Article

BioScope
The Spectral Duration 7(2) 127150
2016 Screen South Asia Trust
of Malayalam Soft-porn: SAGE Publications
sagepub.in/home.nav
Disappearance, Desire, and DOI: 10.1177/0974927616667971
http://bioscope.sagepub.com
Haunting

Darshana Sreedhar Mini

Abstract
This paper examines the spectral nature of the genre of Malayalam soft-porn that
emerged in the late 1980s but has now disappeared with rapid changes in the industry.
I argue that the memory of soft-porn bleeds into the present, as if in an attempt to
negotiate retroactively with the end of the celluloid era and to recoup the memory of
the form that has been pronounced dead and gone by the end of 2000s. By examining
the modes through which cinematic memory carries the charge of the immanent past
into the contemporary moment both in terms of narrative strategies and the physical
space of the cinema, I look at S.P. Theater in Trivandrum, the film Kanyaka Talkies and
the installation Kuliyum Mattu Scenukalum by Priyaranjan Lal, all of which reflect the
form of soft-porn as remnants of the past that haunt the present in significant ways.
S.P. Theater, located in the outskirts of the city of Trivandrum, insistently maintained
its status as a popular destination for soft-porn aficionados even after the form had
fizzled out in the industry. On the other hand, the film Kanyaka Talkies traces the life
of a fictional soft-porn theater that was converted to a Church. One of the crucial
moments in the film features the installations that would later become part of Lals
Kuliyum Mattu Scenukalum to reflect the inner contradictions in the built space of the
Church/Theater. Between the fictional rendering of the soft-porn theater in the film,
and its real variant in the form of S.P. Theater, I argue that the current cinema-scape
is marked by a lingering ghostly presence of a recently deceased film form.

Keywords
Malayalam soft-porn, theater, film exhibition, spectrality, Shakeela

Introduction
Philosophers and thinkers of time (Bergson, 1911; Deleuze, 1989) have often conceptu-
alized time as something heterogeneous, moving beyond the teleological movement of

Darshana Sreedhar Mini, University of Southern California, University Park, SCA 319 University of
Southern California Los Angeles CA 90089-2211, USA.
E-mail: mini@usc.edu
128 BioScope 7(2)

clock and calendar. Bergson, for instance, foregrounds the deeply experiential and
affective nature of duration, especially the difficulties in translating and articulating it,
without diluting it as a composite concept. Recent theorists of cinema such as Bliss
Cua Lim have drawn from these theoretical orientations to look at cinematic time and
history as something that is always haunted by this unruliness of time. In her work on
the horror cinema tradition of Philippines, Lim draws on the Bergsonian notion of time
as the the continuous progress of the past which gnaws into the future and which
swells as it advances (Lim, 2009, p. 1) to argue for a form of temporal critique that can
(overturn) the presentism of the contemporary (p. 2). While stressing the untranslat-
ability of immisicible time, Lim traces the co-existence of different temporal rhythms,
a strand that she argues is mostly played down in an urge to preserve the progressive
and calculable logic within which homogenous empty time has been prioritized in
philosophical debates on temporality. This notion of time prioritizes the concept of
unforeseeable becoming (p. 14) over the preservation of the instantaneous present
and its spatialization of time as measurable and chronological edifices. Lim fore-
grounds the messiness of temporality and helps locate the coexistence of the past,
present, and future as a continuum that refuses the precedence of any one over the
others.
Drawing from these concepts of duration and memory, my paper inspects the
modalities through which the contemporary moment revisits the lingering presence of
Malayalam soft-porn cinema of India that emerged in the celluloid decade of the 1980s.
Like the Bergsonian past, the imagination of Malayalam soft-porn draws from and
gets deflected into multiple dimensions of space and time. This ruptures the categories
of past, present, and future, opening up new modalities for the co-existence of multiple
temporalities. For tracking the ensemble of references that mobilize the past power of
soft-porn films and its negotiation with multiple publics, I look at three sites that revisit
the history of soft-porn filmsthe film Kanyaka Talkies (Dir. K. R. Manoj, 2013), S.P.
Theater in the capital city of Trivandrum, and the installation Kuliyum Mattu Scenukalum
(the shower and other scenes) by Priyaranjan Lal (created in 2013, but first exhibited
separately in 2014)all of which reflect the aura of the soft-porn moment and the
memory of the era through the figure of Shakeela, the actress who is perhaps the most
recognizable face of the genre. Crucially, at their height, soft-porn films were also
publicized as Shakeela films even when she did not feature in the cast, making her
actual screen presence a highly valued commodity. This relation to the on- and off-
screen presence of Shakeela is exemplary, as she became a vivid temporal marker both
in the narrative of Kanyaka Talkies and also in current debates on obscenity where
Shakeela stands in as a synonym for the obscene and desirable sex siren (Mini, 2015).
Between the fictional rendering of the soft-porn theater in Kanyaka Talkies, and its real
variant in the form of S.P .Theater, I argue that Keralas current cinemascape is marked
by the specter of soft-porn which gnaws into the present, like a wrinkle on the face
of Malayalam film-history. Disappearance becomes a key conceptual node in this
paper as it relates directly to the ideas of spectrality and temporality. It is not only an
industrial form that has disappeared, but an entire way of being that has been brushed
under the carpet of official film histories. Actors, directors, and even film scripts
are hard to find today, although their association to soft-porn can never really be
exorcized.
Mini 129

