“Regional” Cinema or Products of Bricolage? An Introduction to Malayalam Studio Film of the Early 1950s

Abstract

This article offers an overview of the exhibition and distribution sectors in Kerala between the late 1920s and the 1940s, and the economic and cultural considerations behind the initiatives to set up production centers within this region by the late 1940s. The incipient industry identified the “family social” as a convenient format to negotiate with the industrial and aesthetic terms set by South Indian cinema, mainly based in Madras, and the cultural demands placed on it by linguistic constituencies and elite patronage in the 1950s. The industrial constraints of small budgets and a narrow linguistic market necessitated an aesthetic that could cater to a socially and regionally mixed audience. Strategies of adapting existing popular genres like mythologicals, and subordinating these to the overarching narrative structure privileging an aesthetic of contemporaneity, enabled the early studio films to negotiate commercial and cultural pressures. Jeevithanouka (The Boat of Life; Vembu, 1951 ) is discussed as an instance where elements from popular mythologicals and stage performances were appropriated to privilege rationalist values.