Discovering Our Master Filmmakers Was A Revelation: Don Palathara

Don Palathara is one of the key figures spearheading the independent film scene in Malayalam cinema. The director behind critically acclaimed independently produced films like Shavam: The Corpse (2015), 1956, Central Travancore (2019), Santhoshathinte Onnam Rahasyam (2020) and Everything Is Cinema (2021) has been slowly working up an remarkable oeuvre packed with culturally specific and tonally masterful human drama’s, addressing various milieu and formal concerns. The director has come out with his latest offering Family (2024). The new film, which opened to a select number of theatres in Kerala has been garnering some great reviews and has already been touted to be his best work till date, as per the critical consensus. 

Family features Vinay Fort, Divya Prabha, Mathew Thomas and Nija K Baby among an ensemble cast. Set in Idukki, the film explores the revelations that slowly creep up on a village where religion beliefs and societal values are put through the wringer as the people’s perception of a local mentor figure slowly starts changing. Don has always been open about his film inspirations and affinity for European auteur’s of the past and present in his sensibility, which he balances with a grounded, specific identity of the malayalee psyche. There is a seamless blend of schools of filmmaking that can be marked as Don’s jumping off point for his own cinema.

“Finding inspiration from other filmmakers and films was a gradual process for me. I started discovering filmmakers and realized each had their own style only when I was in film school. At that point, I was mainly looking at Western cinema, European and Hollywood films," he says, adding that "learning the same about our films and discovering that we also have our own masters who have made great films was a revelation". He goes onto add, "So as a cinephile the journey of discovering and cherishing these films is happening in parallel to my filmmaking career.”

Don also shares his experiences of film school life and his discovery of foreign films. “The very first question I faced while I went to film school was to name my favourite five filmmakers and describe why I love their work. It was very difficult for me to explain as I didn't have any concepts of these things back then. So I made it a habit of watching at least one film everyday. By the end of the first year itself, I gradually caught up with a major chunk of the films recommended by my friends and teachers. That was the beginning of my journey into cinephilia.”

Opening up about the process of discovering his voice, the filmmaker shares, “When I joined the film school, I did not know how to go about the process of filmmaking. So it's like pottery right? You try to make things that hold together and are intelligible to you at least as a whole. That was the kind of process I started out with. The basic principle for me is that it should be an honest expression. You have to use the medium for honest expression.”

“What to say and how to say is not the same thing for me," he affirms. "The same story can be told in different ways by different people. So the ‘how to say’ element has got to do with what kind a person you are at that particular point. I wouldn't be making my first film in the same way now because I am a different person today. So the process for me is an inseparable thing that is a combination of many elements.”

Coming to his latest offering Family, in conjunction with the human story being told on screen, Don also infuses a significant metaphorical symbol to the central narrative through a ‘leopard’ that is a major element in the screenplay and draws clear parallels between the predatory behavior and sprawling impact of the lead character on others in the film  “Someone sent me a paper clipping about a leopard that was plaguing my shooting location just after I shot my film, 1956, Central Travancore there. I found it very interesting and it got stuck in my mind. So while we were writing the script, this idea of combining the leopard into the primary story as a motif came up. It was interesting as I was able to bring up parallels of the leopard to my lead character Sony played by Vinay Fort.”

The film revolves around a do-gooder villager, whose image as a samaritan turns out to be just a cover for some very uncomfortable truths, and Don remembers the origins of his peculiar protagonist. “That character is definitely based on different people I know. I discussed a lot with my co-writer Sherine Catherine, about how to pitch this character and write his arc. For instance, in his conversation with Divya Pilla’s character in the film where they are patching up on a past event, I asked Sherine as to how the protagonist would deal with such a situation. So she came up with the idea that he would find a way to blame Divya’s character for the issue, making it look like her fault.”

The filmmaker also adds to the characters psyche and internal life. “He is the sort of man who would make the woman apologize to him for his own mistake. So that was the kind of thinking behind his character. It's a combination of many people like that I have come across in life.”

The costuming of the character too suggests a larger vision to portray him as someone who merges in with the background. Speaking about this choice, Don shares, "He wears clothes that are matching to his background at the time as a means to seamlessly blend in with the rest of the village and his surroundings. He is not a rebel. He is someone who fits in with others. He is a conformist in that sense.”