Soft-porn films had a flourishing base in the Malayalam language film industry for
a brief period from the 1990s, but fizzled out in a decades time. The disappearance
of soft-porn films in the early 2000s was accentuated by many factors including the
influx of Internet, inability to sustain bonds forged on informal and non-contractual
arrangements, the dwindling of theaters in the B and C circuits, and the oversaturation
of the soft-porn films, among others. But even then, it remained an absent presence,
enabling discussions on notions of temporality and cinematic memory, especially in
invoking notions of spectrality and haunting. Some historians of Malayalam cinema
have argued that there is no analytical value in reading soft-porn as a separate genre,
(Radhakrishnan, 2010) as this runs the risk of predetermining the boundaries of what
is possible within that cinema.1 While I do agree that there cannot be one predetermined
and fixed definition of any genre and that generic definitions are hardly fixed and
coherent, to say that there is no analytical value in reading Malayalam soft-porn as a
genre closes us off from seeing the possibilities within a body of films that share
remarkable similarities. Instead, I suggest that in terms of narrative structures, thematic
content, stylistic markers, and industrial aspects, soft-porn not only constitutes a genre
in itself but also allows us a way of examining a larger imagination that cuts across
media and temporalities. This offers a useful corrective to the tendency to retroactively
view soft-porn only in opposition to the mainstream Malayalam cinema, which dilutes
the specific industrial practices and distribution models that it gave rise to.
In the conversations I had with the soft-porn filmmakers, producers, and distribut-
ers, most of them mentioned that soft-porn as a phrase came to be used in the produc-
tion circles only in the 1990s, even though many journalistic articles from the 1980s
mention the term soft-porn to refer to glamor cinema made by filmmakers like
K.S. Gopalakrishnan and Crossbelt Mani.2 One can see the tension in the articulation
about the real time frame of soft-porns origins starting from Avalude Ravukal (Her
Nights, Dir. I.V. Sasi, 1978), especially because of the string of copycat productions that
came out following the success of Her Nights.3 While the circulation history of Her
Nights outside the state of Kerala with the interpolation of bits could have added to its
notoriety as a soft-porn film, there is no evidence to prove that they had any real impact
on the production of soft-porn as an industrial practice.4
Made on low-budgets, these soft-porn films incorporated female figures in the cast
of madakarania sexualized figure who is unabashed about her sexuality and uses her
charms to her advantage. While the dominant use of the term madakarani implies a
sense of fleeting sexual pleasure and voyeuristic male consumption, it can also para-
doxically stand in as a useful entry point to look at the ways gendered demarcations
and implacable desires enter the discursive space of the cinema. In soft-porn films,
one can see improvisations of the model earlier associated with the glamor cinema,
especially in the shoe-string budgets of approximately `2025 lakhs, tight production
schedules and identifiable features such as continuity errors and the use of stock
footage. In fact, the marginal zone occupied by the soft-porn films allowed them to
circumvent the certification clauses authorized by the Central Board of Film
Certification (CBFC), the nodal agency in charge of film censorship in India. The resist-
ance imbued in the process of negotiating the constraints of legality was mediated
through collaborative practices that tapped into the loopholes that allowed the censor-
ship mechanism to function in the first place. For instance, filmmakers would often
130 BioScope 7(2)

employ second writers (randam-ezhuthukar) to generate an alternate censor-script

that would be submitted to the CBFC. This specialized script would adhere to censor-
ship regulations, even at times addressing the possible oppositions that might be
raised by the committee. In some ways, these second writers functioned as ghost
writers, but the major difference, was in the ingenious construction of alternative
scripts that can be seen as variations of the one submitted to the censor board, some-
thing that my respondents referred to as Plan B and C.5 The insertion of sexually
explicit imagery in the form of bits or cut-pieces (locally known as thundu) during
exhibition is yet another mode of conveying the presence of the uncanny that can
erupt into the screen, a welcome distraction that oversteps the predictable narrative
(see Figure 1).6 Another commonly used mode of circumventing the system was to
shoot significant portions of the film in locations that are far removed from the regional
censor board office (initially in Chennai and later in Thiruvananthapuram) to take
advantage of personal connections.7 Some of these films also took advantage of the
subsidy package offered by the government-owned Chitranjali Studios, which was
meant to promote film production in Kerala, while some others made use of various
shooting locations in the neighboring state of Karnataka to avail the government
subsidy meant for films shot there.8 Soft-porn films had a wide circulation, both as
theatrical releases and in the form of DVDs, specially packaged for the diasporic
Malayali audience based in the Middle East.
The emergence of soft-porn films in Kerala in the 1990s, therefore, marked a consid-
erable shift in terms of production techniques, budgeting, themes, and distribution
patterns. Even though soft-porn shared links with earlier cultural modes of sexual
expression such as erotic stories (kambikathakal) and vernacular pulp fiction (painkili),
as a cinematic genre it only emerged during a downturn in the box-office performance

Figure 1. The projectionist discusses splicing-in the bits in Kanyaka Talkies

Mini 131

of mainstream Malayalam films. As such, it provided much needed revenue and

employment to many in the film industry, by carving out an alternative terrain of film
culture. The year 2001 marked the high tide of soft porn production, when out of the
89 films released, 57 were soft-porn sizzlers (Pillai, 2002). There were anxious responses
from the popular press and industry about how the low-budget formula of these
immensely popular films could spread low-brow taste. An article in India Today for
instance declared:

Kerala is steaming, and the reasons have nothing to do with the onset of summer. Bare
breasts, hairy chests and various other parts of the human anatomy are erupting like a rash
across the states cinema screens and the audience is literally lapping it all up in lascivious
delight, unmindful of censors and other sundry guardians of public morality. (Pillai, 1986)9

By 2005, with the rise of the digital cinema, the trend of soft-porn films started to
decline and the theaters which were earlier screening these films were either shut
down or converted into, among other things, wedding halls. But despite this decline,
the memory of soft-porn continues to bleed into the present, both in terms of narrative
and the physical space of the cinema.

The Cathedral and the Tomb: Kanyaka Talkies and the

Dying Spaces of Soft-porn
Kanyaka Talkies (2013), directed by K.R. Manoj, based on P. V. Shajikumars short story
18+ (originally published in Madhyamam in 2011 and then in book form in 2013)
looks back at soft-porn exhibition, the cultures of its circulation and different modes
of interaction that existed in the marginal space of the B and C center theaters
(see Figure 2).10 Similar to the critical success of Ashim Ahluwalias Miss Lovely (2012)
that is set in the context of the B- and C-grade films produced in Bombay, Kanyaka
Talkies too had a successful run in festival circuits including the 44th International
Film Festival of India as the opening film to the Indian Panorama and being listed by
Forbes as one of the five Indian Films to see in 2014 (Shedde, 2013). But Kanyaka
Talkies had its theatrical release only a year later in 2015, thanks to the Kerala State Film
Development Corporations recent move to promote independent cinema following
the recommendations of the Adoor Committee Report (2014) that was aimed at
fortifying the state of the film industry in Kerala; the film was subsequently released in
over five centers in Kerala. It also had a video-on-demand release via the cable
networks Kerala Vision Movies and Asianet Talkies, while also being made available
for a paid digital download via the film portal ReelMonk (see Figure 3). While the delay
in theatrical release could be attributed to the difficulties involved in securing theater
dates (an obstacle faced by many independent cinema makers) the significant time
lapse between its debut at the IFFI in 2013 and its release in 2015, paradoxically allowed
it to gather enough limelight and critical appreciation. The title Kanyaka Talkies literally
translates as Virgin Talkies and is redolent of the varied layers of memory still alive
in the avowedly dead soft-porn culture in Kerala. As a striking contrast to the cinema
viewing experience of the A circuit cinema halls, this film maps the theater culture
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Figure 2. Promotional poster for Kanyaka Talkies with names of former sex-sirens
interspersed throughout. The tagline at the top goes: Dont get too excited on
seeing this, subtly hinting that its not a soft-porn film despite these names.

Figure 3. Kanyaka Talkies for download on ReelMonk.

