Adoor’s film pits State against man

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">MUMBAI: A revolutionary goes to years of sleep. A man shuts himself from changes outside in the rat-trap of his home.<br />Unlike the characters from his films, Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s cinema moves on. His latest film <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Nizhal Kkuthu</span> (Shadow Kill) tells the story of a hangman, or executioner, using it as a metaphor to explore the relationship between an individual and the state.The shooting is over. Post-production work for the Indo-French co-effort will be done in Paris.<br />While relaxing during his recent stopover here, he shrugged off the tag of a ‘‘festival director’’ and doubts on the financial viability of his cinema.<br />‘‘Not one of my films has lost money. Some have done quite well at the collections. The films of people who made great compromises have bombed at the box office,’’ he says, adding, ‘‘I don’t make art films. I make it for everyone who cares, and not for the quote-unquote intellectuals.’’<br /><span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Nizhal Kkuthu </span>is the life of a young executioner in the ‘40s princely state of Travancore (the post was abolished in 1976). ‘‘These people were distanced from society because of stigma. <br />The eldest member of the family would be the hangman. Although I have referred to the hangman in<span style="" font-style:="" italic=""> Mathilukal</span>, the idea to have it as the central theme came to me on reading a small news item in a Malayalam newspaper some years ago,’’ says Gopalakrishnan. </div> </div>