Kummatty

Kummatty
Directed by	G. Aravindan
Produced by	K. Ravindran Nair
Written by	G. Aravindan
Starring	Ramunni Master Ashokan Vilasini Reema
Music by	M. G. Radhakrishnan G. Aravindan
Cinematography	Shaji N. Karun
Release dates	12 July 1979 (1979-07-12)
Country	India
Language	Malayalam

Kummatty (English: Bogeyman) is a 1979 Malayalam film written and directed by G. Aravindan. Ramunni, Master Ashokan and Vilasini Reema form the cast.

Plot

The film is a Pied Piper-like figment of Malabar’s folklore about a partly mythic and partly real magician called Kummatty (bogeyman). Kummatty materialises from nature one day to mingle with and weave a spell of carefree abandon around the children of the village. Kummatty travels from place to place and entertains children with dancing, singing and performing magic. At one such performance at a village, Kummatty starts to mingle with and weave a spell of carefree abandon around the children of the village. He turns a group of children into animals. But one boy, who was changed into a dog, is chased away and misses the moment Kummatty changed the children back to their human form. The dog-boy has to wait a year until Kummatty returns to the village to get back his human form. All ends well and Kummatty melts back into nature.

Themes

Myth and Reality

The life of the people depend very much upon myths and superstitions. Old and young believe in myths and perform mythical rituals. The old woman who tells mythical stories to children, the magician who thinks a woman’s illness is due to some supernatural influence and the people who perform ritual dances are all sources for the promotion of mythical beliefs in the society. The aspect of reality (as the outside world sees it) or more precisely, a life of reason and logic is shown in the school. Here the children are taught about ‘suffrage, micro-organisms and the like. However they are unable to associate with these abstract concepts which are totally away from their culture and place. Hence they are not interested in them. Their world is the world of myths and folktales. This is the reason why they could easily make friends with Kummatti.

Old and Young

The relationship between old and young is so prominent in the movie. Children can easily associate with the old woman and Kummatti than they can with the elders like their parents and teachers. The two (old and young) also share similar stories and they live in a world totally different from the world of others.

The Dangerous Aspects of Myths

Myths exist in different cultures and are therefore culture specific. According to Simone de Beauvoir, French feminist, myths are stories which will be used to explain some inexplicable phenomena and sometimes will be used to represent reality itself. But in the process of representing reality, myths happen to overtake reality and are often transformed into absolute truth. In the movie we see how myth affects Chindan’s life after his decision to make a close connection with Kummatty. He then realizes the price to pay for truly believing in myths and for taking them seriously. On the process of getting acquainted with the strange rituals and practices included in myth, which are often intrinsically associated to it, Chindan loses his human life and thereby the freedom of human life. Considering Kummatti had also warned him (Chindan) by motioning him to go away from him, it could be said that Kummatti himself was aware of the dangerous aspects of myths.

Friendliness and Hostility

The presence friendliness and hostility between reality and myth is shown in the movie on the background of education and country life. School is the place where this happens in an implicit way. There is a strong amount of friendlines that exists between the children and Kummatti and that with the children and the old woman. Explicit hostility is shown through the character of Chindan’s mother who scolds him whenever he sets out to meet Kummatti and through the black dog that chased Chindan when he was turned into a dog by Kummatti. The black dog which chased Chindan is the same dog to which Chindan threw a stone while he was on his way to meet Kummatti earlier in the movie.

Freedom and Imprisonment

There is a strong depiction on the duality of freedom and imprisonment in the film. After Chindan’s plight we see how he loses the freedom of having a human life. In the wealthy house where he was taken in (as a dog), he could experience this in its entirety. He, like most other dogs was chained for most of the time. We see Chindan understands this lack of freedom which is what finally leads him to set the parrot free. It may also symbolically mean the freedom from myths and superstitions.

Cast

• Ambalappuzha Ravunni
• Ashok Unnikrishnan
• Kottara Gopalakrishnan Nair
• Kuttyedathi Vilasini

Soundtrack

The music was composed by MG Radhakrishnan and Kavalam Narayana Panicker and lyrics was written by Kavalam Narayana Panicker.^[1][2]

Awards

• Kerala State Film Award for Best Children's Film

References

External links

• "Aravindan's profile". India Film database. Retrieved 11 April 2011. 
• Sashi Kumar (25 January 2010). "Aravindan's art". Frontline. Retrieved 11 April 2011. 
• Kummatty at the Internet Movie Database