Mini 133

in the rural hinterland and the evocative ways the term Kanyaka, meaning virgin,
became the catch-word among the male viewers, tapping into their deepest sexual
desires and fantasies associated with the closed interiors of the theater space.
The films focus on the conversion of the theater to a space guarded by the Churchs
strict codes of morality makes it a rumination on the ways diverse beliefs and impulses,
such as, religion, guilt, desire, and sin coincide within the same space, making it by
turns profane and sacred in its connotations.
In the film, when the Gulf-returned Yakoob decides to set up Kanyaka Talkies in the
remote area of Kuyyali in the 1980s, many see him as an entrepreneur who wants to
invest his money in a profitable venture much like other Gulf returnees. But, soon the
initial business prospects and enthusiasm give way to heavy financial setbacks and
Yakoob is forced to turn to soft-porn to make up his losses. The idea of a theater being
forced to turn to soft-porn to deal with financial difficulties has actual resonances.
The 1990s was the time when even films starring superstars such as Mohanlal and
Mamooty fared badly at the box-office, forcing many theaters to screen soft-porn
films to compensate. For instance, R. Ayyappan (2001) notes that of the 73 films
released last year (2000), 21 were of the sleaze variety and most of them had covered
their cost. But among the remaining 51, there were only three hits and two just-
about hits. This is also echoed in other popular reports of the time. For instance,
M.G. Radhakrishnan notes that
in 1999, as many as 45 films bombed at the box office, with barely 10 reaping good profits []
with an estimated Rs 80-crore loss and an all-time low production of 60 films in the past year
(1999)a steep decline from 120 movies produced 15 years agothere are few options for
producers but to join the smut brigade.

Kanyaka Talkies depiction of the vicissitudes of film exhibition and strategies to deal
with losses is symptomatic of the plight of many theaters across Kerala.
The reference to the past glory of the theater looms all throughout in the conversations
that Yakoob shares with the villagers, especially in the projectionists (Saiju Kurup)
musings of the good-old days when the theater catered to the leisurely festivities of
the family audience. This portrayal of Yakoob as a Gulf-returned Malayali, is a
reference to the nouveau-riche Gulf emigrants who invested their surplus money in
soft-porn films, a phenomenon that opened up film production as an alternative
mode of business enterprise to reap profits with limited investment.11 Such financiers
contributed much to the shaping of a quasi-fictitious mode of film production by
hiding the identities of the financial backers. Money from the Gulf was often pumped
under benami funds (i.e., funds held under a fictitious name), while hiding details and
whereabouts of the investors by floating fictitious production banners.
The theater Kanyaka Talkies, which is initially portrayed as screening family
films, later becomes an exclusive space drawing male audiences across the age-
spectrum, creating a sense of male sociality, with women looking down upon the
theater as the harbinger of moral depravity. The Christian notion of guilt weighs down
Yakoobs wife and she rebels in the bedroom, only willing to resume conjugal intimacy
once the theater is shut down (see Figure 4). For Yakoobs wife, the elopement of their
first daughter serves as a timely reminder to protect familial harmony. But when
Yakoob refuses to consent to her plea to let go of his business, she becomes bitter, and
134 BioScope 7(2)

Figure 4. Yakoobs wife protests against his business.

turns to religion for solace. It is only after his second daughter elopes and his wife kills
herself that the remorseful Yakoob shuts down the theater. Weighed down by guilt, he
hands it over to the diocese as a last attempt to cleanse himself of sin. In this fictional
logic, Yakoobs association with soft-porn films is pitted against the tenets of religion
and ethical uprightness, and his moral decay and the disintegration of his family are
linked to an obsessive love for cinema. This obsession is suggested in an early part of
the film, for instance, when Yakoob is confronted about showing soft-porn films by
some co-passengers and retorts that the cinema business is the only thing he knows
and loves. Later, after he shuts down the theater, Yakoob is still associated with cinema
as a distributor. Therefore, in some ways, the tag of soft-porn does not deter Yakoob
from the business he loves dearly, as for him it is after all, a form of cinema.
A crucial aspect of Kanyaka Talkies is the transmedia mode of storytelling that under-
lies its production and the bringing together of varied artifacts associated with the
memory of soft-porn films. For instance, Shaji Kumars 18+, the short story that
became the inspiration for the film, drew on the changing vicissitudes of Kanyaka
Talkies, a real theater based in the district of Kasargod that screened soft-porn films
in the 1990s.12 Even while he uses the cultural memory of the real Kanyaka Talkies, in
18+ Shaji Kumar attempts to reflect on the larger disappearance of theaters that were
closed down or converted into other spaces in recent past. In fact, like in Kanyaka Talkies
there were actual soft-porn theaters that were later converted to Churches, as, for
instance, one located in the district of Wayanad that became another real-life reference
for the film. In one of the earliest screenings of the film in 2013 at the International Film
Festival of Kerala, there were viewers who shared the memory of their film viewing
experiences during the discussion session, and echoed experiences similar to the one
captured in the film.13 The limited initial circulation of Kanyaka Talkies within the
festival circuit and the delay in its theatrical release in many ways contributed to
its framing as a fictocritical14 account of the soft-porn eraa serious attempt at
historicizing, by a filmmaker whose credentials also lent the film its cultural value.15
Mini 135

In its attempt at historicizing, Kanyaka Talkies thus brings into play, an array of real
references that function to link different moments when the imagination of soft-porn
struck chords in the collective memory of Keralas public space.
This is hinted at during the opening credits of the film that intersperse the visuals
of old equipment and dilapidated interiors alongside the conversation between the
projectionist and the projector repairman. This provides an interesting framing device
inviting the viewers to have a last glimpse of the old technology before it is dismantled
for good. The concentrated gaze of the projector repair-technician as he scrutinizes the
worn-out equipment is accompanied by the anxious response of the projectionist, who
brushes his hands against the musty exteriors of the film canisters. This tactile gesture
is imbued with the intimate feel the projectionist has toward the equipment, a gesture
that is colored by the realization that change is inevitable and the obsolete technology
and celluloid culture would soon give way to the digital. But, quite unexpectedly, it
is not the influx of new technology that signals the demise of Kanyaka Talkies, but its
conversion to a Church. Yakoobs reconciliation to the loss of his family is expressed in
his making amends by contributing to the diocese. Notwithstanding his religious faith,
Yakoob emulates the course of action a true Christian would take when he is shown
the right path and brought back to the fold. Yakoob treats the cinema like a mistress
who he belatedly turns down to appease the rightfully wedded wife and restore peace
and stability in the normative family.
In spite of Yakoobs bid to remove the last traces of the erogenous air of soft porn by
selling the film projector and other equipment to scrap dealers, and his own physical
departure from Kuyyali, the shards of memory associated with soft-porn films refuse
to die and their spectral presence comes to haunt the space in which it was housed.
Even the priest who is assigned the task to motivate the believers to strengthen their
faith is faced with the prospect of strange and inexplicable happenings. Not only does
he observe the disruption of the mass by an unseen third party, moans of love making
evoke repressed desires and stir doubts about the capacity of his faith to withstand
sinful thoughts. While he strives to meditate and recover a steadfast sense of purpose
to vanquish deviant thought and redeem sin, he becomes entangled in an existential
crisis prompted by this encounter with the uncanny. When Father Michael visits
a psychiatrist for therapy, a discourse of reason takes over from that of faith: in the
process of talking about his disturbing thoughts, Father Michael begins to relate to
Yakoob, who he has not met, but whose absence had triggered off his psychological
crisis. He decides to plunge into a search mission for Yakoob, starting with a visit to
the distributor whom Yakoob has been in touch with after he had left the village.
The aural environment evokes spatial memory, the theater emerging as a haunted
space that brings back repressed desires to unsettle the normal scheme of things.
Elements of scattered memory associated with soft-porn films resonate in a wide
ensemble of stock sounds, suggesting seduction and orgasm. The soundtrack of the
actresses voices and dialogs culled from soft-porn films creates a parallel world that
collapses time as Father Michael hears them whisper from their past into his present.
Interestingly, one of the acknowledgments in the final credit sequence of the film
proclaims

