KG George: Filmmaker par excellence who faltered in his real life roles

In 8 1⁄2 Intercuts, a film about the life and times of KG George, he looks at the camera and says without the slightest hesitation: “I have no feelings for anyone, be it my wife or my children.” As he says this, a diary entry dated February 8, 1977 (incidentally, a day after his wedding) flashes on the screen: “Behaved roughly to Selma [his wife]. She wept.”

This display of unabashed honesty in his life and craft is what many remembered George for when he passed away in Kochi on Sunday, September 24, after a prolonged period of illness. George, who died aged 77, had earlier suffered a stroke and had not made films for two and a half decades. Yet the handful of films he made in the 1980s placed him among the best Malayalam filmmakers, undisputed by his contemporaries and the younger generation of filmmakers.

Selma, his wife and singer of his memorable film songs like ‘Sharadindu malardeepa’, ‘Bharatha muni’ and ‘Kanneerattil mungi’, too appears in the documentary about George. Sitting next to him, she speaks about how George, who made so many beautiful films about generations of women, could not see the mind of his wife or mother. She is talking about George’s presentation of women characters in films like Aadaminte Vaariyellu, Lekhayude Maranam Oru Flashback, Mattoraal, and Yavanika, which led critics to call him feministic in his approach and portrayal.

Three women played by the strong performers Srividya, Suhasini, and Soorya lead three different lives in three different social settings in Aadaminte Variyellu. In Lekhayude Maranam Oru Flashback, a film that showed the life of a young woman in a problematic film industry, George makes an obvious reference to Sobha, the 18-year-old actor who died by suicide three years earlier, after an alleged failed relationship with the much older director Balu Mahendra. George admits this in 8 1⁄2 Intercuts, recalling the sets of his earlier film Ulkkadal in which both Sobha and Balu had worked (Sobha as lead actor and Balu as cinematographer). He wonders if he too played a role in them growing closer and eventually led to the tragedy, but then brushes it off as the transition of human character more than a tragedy.

Song from Ulkkadal

“It's quite interesting that all his films were really based around very strong women characters. Whether he was a feminist in the known sense of the term, I don't know, because a lot of the things are also very problematic. But his female characters are all very strong. Aadaminte Variyellu is really a kind of call for action. They were all strong women, women with agency, like in Kolangal (1981) too. But if you look at Lekhayude Maranam there is a problem in his gaze of women. I think it's an interesting contradiction. He's not a modern feminist in any sense,” says editor Bina Paul, who has served as the artistic director of more than 20 editions of the International Film Festival of Kerala.

Song from Aadaminte Variyellu:

Mattoral is another film that brought attention to its lead woman character, the wife of an officer played by Seema. Her decision to leave a marriage, where nothing was visibly wrong in the conventional sense, made her a sort of rebel in the milieu and times she lived in — middle-class and 1980s. “I don't think anyone has ever portrayed women with such sensitivity. We studied 'the problem with no name’ (Betty Friedan) in feminist theory and Susheela, the protagonist in Mattoraal, represents that. George sir was never judgemental. He didn't conform to any of the patriarchal norms, be it family, (so called) morality, or other such institutions. He questioned them in his films,” says Shahina Rafeeq, writer and film critic who has researched extensively on George’s films.

In 8 1⁄2 Intercuts, actor-filmmaker Geetu Mohandas also observes that George was non-judgemental and non-voyeuristic towards his women characters. The documentary, made six years earlier by director Lijin Jose, used a lot of the material Shahina had collected for her research. Lijin says that it took four years to complete it. “The challenge was in connecting the very diverse themes of his films, most of them hard-hitting. These are not films made to please an audience. He uses a very distinct voice (in his storytelling) and his craft is intense. As a person, he was dangerously honest. He had a wide reading and kept himself updated in subjects that interested him, like psychiatry,” Lijin says.

George’s first film Swapnadanam relied greatly on psychiatry. It was loosely based on the real life story of a man found without memory at the Egmore Station of Tamil Nadu who recollected his past in hypnosis. But among his films, the most cited is Yavanika, a psychological thriller that puts a meek woman in the thick of a murder mystery. Jalaja, used to playing quiet and subservient women characters until then, breaks norms in the film, married to the maverick drummer Ayyappan, a character immortalised by Bharath Gopi’s performance.

Song from Yavanika:

George obviously had his comfort zone that included actors like Bharath Gopi, Srividya, Thilakan, and Venu Nagavally, who reappeared in his films, bearing little semblance between each of their characters. The Gopi in Yavanika – drunk and troublesome – is a world away from the comical caricature of a panchayat president in George’s political satire Panchavadi Palam.

As Lijin observes, George would veer off from a psychological thriller to a crime drama, from a love story to a political satire. Irakal, another oft-quoted film of KG George, introduced 18-year-old Ganesh Kumar as a murderous teenager in a wealthy, dysfunctional family — yet another instance of the director’s interest in the psychology of troubled individuals. Caste and class differences would also prominently feature in these films, through, for instance, the oppressed caste lover in Irakal or the working class rape survivor in Aadaminte Variyellu.

Scenes from Irakal:

“He was so rooted, that's what was fantastic. You see a film like Yavanika today, it's so rooted. It tells such a unique story, a universal story, as you'll see in Lekhayude Maranam. So I think it's that very strong rootedness and colloquialism that made him so great,” Bina Paul says.

Shahina calls him a ‘pacha manushyan’ – a rooted human being – who admitted that he erred, admitted also that he was not a good husband or family man.

The rootedness also meant that his films had no stars, only performers. Mammootty, one of the biggest stars to emerge from the south, took on unassuming roles in George’s movies. He was the investigator in Yavanika, which circled around Gopi’s Ayyappan, and he played the mediator friend, a supporting role, in Mattoral.

“Among all the directors I have seen, George sir is the best actor. He enacts every character in his films for us,” Mammootty says in the documentary. Interestingly, Mammootty was afraid that he might lose his first role in a George film as a circus performer in Mela, when he was asked if he could ride a horse and he had not even touched one at the time. Mela was in 1980 when Mammootty had just begun acting. Mattoraal happened eight years later, when he had become established as a star. Nonetheless, he saw no reason to say no to the less important character in George's film. 

With only 20 films made between the 1970s and 90s, George’s name continues to figure among the best. Younger filmmakers like Lijo Jose Pellissery – a consistent award-winner known in international circuits – admit to the influence he has had over them.

George himself had been influenced by Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini. He dreamt of making films that were based on reality and truth. He minced little.

“It is not only about him being different. If you look at the pantheon of Indian filmmakers, he is one of the most interesting, [be it] the characterisation, storytelling, or command over cinema. I would rate him as one of the best filmmakers of all time,” Bina Paul says.

As George once said, he had dissatisfactions in life, but he had not missed anything.