John Abraham's 'Amma Ariyan' is a film that has been saved and restored for the Cannes Film Festival, thanks to the efforts of Shivendra Singh Dungarpur and the Film Heritage Foundation. This Malayalam film, directed by Abraham, was a collective effort funded by villages and produced by the Odessa Collective, making it a unique and challenging restoration project. The process involved bringing together scattered members of the collective, including editor Bina Paul and journalist C.S. Venkiteswaran, to grant permission for the restoration.
The restoration team faced numerous obstacles, including the lack of original materials and the physical deterioration of the available prints. The unsubtitled print became the primary source, with the subtitled one used to fill gaps. The restoration process was meticulous, with over 4,000 individual interventions made to the audio alone. The team worked closely with surviving collaborators, including cinematographer Venu and editor Bina Paul, to ensure the film's integrity was maintained.
One of the most fascinating aspects of the restoration is the film's aesthetic choices. Abraham made deliberate and unusual decisions about foley, choosing silence in many scenes where a conventional filmmaker would have layered in sound effects. This choice, according to Dungarpur, was an aesthetic decision that emphasized the visual image and created an interior noise in the viewer's mind. The restoration philosophy was one of preservation rather than correction, honoring the inherent qualities of the cinema verité style and the handheld camera technique.
'Amma Ariyan' is a film that defies easy categorization. It blends documentary and fiction through a non-linear structure, unfolding as a road film and a political elegy. Set against the backdrop of 1970s Kerala, it was shaped by its method of production and its content. The Odessa Collective raised the budget by touring villages with street plays and drum performances, and the film was conceived for a traveling cinema that would return the work to the communities that had made it possible. Abraham died shortly after completing the film, leaving behind only four films.
The restoration of 'Amma Ariyan' is a testament to the Film Heritage Foundation's commitment to preserving Indian cinema. The foundation has brought restored Indian films to Cannes for five consecutive years, and 'Amma Ariyan' is the only Indian feature with a world premiere at this year's festival. The film's contemporary relevance and universal appeal are evident in the screening requests from South America and beyond. The restoration of 'Amma Ariyan' is not just a technical achievement, but a celebration of a unique and influential film that speaks to modern audiences.
