A movie made my day today: K. Balachander's "Agni Sakshi", a Tamil movie released in 1982. The theme of the movie is the marriage between a dance/theatre director Aravindan, acted by Sivakumar, and his sensitive wife Kannamma, acted by Saritha.
Owing to terrible violence Kannamma has witnessed in her childhood, she reacts hysterically to any hint of violence against women, young or old, and to any form of violence against children. In addition, she is highly imaginative and gets affected and highly involved in stories, songs and poems. Aravind and she grow close to each other after Kannamma sees a modern interpretation of the story of "Kannagi" which he has directed, and they begin to write letters to each other. The exchange of letters begins on a literary level and goes on to become affectionate. They eventually fall in love with each other and they get married, and Kannamma's parents, fearing that they might spoil her chances of getting married, hide the fact from Aravind that she is mentally ill.
Kannamma's psychological trauma makes it impossible for her to coexist with the family of her spouse with whom she lives in the initial stage of the marriage. Aravind's family try to initiate a divorce as they did not know before the wedding that Kannamma's mental health was poor, but when Aravind hears that his wife is with child, he resolves not to leave her, and turns into a staunch and extremely kind husband. At the expense of close contact to either spouse's family, Aravind decides to learn to love his wife. The bond between Kannamma and Aravind grows deep throughout the time of her pregnancy. The plot takes a few more turns which readers can view in the movie if they are interested, free on youtube,
http://www.google.de/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCsQtwIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DiVQvYqVABdA&ei=qAZlT92QE5HvsgaP043OBQ&usg=AFQjCNHesVJoD0R0WDMkIRM7V6fKzRVaOQ&sig2=BUzyzHQA4lyxco3DPZ7nyg.
Why did this movie make my day? I'll tell you why, there are two reasons. Firstly, the protagonist Kannamma is somebody I can sympathize with. (This is not to say I am mentally ill, please do not get me wrong.) Kannamma is highly sensitive to all kinds of stories and gets personally involved in them. She gets upset even if just a character from a movie suffers.
In the plot there is a scene in which she goes all the way to an actor's house and appeals to him in anger because in a movie he has acted in, he divorces his wife. The actor (Rajni Kanth) sees her problem immediately and tells her that that was a movie. He calls his wife and presents her before Kannamma, telling her that this is his real wife, and he is living happily with her. Kannamma is pacified.
I'm not trying to say I cannot tell the difference between fiction and real life. However, watching a movie can be a real struggle for me because I get quite involved in the plot and for instance experience anger against the characters while watching it. For this simple reason, I prefer not to watch movies alone. On my own I do not like to initiate watching a movie even with others, and often I find the plot and what happens to the characters emotionally taxing.
What occurs to the mind is that, though this movie is about a person who is psychologically hurt, there is no reason to assume that the majority of real people we see around us are free of such imprints. Each person's mind is such a sensitive place which has been touched by events positive and negative, and can reflect differently on any event that is going on currently. These things are probably well-established facts of psychology, so my writing it here is nothing special. The reason these observations have their place in this review is that for me, the film illustrates vividly the nature of the human psyche, in all its beauty and its fragility.
The second reason I liked the movie is its message. Agni Sakshi is synonymous with the vow of marriage. Literally it means "Fire witness", which is derived from the prevalent Indian ritual of conducting weddings in front of a large fire. Fire here symbolizes something pure and purifying, and is supposed to purge the partners' minds of all doubts and infirmities in the act and process of marriage. I read another informative blog post on these rituals, please look them up:
http://wecognize.blogspot.de/2009/08/understandign-meaning-of-saat-phere.html
Please look up the terms I have written on as well as terms in the article quoted, as I am not an expert on rituals and customs in India. This is only meant to be a rough overview to hint at the cultural relevance of the movie's title.
Now forgetting marriage or any other institution, the striking aspect of the movie is the commitment with which Aravind is portrayed to take care of his wife. Kannamma too gives herself to the hands of her husband, totally and trustingly, and the relation these two share appears really beautiful. This made me ponder for a while on the concept of commitment. Ideally, commitment must be total. How rare or common, realistic or idealistic such total commitment is, cannot be seen or proven. The power of such a bond however can be appreciated well just by watching the movie.
Presence of the spouses' families is depicted in contrast as a factor that disturbs the mentally ill patient's health, the bond that a couple shares, and as a factor that can trigger further problems.
