Swapnatanam : Malayalam Cinema's Early Attempts with the Idea of Psychoanalysis

Malayalam cinema, which claims to be one of the major contributors to the Indian art
cinema, has initiated various innovative trends. This is especially true regarding the
time period identified as early middlebrow cinema. Directors like P N Menon, KG
George, Bharathan and Padmarajan whom cine enthusiasts generally refer to as the
pioneers of middlebrow cinema have made efforts to induce global trends into
Malayalam cinema. They address not merely the question of new genres, but narrative
patterns and content as well. Questions on content and form are the traditionally
inquired zones in any art form. The binary of arguing cinema as an art and material of
content and form have put many inquiries in an undermining status. The attempts
made on cinema are not purely on the content if such a specificity is claimed
anywhere. The nature and environment from where the thread of the cinema is
nurtured also has a significant claim in related debates. This study searches the
pattern of the cinema Swapnatanam (Dream Walk) directed by K G George in the year
1976, in Black and White. The debut film of K G George has some particularities within
the content and its extended bond towards the social from which it draws much input.
The study inquires this connect between the prevalent environment and the capacity
to hold the global vision of the newly identified theme of Psychoanalysis of the period.
The environment outside the realm of traditional content platform of cinema is the
concern of this inquiry. The director, the story and script writers and the emergence of
the literary radicalism are the major concerns of this study. It also tries to post this
attempt of making such a film as one of the early gestures showing an affinity
towards embracing the theme of Psychoanalysis in Malayalam cinema, though if
strictly defined may lack its scope as a psychoanalytic film. But the study engages
Swapnatanam as a cinema that contributed to the genesis of psychoanalysis in
Malayalam cinema. The inquiry is an attempt to indicate the traces of psychoanalysis
in the cinema and no claims and questions are leveraged up on the merits of this
tendency.