

The short film travels through the anatomy of fear and hysteria, and all the accompanying madness. It is a sharp observation of the dehumanising effects of fabricated fear and tenacious control that some forces have over our lives without us even feeling it, he adds.

The story of the film was written by R.K. Perambra, himself a pharmacist who had to face similar experiences depicted in the film.

Yellow Glass is the fourth directorial venture of Harshad, who hails from Vadakara. His debut film, Peace Process, has bagged many awards, including the best short film award at the Swaralaya International Film Fest in 2007 and the special jury award at the VIBGYOR international film festival in Thrissur that year.

Landya and War on Terror are his other short films.

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