Thiruvithamkoor, Malabar, Kerala: Speculations on the Regions in “Regional Cinema”

The category of the region, in its use as an adjective to cinema, presumes a convergence of language, culture, and geography as its ground. This article attempts to understand the dynamics of unification and difference, aggregation and disaggregation that is central to the production of the linguistic region. Focusing on cinematic practices of the early 1950s in Malayalam, it examines the conditions under which a Thiruvithamkoor (Travancore)-based film industry transforms into an industry for “unified Kerala.” Sidestepping the teleological narrative of unification, the article attends to this period as one characterized by many possible futures. The article is organized around two sets of texts. The first set comprises Chalachitra Kala (The Art of Moving Pictures) by Nagavally R.S. Kurup and Cinima (Cinema) by Moorkoth Kunhappa. Published in 1951, these were the first books on cinema to be written in the Malayalam language. I read these books to understand the differential relationship to cinema that seemed to exist within the Malayalam-speaking territories—a difference founded on the ways in which the industry was organized, publics constituted, and markets formed. The second set comprises three films—Jeevitha Nauka (1951), Neelakkuyil (1954), and Thiramala (1953). These films demonstrate how the discourse of stardom during this crucial period, between the end of the colonial regime and linguistic reorganization of states in independent India, engendered industrial and narrative assemblages that (re)constituted the imaginaries of the region.