some sound elements in this film have been created through a process of sampling of existing
pieces or sound recordings/tracks and layering them with other sounds/tracks. The idea
136 BioScope 7(2)

behind sampling is to create greater awareness about the marginal areas in the history of Indian
cinema. (emphasis mine)

Sound thus becomes the means by which haunting takes place; the confrontation of
the priest with the soundscape of soft-porn films is akin to the Deleuzian notion of
crystal image that shapes time as a constant two-way mirror that splits the present into
two heterogeneous directions, one of which is launched towards the future while the
other falls into the past (Deleuze, 1989, p. 81). This oscillation between the different
temporal moments the priest is confronted with, through the soundtrack is uncannily
similar to what Deleuze calls the vanishing limit between the immediate past which
is already no longer and the immediate future which is not yet (p. 81). The priest takes
these aural hallucinations as an affront to his vows of celibacy, as seen, for instance, in
the scene where he visits the psychiatrist in which he says that he hears that which
a priest like him should never hear. This sonic encounter enables us to revisit the
exhibition practices of soft-porn films in two ways. First, there is the logic of interrup-
tion that motivates the use of the cut-piece in soft-porn exhibition. Just as the cut-piece
or thundu arrives in the cinematic experience at unprecedented moments, the priests
aural hallucinations also start at unexpected moments and venues. But, more impor-
tantly, it is the sonic register that creates the impacteven though it is the insertion of
the cut-piece that is seen as an immediate mark of identification of soft-porn films,
Kanyaka Talkies refers to this only in passing and instead lays greater emphasis on the
role of the soundtrack in creating the erotic landscape.
In Kanyaka Talkies this strategic restructuring of the soundscape enables the confla-
tion of heterogeneous temporalities as the aural medium becomes the interconnection
to link the pastness of the recorded event with the presentness of the viewing (Totaro,
1999). The importance of this soundscape is foregrounded in Kanyaka Talkies very early
on where the sound assumes a dynamic character, as it is mapped onto frontal shots of
viewers watching porn films in the theater. Therefore, in Kanyaka Talkies there is a
displacement of the visual register of eroticism (which is perhaps the more popularly
known facet of soft-porn cinema) by its distinct aural character. At the same time, this
strategic use of sound also creates both a sense of temporal disjunction, and the
expectation of dramatic turns in the narrative.16
Interestingly, the projection room of the theater is retained as a warehouse even
after the rest of the building is renovated to accommodate the demands of the church.
This liminal space that houses the discarded stuff of the theater takes on a completely
new resonance in the film. In some ways then, the warehouse takes on a quality that
Anthony Vidler (1992) calls the architectural uncanny. For Vidler, the architectural
uncanny is a representation of a mental state of projection that precisely elides the
boundaries of the real and the unreal in order to provoke a disturbing ambiguity,
a slippage between waking and dreaming (p. 11). In Kanyaka Talkies the interior of the
warehouse is shown only at the end (except for the flashback scenes when it was used
as a projection room), while the locked doors are shown time and again in scenes with
Father Michael. The shots of the door that return Father Michaels troubled gaze draw
our attention to the space of the warehouse/projection room as a space of doubling
that, in Vidlerian vein provokes a disturbing ambiguity. Crucially, it is through the
abandoned projection room and the medium of Yakoob, rather than psychotherapy
Mini 137

that Father Michael believes that he can achieve closure to his hallucinatory sensations.
Like an exorcism ritual where the contact with the netherworld can only happen
via the shaman, in this sequence, the encounter with the past is facilitated by Yakoob.
It is only after Yakoob arrives that the locked doors are opened and any possibility
of redemption emerges. The sequence that follows Father Michaels entry into the
projection room along with Yakoob is perhaps the most striking sequence in the whole
film, featuring a monumental image of Shakeela projected on the wall (see Figure 5).
This image is rendered iconic by the beams of light that are simulated as projecting out
of the actress visage. In some ways, this almost seems to return the unilateral gaze
of the audience as Shakeela seems to emerge as a demi-goddess answering the
worshippers prayer. Father Michaels face is also shown framed by strips of celluloid,
as if to suggest that it is soft-porn cinema itself that has been haunting him all throughout
(see Figure 6). This is followed by a multi-media projection of animated images where
Shakeela appears with other sex sirens like Silk Smitha, Reshma, Maria, and others
riding on a horse, with the faces changing as the horse gallops along (see Figure 7).17
The multi-media projection that was used in this instance was commissioned for the
film, but was developed as a part of a larger project by the graphic designer Priyaranjan
Lal. Lal says The installations were conceptualized as a timely intervention to counter
the neat narratives which structure the history of Malayalam cinema.18 In fact, another
installation showcases a hundred bath scenes from various soft-porn films that could
be viewed through peep-holes, as if to emphasize the voyeuristic fantasy associated
with these films (see Figure 8). Another installation featured the faces of several sex-
sirens or madakarani figures from Malayalam cinema on cylindrical posts that were
lit from the inside (see Figure 9). Interestingly, these actresses were not all soft-porn

Figure 5. The Shakeela image from Lals installation used in Kanyaka Talkies.
Image courtesy: Priyaranjan Lal.
138 BioScope 7(2)

Figure 6. Father Michael framed by strips of celluloid.

Figure 7. Silk Smitha on the animated horse, a part of Lals installation also used in the film.
Image courtesy: Priyaranjan Lal.
Mini 139

Figure 8. The bathing-scenes installation used in the film.

