The genius of Kammatipaadam

A few months ago, a Malayalam language film called 'Kammatti Paadam' had released. Directed by Anurag Kashyap's long time DoP, Rajeev Ravi, it's a story spanning a generation of gangsters in the shifting landscape of semi-urban Kerala.

I doubt if the film saw a respectable theater release beyond some urban pockets in Kerala. It got a grand total of one screen in Mumbai. No one I mentioned the movie to had even heard the name, apart from three college friends who worked on it as part of the crew. In fact, I'd only heard of the film and its release through them.

I also remember reading Kashyap's praise of Kammattipaadam, because that's what compelled me to watch it. He called it a 'slow burning', old school gangster film in the tradition of Once Upon a Time In America. I was instantly sold.

Of course, I couldn't catch it in the solitary theater in Mumbai, so I waited until the torrent was out. But after having waited for months and finding only bad quality screener rips, I decided to be a good samaritan and settled for a DVD. Priced modestly and affordably at Rs. 130, I got the beauty office delivered from Amazon. I waited till EOD (professional email jargon is rubbing off) to rip open the plastic wrapping and reveal the unassuming DVD. Then, Movie Magic happened.

No, I don't want to speak about the film in its entirety, even though it's an enticing prospect. It's one of those rare films which benefit from being viewed with as little foreknowledge as possible. So I'm not going to talk to you about the plot and its numerous merits - there are many. I will instead focus on the first images the film throws your way: the title credits.

A little bit of a rewind here before I proceed.

Satyajit Ray is unarguably India's most influential international filmmaker. In media school, we've studied his painstaking dedication to every frame he composed. He fought to retain as much creative control of the film as a single person could. He would often score for them. Sometimes he would handle the camera himself. Another thing that he did invariably was closely overseeing the opening and closing titles. He would initially design them on his own. The confluence of sight, text and sound was thus dictated by him to a t.

He would construct the title & credit slates such that they would not appear out of place for the setting of the film. For example, the opening credits of Pather Panchali, his debut film, were handwritten on crumpled sheets of paper. The father of the protagonist, Harihar Rai, is a writer struggling to make ends meet for himself and his family. They live in a derelict house which has buckled under the effects of the elements. The credit sequence resembles Harihar’s carelessly stored manuscripts and thereby becomes a part of this universe.

That’s just one way to use credit sequences: to acquaint the audience – even if subconsciously – to the environment of the film. There are innumerable more. Hitchcock gets his audience into the psyche of the characters or the tone of the film through innovative use of music and text. Daniel Craig’s Bond films start with elegantly animated sequences that run us through the many locations Agent Double-O Seven will visit through the course of his adventures.

Closer home, Imtiaz Ali stands out as someone who lays emphasis on his credit sequences and injects them with some meaning. Here, too, as in James Bond, we are shown distinctive moments from the story that will be pivotal to the growth of the characters and development of the plot. Sudhir Mishra’s Yeh Saali Zindagi attempts to do the same with animation.

Kammati Paadam plays out in at least three interwoven timelines, from the time when the three protagonists were kids, till they are middle aged people. Fittingly, it opens with an energetic music video which sets the stage for the epic scale of things.

Through the music video cum credit sequence, we are led into the world of Kammaati Paadam through the protagonist’s eyes when he is a pre-teen. His Brahmin family is shifting to the village, which is also home to a sizeable tribal settlement. We see him befriending Ganga, an impressionable young boy of his age but from the tribal community. He attracts the attention of Anitha, who is also the same age and almost instantly falls in love with her. So does she. We see his father’s muted disapproval of his lower-caste company.

In a crescendo aided by rising musical tempo and frantic shot transitions, the tension between the three friends is underscored. Ganga and Anitha’s ceremonial child ‘wedding’ is implied when Krishnan’s family passes by the marriage procession. In another meaningful shot, Krishnan is helped up on a tricky branch of a tree. He has eyes only for Anitha, who is swinging from a branch and has her gaze fixed on him.

We see the boys bonding over a game of marbles. They are exposed to the violence of a village hunting party together. They run amok in the green fields, chasing butterflies and breaking age old caste barriers by simply sticking together.

All this while, the music and lyrics add an additional layer to the narrative. It’s a percussion heavy score that rumbles like a bad omen at first, then breaks open into an energetic beat to the hypnotic chants of ‘para, para’ (‘tell, O tell…’). These seem to be lines from a folk song, a paean addressed to the Pulayas, a well-known Dalit sub-sect. There are pantheistic verses that go well with the natural setting of these opening visuals:

‘Why was the sun-god, so late in coming up today?

The sun-god has come, it has steadily risen.’

The traditional way of beginning any story in Indian mythology is to first pay obeisance to the Gods. In the conventions of nature worship Hinduism has evolved from, praying to the elements was a common ritual (and to an extent, still is). The storyteller harks to an older era, a simpler time through these hauntingly beautiful sights and sounds.

These vital opening moments take you on the character’s journey back in time and space; as he travels, so do you. What it also does is wordlessly establish the dynamics between the three primary characters: whether they know it or not, the undercurrents of tension in their childhood will have much greater consequences than they can imagine.

In less than five minutes, Rajeev Ravi gives you a holistic sense of the scale, scope and character dynamics of Kammaati Paadam. To the astute viewer (or a second time viewer), this opening sequence has carefully embedded clues to the events to follow. It establishes a village landscape that will drastically change, a close friendship that is tinged with jealousy, and a love story that is doomed from literally the first meeting. In doing so, he reveals the biggest character in the movie: 

Destiny.