Amma Ariyan (Report to Mother) [1986]

 John Abraham didn’t just embody his trailblazing mentor Ritwik Ghatak – his cinematic dare, blazing left-wing politics, defiant anti-establishmentarianism, self-destructive alcoholism and tragically curtailed life – but perhaps even took these a step further. His iconoclastic final feature Amma Ariyan – he died a year later upon a terrible accident – vividly manifested his fierce radicalism in every aspect. Made under ‘Odessa Collective’ that he’d formed with dreams of making filmmaking a political act that’s untethered from consumerist restrictions, he financed it through street contributions, made it through a participative process, and screened it in traveling shows. If his production and distribution decisions were stunning acts of rebellion, his formal choices were even bolder. It was, on surface, a road movie as Purushan (Joy Mathew), upon stumbling upon a dead young guy in Waynad who’s committed suicide, first decides to determine his identity and thereafter inform the latter’s mother who resides in Cochin. This journey mirrored the collaborative filmmaking process as what starts off with only Purushan, kept expanding and ultimately transitioned into a people’s movement by the time the targeted destination arrives. The revelation of the dead guy’s shifting backstory – amateur table player, jazz drummer, diffident political activist and Naxalite revolutionary, depending on who you’re asking – was alternated with recounting of and medications on historical acts of police brutality, class struggle and popular resistance that Purushan encounters along their route and which he chronicles in letters to his mother. The film, consequently, was heavily experimental and self-reflexive on one hand, and powerfully suffused with documentary references and political commentaries on the other, thus ensuring that this complex, quietly personal and searingly political work operated well outside both narrative conventions and easy interpretations.

Director: John Abraham

Genre: Political Drama/Road Movie/Experimental Film

Language: Malayalam

Country: India