Figure 9. Another installation by Lal featuring the faces of actresses on lit

cylindrical tubes. This one was not used in the film but was exhibited at the Kochi
Biennale in 2015.
140 BioScope 7(2)

actresses but were mostly starlets like the actresses Jyothilekshmi and Sadhana who
had short stints in the industry. Along with the animated horse imagery, the multitude
of faces that pepper the installations seems to suggest a longer history of sexualized
fantasies related to women actresses, of which Shakeela is only a part. These installations
were crafted by Lal as a rejoinder to the centenary celebrations of Indian cinema.
All the video installations were exhibited under the title Kuliyum Mattu Scenukalam
(the shower and other scenes) as a part of the 100-Day Artist Cinema section curated
by the film critic C.S. Venkiteswaran, at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale in January 2015.
Even though the installation was publicized as being commissioned as a part of
Kanyaka Talkies, only parts of it were used in the film. In this sense, Lals work functions
as a complementary artistic conversation with the filma facet of its fictocritical and
transmedial storytelling, with some passages of Kuliyum Mattu Scenukalam punctuating
Kanyaka Talkies narrative. Such installations and multimedia images are an interesting
departure from the original short story, where the image of Shakeela or for that matter,
any other specific actress is not so central to the narrative. In 18+ the priest only hears
the voices of actresses and the soundtrack of soft-porn films, with no investment in
the inner workings of the film industry as such.
There is another significant deviation in the film in addressing the transformation
of the priest after his encounter with the apparition of soft-porn. If in 18+, the priest
is shown to have realized that he is as susceptible to desires as anyone else and becomes
a connoisseur of soft-porn, Kanyaka Talkies unravels the contradictory impulses that
leave the priest in a state of dismay.19 The concluding sequence of the film was
rewritten more than thrice, as the scriptwriters had to keep in mind the controversies
it might provoke in the Christian community, who might not appreciate the fact
that priests, despite the vows of celibacy, could be susceptible to worldly desires.20
In 18+, the priest, introspecting on his deviance, muses that whatever one fears, it
comes to haunt you (Kumar, 2013, p. 40) introducing a new layer of meaning to the
repressed desires that manifest in his hallucinations. The slippage between the hallu-
cinations and the moment he presently inhabits creates an eerie sense. Both in the film
and the short story, hallucinatory sounds shape a new perceptual terrain for Father
Michael, as dialogs from soft-porn films punctuate his thought while delivering his
address at mass and while hearing confessions.21 It is also crucial at this point to look
at the affective investment which both 18+ and Kanyaka Talkies hint at in Yakoobs
return to Kuyyali which cures the priest of his incurable sleeplessness. In a seemingly
magical realist twist in 18+, P.V. Shaji compares Yakoob to Melquades who revisits
Macondo in The Hundred Years of Solitude (1967),22 foregrounding the trope of return
that conjoins the complexity of time and the repetition of history.
While the film has an expansive repertoire of references, it is primarily motivated
by a discourse that seeks to complicate perceptions about soft-porn films. On the one
hand, Kanyaka Talkies takes recourse to conventional moralist narrative strategies,
incorporating the side-story of a home-nurse, Ancy who aspires to become an actress,
to comment on the production aspects of soft-porn films. Ancy is duped by a production
assistant who casts her in soft-porn films against her wishes and circulates erotic shots
of her (see Figure 10). The films narrative here conforms to the understanding retailed
by mainstream industry and cultural purists that soft-porn films are low-budget
films that exploit women to reap quick profits. The film also refers to multi-media
Mini 141

Figure 10. Ancy is introduced to the underbelly of the film-industry.

messaging service (MMS) and the ways sexually explicit material is circulated as short
clips that can be easily transferred and shared over the Internet or via cell phones.
While Shaji Kumars 18+ situates the story within the time period of 1980s, Kanyaka
Talkies leaves out any mention of its periodicity, except to the fleeting shots of the
posters of films released in 2013 (such as Mumbai Police, Dir. Rosshan Andreews) on the
walls in the background as Ancy waits to meet her agent. The question that arises is
whether the removal of the periodicity is an intended move or is it in tune with the
temporal conflations that soft-porn as a form is susceptible to. Even if we account for
the film makers discretion in not including the temporal marker, another question
that this raises is with respect to the use of MMS porn in the film, a device that it
mobilizes to refer to the circulation of the sex-scenes of Ancy among the young men in
the locality, transferred and shared via the local mobile phone recharge shop. If we
consider a hypothetical scenario that the implied suggestion in Kanyaka Talkies is still
the late 1980s as in 18+, then the reference of MMS might be anachronistic at best.
The use of the term MMS porn to refer to amateur pornography shot with cell phone
cameras and circulated online and over cellular services came into vogue only after
2004 with the Delhi Public School scandal.23 The anachronistic incorporation of MMS
porn within the narrative enables a move beyond the fixity and temporal exclusion
that otherwise marks the logic of linearity, that is, of the moment of soft-porn being
replaced by that of MMS. Therefore, the move to situate soft-porn alongside MMS
not only unsettles the periodicity and causality that governs the historical enquiry into
the industrial subterfuges that went into the making and circulation of these forms,
but also render the need to work against the spatialization of time.
The films incorporation of Ancys victim narrative frames the history and produc-
tion of soft-porn as an exploitative and non-consensual arrangementa position
espoused by cultural purists who bemoaned soft-porn to be the causal factor for the
crisis Malayalam cinema faced in the 1990s. Needless to say, many of these accounts
do not even attempt to consider soft-porn as an industrial form in itself or found it in
142 BioScope 7(2)

any way relevant to look closely at the processes through which soft-porn films were
produced, distributed, and exhibited. In stark contrast to the narratives of exploitation
of the actresses involved in the films, many of my interviewees who were part of
soft-porn production had a completely different take when asked whether the produc-
tion shots were procured against the wish of the actors and actresses involved.
Thrikunapuzha Vijaykumar, one of the film makers who had dabbled in soft-porn,
said:

Even though we had access to many intimate shots of the actresses that could have fetched
us a good price, we never sold them as bits. There were a few actresses whom we regularly
worked with and nobody thought of breaching the trust through any kinds of exposure.
After all we all worked for our livelihood and there was a clear sense of camaraderie among
the cast and crew and no one wanted to compromise that.24

While it is true that most of the accounts on soft-porn production were speculative at
best, owing to the difficulties involved in tracking the personnel behind the making of
these films, this relative sense of quasi-anonymity was seen as beneficial by many who
worked in the industry. On the other hand, more than one of my respondents spoke of
how unused shots of Shakeela were recycled for other films.25 The recycling of unused
shots subsequently marked the death knell for the industry as the same shots came to
be rehashed for multiple productions. The actresses who were part of these films
disappeared from the cinemascape and some of them intermittently showed up in
news columns where their personal lives were compared to the story-lines of many of
the films they were part of.26 Thus, even when soft-porn films made it to video-sharing
sites and sites that host pornographic material tagged as Mallu Aunty films or Hot
South Indian films, there were multiple temporalities that these video clips inhabit.
The insertion of the imagination of the Mallu Aunty bits or the Hot South Indian
bits into the space of the digital is but a manifestation of a nostalgic impulse, for these
phrases and figures belong to the weathered era of celluloid. Yet, their insertion
into the digital playground testifies to the ways in which they persist as stubborn,
un-erasable residues of the peak of the soft-porn era. For instance, one wonders how
the word bit translates in the digital economy which is composed of fragments in
any case and the sense of disruption that characterizes theatrical bits might not apply
in the same way in case of a pornographic website that is built around distraction.

