Promotné is a word that would not be worried with the filmmaker and cameraman Shaji N. Karun, who died on Monday at the age of 73 in Thiruvananthapurama after a long -term battle with cancer. Over the five decades he was active at the cinema, he made only six films and made cinematography for almost 30 films. Almost every time a camera was born, eternal paintings were born, deeply moving stories were told and films won awards on the world scene.
In G. Aravindan’s Kanchan Sita (1977), one of his first main works as a cameraman, he had to get the paintings to speak because the characters had almost any lines that would express. It was the beginning of a fertile partnership that reached its peak in Kummatta (1979), in which Shaji evocatively captured the innocence of childhood and village life in rich color pallets. The recent renewal of Kummatty with the World Cinema Film Foundation, a program created by filmmaker Martin Scorsese, has become a testimony to the timelessness of these paintings. Aravindan’s Esthappan (1979) also had some of his magical paintings.
With kg George
Most of his best works like a cameraman were in the independent and center of the road cinema that increased Malayalam cinema at the age of 80. He also created an unforgettable partnership with KG George, especially when capturing the complicated sequence of the bridge collapse in Panchavadippalam (1984) and in the depiction of the dark abdomen of the film industry in Lekhayude Maranam Aru Flashback (1983). Shaji shot Mt Vasudevan Nair’s Panchagni and Padmarajan’s Koodevid and Arappatt Kettiya Gammathil, along with Venu.
Darkness “Piravi”
After more than ten years, as a cameraman, he made his debut with Piravi (1988), a moving depiction of the real life story of his father’s search for his son, whom the police were held illegally and later murdered in an emergency. Although the filmmaker later denied the connection with the real life story of Rajan’s engineering student, the film still counts among the best images of emergency. Piravi became a monument for Malayalam and Indian cinema, won the D’Or camera at Cannes and Award Silver Leopard at the Locarno International Film Festival.
Submerged
In most of his films there was a deep sense of sadness. Swaham (1994), his second film, had a mother and a sister mourning for the loss of a young man who was a military recruitment to save the family from poverty. The film was chosen for the Palme D’Or competition at the Cannes Film Festival. Shaji scored a hat -trick in Cannes when VanaPrastham (1999) was selected to compete in the Union Ospect section in Cannes. He inspired Mohanlala to bring one of his greatest performances, as a backward artist Kathakali, whose art is pushed into darker territories, forced by tests he faced in his life.
The National Kutty Srank (2010) has turned into an interesting experiment with several stories about a dead man, opposed to the color background of Valavit Nadakam. His later works by Swapaanam (2013) and OOL (2018) could not touch the heights achieved by his first four films.
As important as his achievements as a filmmaker and cameraman, his contributions as a builder of the institution for the Malaysian film industry. Together with the film critic VK Joseph at the end of 1998, he prepared a proposal for the model for the State Academy of Keral State Chalachitra and the first such government initiative in any state in India. During the early years he continued the academy, also playing a key role in the organization of the first few editions of the International Film Festival Keral (IFFK). By the time he died, for six years, Kerala State Film Development Corporation held. Stint was disrupted by controversy after he faced criticism for the way he managed the government project to promote films of female filmmakers and those from the planned caste and planned communities of the tribes.
His last public performance was to win the JC Award. Daniel, the honor of the Kerala government for lifelong contributions to the cinema, two weeks ago in the capital. In a way, it was a suitable final for the life of the cinema.
Published – April 28, 2025 20:37
