Nirakar Chhaya AKA Shadows Formless (2007)
Director:Ashish Avikunthak
Country:India
Runtime:82min
A film trapped between two monologues. A lonely and abandoned wife’s fantasy comes to life when the paramour she invokes springs forth and transforms her reality. Shadows Formless is an interpretation of the Malayalam novella Pandavpuram by the distinguished novelist Sethumadhavan from Kerala.
Director's Statement:
This film is a stylized adaptation of a novel called Pandavpuram by an important Malayalam author, Sethu Madhavan. It explores the psychological universe of a lonely woman abandoned by her husband, awaiting a paramour who she believes will rescue her from the mundanity of her existence and bring passion into her life. This yearning stems from both her emotional need to overcome loneliness and a suppressed sexual desire. As the yearning translates into an imagined reality, the film travels through the daily life of this lonely woman, inhabited by a affectionate sister-in law and a paramour.
Contemporary urban society in India is increasingly faced with the problems of alienation and loneliness, arising from nuclear family units and rising levels of marital separation and abandonment. In the absence of the support of the larger joint family, this alienation can take on the nature of a psychosis. The film attempts to probe into the complexities of such a state, which blurs the boundaries between reality and unreal. This film contemplates upon the reality of such an imagined world through the use of the aesthetic and structural possibilities of the cinematic medium.
Country:India
Runtime:82min
A film trapped between two monologues. A lonely and abandoned wife’s fantasy comes to life when the paramour she invokes springs forth and transforms her reality. Shadows Formless is an interpretation of the Malayalam novella Pandavpuram by the distinguished novelist Sethumadhavan from Kerala.
Director's Statement:
This film is a stylized adaptation of a novel called Pandavpuram by an important Malayalam author, Sethu Madhavan. It explores the psychological universe of a lonely woman abandoned by her husband, awaiting a paramour who she believes will rescue her from the mundanity of her existence and bring passion into her life. This yearning stems from both her emotional need to overcome loneliness and a suppressed sexual desire. As the yearning translates into an imagined reality, the film travels through the daily life of this lonely woman, inhabited by a affectionate sister-in law and a paramour.
Contemporary urban society in India is increasingly faced with the problems of alienation and loneliness, arising from nuclear family units and rising levels of marital separation and abandonment. In the absence of the support of the larger joint family, this alienation can take on the nature of a psychosis. The film attempts to probe into the complexities of such a state, which blurs the boundaries between reality and unreal. This film contemplates upon the reality of such an imagined world through the use of the aesthetic and structural possibilities of the cinematic medium.
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