Opinion Shaji N Karun, Malayalam cinema's master of shadows and silences

Indian Express

30-04-2025

In 1988, when Shaji N Karun debuted as a director, Malayalam cinema was lush with talent. Even as K G George, Bharathan and Padmarajan breathed a new storytelling confidence into the mainstream, the distinctive sensibilities of filmmakers like G Aravindan, Adoor Gopalakrishnan and John Abraham carved out a space for a parallel cinema. In what is now celebrated as the golden age of Malayalam films, Karun, who died this week at the age of 73, made a mark with films like Piravi (1988), Swaham (1994) and Vanaprastham (1999). His unique visual language — textured with shadows and silences — made him one of the most prominent representatives of Indian cinema.
Before he became a celebrated director, Karun was already a highly regarded cinematographer, collaborating with eminent filmmakers — his work with Aravindan shaping his sensibilities and teaching him, as he would say later, the expressiveness of silence. This is on full display in, for example, M T Vasudevan Nair's Manju (1983), and in Aravindan's Chidambaram (1985), the natural beauty of whose setting amplifies the desire, forbidden and fatal, that drives the plot. By the time Karun made Piravi — an Emergency-era tale of a father's wait for his missing son — he was in command of his gifts. Piravi won Best Film and Best Director at the National Film Awards that year and the Camera d'Or (Special Mention) at Cannes in 1989.