The Phantom Theater: Between the Fictional and Real

While Kanyaka Talkies provides an important segue into the discussion of the recently
deceased spaces of soft-porn exhibition, the case of S.P. Theater, a theater that had a
history of screening soft-porn films, perhaps offers us a close non-fiction equivalent.
While Kanyaka Talkies sutures its account of the fate of the soft-porn theaters through
references to real theater spaces, it is the interior of the space of S.P. Theater in the
locality of Peyad in Trivandrum that stood in for the soft-porn theater in the film
(see Figure 11). The film prominently uses the projection equipment and the projection
room at S.P. Theater as a trace of the real space, even though the previous history of
Mini 143

Figure 11. The projection room in S.P Theater (top)

and the projection room used in the film (bottom).

the theater has uncanny resemblances to the plot of Kanyaka Talkies in many ways.
Even though, I had extended conversations with the director about the nitty-gritties
involved in conceptualizing the film, the presence of S.P. Theater in the film was not
foregrounded much. It was a passing reference by Jayesh L.R., the production executive
of Kanyaka Talkies, that drew my attention to the real theater space in which the film
was shot. Even though S.P. Theater finds mention in the closing credits as a shooting
location, the crucial significance that the space of the theater had in the overall film
was never foregrounded in publicity or otherwise. Reminiscing about the shoot at the
theater, Jayesh recounts:

Except a few production people, the technicians and the cast had no clue about the history of
the real soft-porn theater that was our shooting site. But, as the time progressed we were
fascinated by the accounts from the residents nearby. Some of them even thought that the
story of the film was inspired by the theatre. It was indeed true that Shakeela films were part
and parcel of the film culture of Peyad, and at one point S.P. Theater was jokingly referred to
as being located in Shakeela junction.

When S.P. Theater started off in 1980, it catered to family audiences. There were even
instances when it doubled as a place of religious congregation. Prominent devotional
films were re-released in S.P. Theater when it was started, including Snapaka Yohannan
(Directed by P. Subramanyam, 1963), which was based on a Biblical tale and Swamy
144 BioScope 7(2)

Ayyappan (Directed by P. Subramanyam, 1975), based on the Hindu deity Ayyappan.

Both films invited religious devotees and the theater became a site of much worship
and prayer. As the first theater in the locality of Peyad and with no theaters in the
vicinity for the next 10 years, Gladys, the theater owner, reaped enough profits to
stop renting projectors and buy his own equipment. Like the fictional Kanyaka
Talkies, it was the crisis of the 1990s that forced Gladys to start screening soft-porn.
When I visited S.P. Theater in June 2014, I was surprised to see that the space
had become a venue for a Pentecostal prayer service (see Figure 12). The devotees
comprising men, women, and children wearing white dresses and carrying Bibles
were certainly surprised to have an intruder entering the sacrosanct space. When I was
asked about the purpose of my visit, I thought it to be only wise and strategic not to
share with them my not-so-pure intentions, which involved tracking the history of
a theater that had been cheekily called a sperm bank.27 There is thus, a strange way
in which the real space of S.P. Theater seemed to mirror the fate of the fictional
theater in Kanyaka Talkiesboth becoming spaces of religious congregation. It is
perhaps fitting then, that the narrative of Kanyaka Talkies deals with an exorcism of
the suppressed ghosts of the soft-porn years. If the theater in the film became a haunted
space where the specters of actresses past screamed out to the living, the actual space
of S.P. Theater was home to a slightly different form of haunting, as the theater closed
to the public shortly after the shoot of Kanyaka Talkies, on June 18, 2013. At a time of
declining popularity of soft-porn, S.P. Theater had proved to be a resilient force. While
the majority of Shakeela camps (theaters which screened Shakeela films) either
came clean and began to screen mainstream films or convert to marriage halls,
S.P. Theater retained its tag as a soft-porn theater and survived for a good 10 years.
The demands for upgradation to digital format wiped out the remaining B and C
circuit theaters, but S.P. Theater continued to cater to regular customers until 2013
without going digital. Till it was shut, S.P. Theater remained the only theater where
older soft-porn films were projected, with a large number of patrons visiting it out of

Figure 12. Advertisement of a Pentecostal service outside the S.P Theater structure (left) and
the former owner, Gladys with defunct equipment in the picture on the right.
Mini 145

sheer nostalgia. Apart from being a favorite hangout of male film-goers, it was also a
part of the local hub of entertainment for many regular patrons of the theater. Many
recounted the presence of a road-side tea shop which sprung up after the theater
became a hot spot to cater to the crowd during the interval, the short break of five
minutes. In fact, both the intervals interruption of the narrative, and the splicing in of
the erotic cut-piece were carefully calibrated to suit both the projectionist and the tea
stall owner. Since most films screened at S.P. Theater were only of one and a half hour
duration unlike the mainstream feature film length of two and a half hours, it was the
projectionist who decided when to break for the five-minute interval. Nanukuttan,
who had run the canteen for S.P. Theater for more than 20 years, narrated how he had
to poke the projectionist to remind him of the interval:

The canteen was on the side of the exit door and diametrically opposite to the projectionists
room. I was in one way the link between the projectionist and the audience. I waited for
the jeers and hoots from the audience demanding thundu (cut-piece), some of whom would
come to the canteen to whine about the repetition of the film of the same type and lack of
interesting stories.28

Nanukuttans intervention on behalf of the audience might not always translate as

a fruitful one as the insertion of thundu was not after all an arbitrary exercise, but a
carefully planned one. Speaking about old times, Vasu, one of the apprentices who
was perceived as the cut-piece expert among the B circuit cinemas, said:

It is the projectionist who has the final say as to when and where thundu could be spliced in.
He has to be good at his job, and inserting/splicing isnt as mechanical as people might think.
We try various options to achieve an effect on the viewers, sometimes really whacky ones.29

The location of S.P. Theater in the outskirts of the city had helped Gladys get substantial
returns from the sale of tickets. The theater came under B circuit classification, which
meant the entertainment tax slab was much lower than the A center theaters. Balcony
and front circles cost `10 and `7, respectively. Augmented by the profit-sharing
arrangements forged with the distributors, the business was a lucrative one. For Gladys
the day when the theater was shut down remains still fresh in his memory. He recounts:

While I knew all along that like all clandestine deals, this also has to come to an end, it was
difficult to think of a day when I would wind it up for good. On June 18, 2013, when the
decision was taken to wind up my business, I decided not to mourn the parting, but to make
the last day of the theater an eventful one. The evening show was shown free and I invited
my regular viewers to participate. I still have the last entry of the collection and the ticket
stubs.30