The movie illustrates from an entirely secular and objective point of view the two aspects described above. Allow me to use this opportunity to recommend it to you, and to ask for your comments either on the movie or on the content of this post.
Owing to terrible violence Kannamma has witnessed in her childhood, she reacts hysterically to any hint of violence against women, young or old, and to any form of violence against children. In addition, she is highly imaginative and gets affected and highly involved in stories, songs and poems. Aravind and she grow close to each other after Kannamma sees a modern interpretation of the story of "Kannagi" which he has directed, and they begin to write letters to each other. The exchange of letters begins on a literary level and goes on to become affectionate. They eventually fall in love with each other and they get married, and Kannamma's parents, fearing that they might spoil her chances of getting married, hide the fact from Aravind that she is mentally ill.
Kannamma's psychological trauma makes it impossible for her to coexist with the family of her spouse with whom she lives in the initial stage of the marriage. Aravind's family try to initiate a divorce as they did not know before the wedding that Kannamma's mental health was poor, but when Aravind hears that his wife is with child, he resolves not to leave her, and turns into a staunch and extremely kind husband. At the expense of close contact to either spouse's family, Aravind decides to learn to love his wife. The bond between Kannamma and Aravind grows deep throughout the time of her pregnancy. The plot takes a few more turns which readers can view in the movie if they are interested, free on youtube,
http://www.google.de/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCsQtwIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DiVQvYqVABdA&ei=qAZlT92QE5HvsgaP043OBQ&usg=AFQjCNHesVJoD0R0WDMkIRM7V6fKzRVaOQ&sig2=BUzyzHQA4lyxco3DPZ7nyg.
Why did this movie make my day? I'll tell you why, there are two reasons. Firstly, the protagonist Kannamma is somebody I can sympathize with. (This is not to say I am mentally ill, please do not get me wrong.) Kannamma is highly sensitive to all kinds of stories and gets personally involved in them. She gets upset even if just a character from a movie suffers.
In the plot there is a scene in which she goes all the way to an actor's house and appeals to him in anger because in a movie he has acted in, he divorces his wife. The actor (Rajni Kanth) sees her problem immediately and tells her that that was a movie. He calls his wife and presents her before Kannamma, telling her that this is his real wife, and he is living happily with her. Kannamma is pacified.
I'm not trying to say I cannot tell the difference between fiction and real life. However, watching a movie can be a real struggle for me because I get quite involved in the plot and for instance experience anger against the characters while watching it. For this simple reason, I prefer not to watch movies alone. On my own I do not like to initiate watching a movie even with others, and often I find the plot and what happens to the characters emotionally taxing.
What occurs to the mind is that, though this movie is about a person who is psychologically hurt, there is no reason to assume that the majority of real people we see around us are free of such imprints. Each person's mind is such a sensitive place which has been touched by events positive and negative, and can reflect differently on any event that is going on currently. These things are probably well-established facts of psychology, so my writing it here is nothing special. The reason these observations have their place in this review is that for me, the film illustrates vividly the nature of the human psyche, in all its beauty and its fragility.
The second reason I liked the movie is its message. Agni Sakshi is synonymous with the vow of marriage. Literally it means "Fire witness", which is derived from the prevalent Indian ritual of conducting weddings in front of a large fire. Fire here symbolizes something pure and purifying, and is supposed to purge the partners' minds of all doubts and infirmities in the act and process of marriage. I read another informative blog post on these rituals, please look them up:
http://wecognize.blogspot.de/2009/08/understandign-meaning-of-saat-phere.html
Please look up the terms I have written on as well as terms in the article quoted, as I am not an expert on rituals and customs in India. This is only meant to be a rough overview to hint at the cultural relevance of the movie's title.
Now forgetting marriage or any other institution, the striking aspect of the movie is the commitment with which Aravind is portrayed to take care of his wife. Kannamma too gives herself to the hands of her husband, totally and trustingly, and the relation these two share appears really beautiful. This made me ponder for a while on the concept of commitment. Ideally, commitment must be total. How rare or common, realistic or idealistic such total commitment is, cannot be seen or proven. The power of such a bond however can be appreciated well just by watching the movie.
Presence of the spouses' families is depicted in contrast as a factor that disturbs the mentally ill patient's health, the bond that a couple shares, and as a factor that can trigger further problems.
The movie illustrates from an entirely secular and objective point of view the two aspects described above. Allow me to use this opportunity to recommend it to you, and to ask for your comments either on the movie or on the content of this post.
