Documentary on sculptor Kanayi Kunhiraman

Making a documentary on sculptor Kanayi Kunhiraman was more of a personal passion for Nemom Pushparaj.While pursuing his bachelors degree in Fine Arts at the College of Fine Arts in the city, he was among the fortunate few who could learn the lessons of sculpting right from the master.“I observed closely the sculptures he made during those times.I got to watch the sculpting methods from close quarters.No other artist would have made that many sculptures in India,” says Nemom Pushparaj.So when the Information and Public Relations department app r o a c h e d h i m t o make a documentary on the man, Pushparaj had no second thoughts.Ask him how his personal rapport with Kanayi influenced the film, and he says, “Our relation is such that so many openhearted chats happened between us.So the information included in the documentary are from the several conversations we had at various point of times.Besides, it also includes the third person account from my part.” Throughout the journey, Kanayi was with the filmmaking team so that the crew never felt distanced from their subject.In their journey together, he says, Kanayi was a jubilant man who cracked jokes and made everyone happy.But he remembers one moment that stands out while they set out to shoot ‘Yakshi’, the first sculpture made by him at Malampuzha in Palakkad in 1969.After watching ‘Yakshi’, the crew observed that the otherwise jovial Kanayi s u d - denly became silent.“It was after 42 years that he was seeing Yakshi again.After a bit of gentle probing, he opened up and said that it was the negligence shown in maintaining the structure that hurt its creator,” says Pushparaj.‘Yakshi’ was subjected to scathing criticism from various corners for the iconoclastic approach adopted by the artist in the portrayal.Therefore, while shooting Yakshi, Pushparaj and crew created fire encircling the structure and also made artificial showers to show how the sculpture withstood them.The highlight of the documentary ‘Shilpa Kalayude Naalam Maanam’ (fourth dimension of sculpture), is that it literally covers the life of the sculptor from all possible dimensions.Though he attained popularity as a sculptor, in the documentary, his life gets unfurled through his paintings and poetry too.His works that were not widely talked about are included in the film.Therefore, many things that were left unnoticed about the artist too are covered in it.From the technical side, Pushparaj has hired a 40-feet high jib arm crane ‘Jimmy Jib’ to provide a bird’s eye view of the sculptures.His well-acclaimed works including Yakshi and ‘Sagarakanyaka’ at Sanghumugham, were shot using Jimmy Jib crane that absorbed the artsy elements to the fullest.The background score is set by Pandit Ramesh Narayanan.After finishing the documentary, Pushparaj wrote a book on Kanayi, ‘Brihadakarangalude Shilpi’ that was published by the State Institute of Languages in 2012.