My encounter with Gladys was a crucial moment in my research as he was one of

my few respondents who were willing to take me down the memory lane of the time
when soft-porn flourished in Kerala. Methodologically, this was crucial as the veil of
anonymity cast over such productions made any attempts to find the real personnel
behind the making and distribution of these films, next to impossible. Barring a
few prominent directors and some actresses such as Shakeela, Reshma, and Maria,
the arena of soft-porn cinema was flooded by pseudonyms or names of lost or
146 BioScope 7(2)

disappeared actresses. In spite of the availability of many of these films in DVD format
and uploads in many media-sharing sites and even sites exclusively meant for
Malayalam pornography, there is a strange way in which the details of the production,
including the technicians, production banner, and even the shooting locations are hard
to come by. Curiously, for a form that was so popular, references to my object of study
were everywhere and nowhere at the same time: soft-porn as a form is predisposed to
spectrality. But, what has been interesting in my interactions with Gladys is how we
reconnected with many technicians, distributors, and exhibitors whom both of us had
known at different points in time. Sharing memories and information, we found,
uncannily, as in the manner of a play with shadows and mirrors, that some of Gladys
close associates were also my respondents. It was through Gladys and the connections
he had, that I could put together the last piece of the puzzle of their careers. Gladys
became excited when I showed him my field diaries, in which I had sketched rough
diagrams to link what appeared to be disparate connections. The recollections set in
motion by my own research triggered a moment of remembrance for Gladys as he
revisited his stint with soft-porn. In turn, a register of collective remembrance emerged,
when Gladys invited a few people from the locality of Peyad to share their recollection
of the heydays of the theater. While many of them remember how S.P. Theater was a
vibrant space where local men gathered for chit-chat, others evoked their viewing
experience through interesting anecdotes of the cinemas exhibition practices. Even
after the cinemas closure, there were times when men who visited the locality of
Peyad, made a stop-over at the theater to breathe the air of the old times.31 Therefore,
despite its metamorphosis into a prayer-hall, the built structure of S.P. Theater
continues to haunt its patrons, conjuring up memories of another time, when the space
was emblematic of a thriving cinematic culture.

Conclusion
When I met Gladys in the beginning, we were both ignorant of the intersecting histo-
ries that connected us. Gladys had no clue that the plot-line of Kanyaka Talkies that was
shot in his theater shared close similarity to the history of many theaters of the time,
including his. On seeing the photograph of Shakeela in the projection room, I initially
thought that the photo was a remnant that was left hanging after the film shoot, espe-
cially since it was prominently used as a publicity material for Kanyaka Talkies. When
asked whether this was part of the production design of the film, Gladys sent for his
son to get a photo-album that showcased the varied phases of the theater. One of the
photographs that had the same Shakeela image was taken in the 1990s, something that
Gladys referred to as his Shakeela phase. Gladys showed me this photograph as
evidence that proved that the Shakeela image was part of the theaters topography for
a long time. However, it was his use of the phrase Shakeela phase that struck me the
most, especially as a suggestive remark on the spectrality of soft-porn. S.P. Theater no
longer screens soft-porn, but the history of the theater signified in that image will be
retained even when the same space will be converted to the wedding hall.32 The physi-
cal space of S.P. Theater then itself begins to take the form of a palimpsest with multi-
ple layers of use, motivation, and experience etched into its skin. Curiously it is not the
Mini 147

spatialization of time that is at work here as in the homogenous notion of time, but a
temporalization of space that harks back to the Bergsonian notion of a duration that
gnaws into the present. In conclusion, there are perhaps two senses in which the dura-
tion of soft-porn is spectral. First, being always everywhere and nowhere, buried
beneath the surface of a respectable film history, soft-porn cinemas predilection to
anonymity and disappearance makes it fertile ground for the release of spectral images
in its afterlife. And second, as a form that is recently deceased, the residue of soft-porn
culture in the contemporary haunts Malayali public culture in a sort of a phantom-
porn syndrome, whose spirit is conjured up both in recent debates and controversies
around obscenity (as, for instance, in the case of the recent reality TV show Malayalee
House which was likened to a Shakeela Film) and in the discussions around
the actual spaces of screening. To be sure, in both these sense, there is a specter truly
haunting Malayalam film historythe specter of soft-porn cinema.

Notes
1. In his essay Soft Porn and the Anxieties of the Family Radhakrishnan writes: I suggest
that there does not exist an aesthetic or formal or even thematic category called soft porn
that will be of any analytical value to us. What I mean is that any attempt at studying
cinema (and even other forms for that matter) that tries to start from a fixed category of
genre as a pre-determined and always already constituted category will have to encounter
problems that such a fixing throws up. Such a move that is so common among critics
and film historians, tries to bank on the common sense about these films and to imagine
a universe of texts that could be, without much difficulty, clubbed together (Pillai, 2010,
pp. 195196).
2. For instance, the Maharashtra Herald article titled Soft-porn Film Stopped dated September
9, 1983 refers to the attempts to disrupt the screening of the Malayalam film The Crazy
Lady at the Odeon Theatre in New Delhi by the womens groups and by Delhi Malayali
Association alleging the film to be distasteful to the Malayali sensibilities.
3. In Re-viewing Her Nights: Modes of Excess in Indian Cinema (2011), Navaneetha Mokkil
Maruthur refers to the citational practice in the 1980s after the success of Her Nights when
there was a string of soft-porn films with the term rathri (night) in their titles. She reads this
as evidence of the impact Her Nights had on the emergence of soft-porn as a genre (p. 279).
While she does not go in depth into tracking the relationship between Her Nights and the
emergence of soft-porn as a genre, at another point she also questions the status of soft-porn
as a stable category since it is a shifting category formed through modes of circulation and
exhibition (p. 276). Thus the temporal tension between the industrial and the journalistic
usages of the term can be seen in the writings on soft-porn as well.
4. Interview with directors A.T. Joy (September 2013), Thrikunapuzha Vijaykumar (July 2013),
Dubai Mani (August 2013), Nagarajan (production manager, October 12, 2013), Gladys
(theater owner, June 10, 2013), and Shakeela (actress, July 14, 2016).
5. Interview with Nagarajan (production manager), on October 12, 2013 in Chennai.
6. This is very similar to the cut-piece phenomenon in Bangladesh that has been studied by
Lotte Hoek (2013).
7. For instance, Aadyapaapam (Dir. P. Chandrakumar, 1988), provides a good example of how
this circumvention was possible. Aadyapapam was an early precursor to soft-porn films,
utilizing the image of Adam and Eve to deal with issues of human sexuality and was also
the first Malayalam film to show a woman naked. The film had direct releases in four
languages: Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam, and Hindi and was a huge box office hit. It had only
three scenes which had dialogs. Shot in the forests of Karnataka, it also availed the subsidy
148 BioScope 7(2)

