Cinema and Politics in Kerala: The Mukhamukham Controversy

This paper revisits the cultural and political debates that the Malayalam film Mukhamukham (Face to Face, dir. Adoor Gopalakrishnan, 1984) engendered in the Kerala public sphere to explore the relationship between cinema and politics in Kerala in the 1980s. While the film, in which the rise and fall of trade union leader was central to the narrative, was heralded as a true portrayal of the state of politics in Kerala by some critics, the film was vehemently criticized by those who were sympathetic to the Left. The paper offers a detailed account of the various positions that the critics took towards the film, and Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s response to the criticisms. Identifying certain questions such as the film’s portrayal of the history of the Communist movement in Kerala, the representation of the revolutionary, and the question of cinematic realism as central in these debates, the paper discusses how the debates around the film help us make sense of the relationship between cinema and politics in Kerala.

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