worth rupees one and a half lakhs offered by the Karnataka state government to develop
film production in the state. There was also another reason why Karnataka was selected for
the shooting location. One of the censor board members who had agreed to help them with
the certification was transferred to Karnataka. Therefore, it was unforeseen coincidences
which paved way to Karnataka being the location. It was a limited crew of 12 members who
left for Karnataka in a car and a van (interview with P. Chandrakumar on October 27, 2013
in Trivandrum).
8. This is a close parallel to the circumvention of censorship in other cinemas such as that of
Brazil. For instance, in Beyond Cinema Novo (1979) Robert Stam and Randal Johnson note
the ways in which Brazilian filmmakers of the late 1960s and the early 1970s took recourse to
political allegory while adhering to a popular cannibal-tropicalist discourse of Brazilian
art that originally sought to create something unique via cultural fusion. However, this was
often taken to its literal extreme through tropes of madness and cannibalism, for example, in
Nelson Pereira dos Santos The Alienist (1970) and How Tasty was my Frenchman (1971) where
political critique was buried underneath dark comedy. In doing so, Brazilian filmmakers
of the time straddled the boundaries of co-operative, politically oriented filmmaking while
still maintaining some form of popular appeal.
9. Pillais pronouncements that these films were unmindful of censors present us with a
paradox here. While these films certainly did push the boundaries of censor tolerance in
terms of sexually charged narratives and imagery, these often emerged as unpredictable
moments of sexual flourish through the use of cut-pieces or would be hidden behind the
garb of sex-education films. This latter tendency had its precedent in one of first sex
education films made by Sasta productions. Co-directed by S. Kumar and P. R. S. Pillai,
the film was titled Cancerum Laingika Rogavum (Cancer and Sexually Transmitted Diseases,
1981). The film became widely popular as a medical film and was bought by the Department
of Health a few years after its release and also won the Kerala state government special
award for primarily educational and informative short film. It was censored in Madras
and was issued the S certificate by a committee which had more than five medical
practitioners, but it opened the doors for exploiting the tag of sex-education for a host of
titillating films.
10. In India, the theaters where the films are exhibited are broadly divided into A, B, and
C centers. While the A center, otherwise known as the release center had the privilege
of screening the new films, B and C center theaters had to wait till the films finish
with the initial run in the A center theaters. There are many factors which culminated in
classifying a particular theater according to these categories, including the nature of seating
arrangements, capacity of the hall, and most importantly the locality of the theater.
11. Interview with Dubai Mani, taken in Chennai on August 20, 2013.
12. Telephonic interview with Shaji Kumar on June 15, 2014.
13. Interview with Jayesh in Trivandrum on June 3, 2014.
14. I use the term fictocritical in the sense that David Levi Strauss and Michael Taussig
(2005) uses it, describing it as a form of writing that seeks to turn the attention of the
reader to the very act of writing as an anthropological or cultural act which engages
with the desire to succumb to authority in general, and to colonial or postcolonial tropes
in particular.
15. K. R. Manojs earlier works include the National award winning documentaries 16 mm:
Memories, Movement and a Machine (2007) that traces the relationship between film society
movement in Kerala and its relationship with the 16-mm film projector and A Pestering
Journey (2010) that maps the history of the Endosulphan tragedy.
16. In relation to this, Michael Chion (1994) notes that sound in cinema does not have an
additive value (5) as popularly perceived. Rather than approaching cinematic sound as
Mini 149

something that embellishes the cinematic image, Chion argues for the equal importance of
sound in creating the cinematic experience, or what he calls audio-vision. Chion writes,
We never see the same thing when we also hear; we dont hear the same thing when
we see as well (p. xxvi). In stressing on this symbiotic relationship between sound and
image, Chion also raises an important point about the influence of sound in the perception
of time. For Chion sound temporalizes the image by rendering detail in the image, by
suggesting chronology or by dramatizing the image by creating a feeling of imminence
and expectation (pp. 1314).
17. Priyaranjan Lal says that the horse imagery is a direct homage to the art of cinema itself,
being inspired by Eadwerd Muybridges famous series of photographs The Horse in
Motion (1878) that is widely recognized as one of the precursors to the moving image
(Interview with Priyaranjan Lal on January 8, 2015).
18. Interview with Priyaranjanlal in Kochi on January 8, 2015.
19. This works a little differently in the story than the film. The story 18+ offers a neat closure
by portraying Father Michael as being cured completely, although he then becomes addicted
to soft-porn. The film avoids this ending, opting instead for a more abstract, symbolic
ending in which Father Michael wanders among the ruins of an abandoned Church on the
seashore.
20. Interview with Shaji Kumar, June 15, 2014.
21. In the short story, this is portrayed interestingly, by describing a sequence at mass where
Father Michael unknowingly utters lines from the dialogs of soft-porn films during the
service.
22. The actual lines go: just as Melquades cured the people of sleep deprivation by revisiting
Marcondo, Father Michael regains his health and sanity, when Yakoob visits the second day
and touches him (Kumar, 2000: my translation).
23. The DPS MMS Scandal as it popularly came to be known as, was a leaked viral clip that
featured two students of Delhi Public School, R. K. Puram, having oral sex. The clip was
sold on Ebay India by an engineering student, resulting in a lawsuit being filed against the
CEO of the company for abetting the sale of pornographic material (Malhotra, 2011).
24. Interview with Thrikunapuzha Vijaykumar in Chennai on July 15, 2013.
25. Interviews with A.T. Joy (September 2013), Thrikunapuzha Vijaykumar (July 2013), and
Dubai Mani (August 2013).
26. For instance, these questions surfaced prominently when Reshma, a soft-porn actress was
arrested in 2007 for alleged prostitution and her interrogation video was leaked into the
Internet. The discussions that followed centered on how the soft-porn actress illustrated a
narrative of moral decline, much like the characters in the films themselves. For an example
of such a narrative, see The Trials of Reshma in Bollywood Journalist (Bannerjee, 2016).
27. Interview with Joseph, Babu and Sanal (names changed), patrons of S.P. Theater who were
invited for a conversation with me by Gladys (June 10, 2013).
28. Interview with Nanukuttan on June 5, 2014.
29. Interview with Vasu (name changed) in Chennai on September 13, 2013.
30. Interview with Gladys on June 5, 2013 in Trivandrum.
31. Excerpts from interview with a group of men in their 50s who frequented S.P. Theater in the
late 1990s.
32. In our conversations, Gladys mentioned that the theater has now been converted into a
wedding hall and he had made arrangements with the buyer to retain the photograph of
the Shakeela in one of the rooms as a memory of the theater space. On the other hand, in
my conversation with Shakeela, she was pleasantly surprised to know that her image was
retained in a wedding hall and expressed her interest to get connected to Gladys (personal
Interview with Shakeela on July 14, 2016).
150 BioScope 7(2)

References
Ayyappan, R. (2001, January 24). Sleaze time, folks! Rediff. Retrieved August 12, 2014, from
http://www.rediff.com/entertai/2001/jan/24mallu.htm
Bannerjee, Soumyadipta (2016, January 12). The trials of Reshma. Bollywood Journalist. Retrieved
September 3, 2015, from http://bollywoodjournalist.com/2016/01/12/the-trials-of-reshma/
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