Filmmaker Hari M Mohanan's body of work is minimal by choice, for he believes in the cinematic expression born out of an organic need detached from the usual suspects like industry trends, market diktats, and career aspirations. He cherishes sentiments deep within him for long, like sediments that discreetly and unconditionally settle on the river bed. Only when the weight of the sentiment becomes overwhelming, it surfaces above almost like a foregone conclusion, on its own legs. Comedy or tragedy, the raw material for the film must spring from within.
Onammanu is a poignant music video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PViLQ5kKZvI) that stands tall on its own merit, but Hari’s real motivation to bring it to reeled fruition is a bigger film. Here is an account based on the thoughts he shared with me:
Hari lost his mother to cancer on June 6th, 2018. It was a matter of a mere six months from diagnosis to death. He won the Filmfare for his film “Invisible Wings” at a time when she was bedridden. This was the span when the culmination of joy and grief stirred something in him with a life of its own, as also the will to manifest into expression as and when it deemed fit.
A year later, he bumped into producer and lyricist Kavi Prasad who played him a song. Hari was deeply moved and on an impulse offered to do the visuals. Kavi politely declined stating that he had already earmarked it for a film. Hari candidly shared how this song was not a natural fit for a conventional film but Kavi was not convinced, albeit he said he would think about it.
Meanwhile, on every Onam post his mother’s demise, Hari studied his father’s profound silence amid the festive cheer. Hari said nothing, but sensed everything.
In 2020, during the stillness of the pandemic, Hari posted a video on social media, footage of Filmfare award ceremony he had never celebrated. Within minutes, his phone rang. It was Kavi Prasad. "Can we do Onammanu?"
Hari said yes before Kavi had finished the sentence. Twenty to twenty-five days. That was all the time they had, to make the film and release it on Onam.
For a man who swears by thorough preparation, Hari made a deliberate choice: he would not prepare. He would only be ready.
The problem of casting a lead was both immediate and nearly impossible. Who would come, in the middle of a pandemic, restrictions in place, to shoot far from the city? Only one man came to mind. His own father.
Hari did not even attempt persuasion. He simply told his dad: "We are shooting a music video, and you are going to do the lead role." His father, a man who had never thought of acting, did not resist. What began as a commissioned creative project thus became Hari's most personal film.
He and Shilpa, his associate and production handler, drove to Moolamattam for the location recce which was the lyricist's hometown. Hari had already decided they would shoot only where they felt at home. It was here that they met an eighty-year-old man working in the fields, moving with the leisurely pace and purpose of someone who has long made peace with the radius of his life. He was Mr. Gopinath, Kaviprasad's father.
In forty years, Gopinath sir had not travelled more than two kilometres from his home. Once or twice to a bank in the next town. That was all. When Hari learnt this, he cancelled the planned location tour and made his focal point everything that existed within the two kilometres periphery.
The crew arrived three days before the shoot, fewer than twelve people, a deliberately small gathering. The rains came heavy and did not let up. Hari sensed instinctively how the rain was a celestial enabler, not an obstacle it is made out to be.
Each shot was personal and poignant. In the opening frame, his father switches on a light, and behind him is a photograph of Hari's mother. The candle on the vilakku, the traditional oil lamp, was one his mother had used for years. When his father opens the almirah, a saree is visible inside. It was hers. The shoot was an emotional rollercoaster but liberating in every sense.
Hari's phenomenal crew packed a punch for sure: Swaroop Philip (cinematographer), Shilpa Baby (co-Screenplay writer), Mahesh Bhuvanend (award winning editor), and Nikhil Varma (sound design/video) poured heart and soul into the project from start till end.
The conversation with Swaroop was minimal. He fathomed the depth of the subject matter rather than chase beauty and aesthetics. A case in point is the scene of Onam Sadhya. It was a single shot, a steady frame, where the protagonist has vacant seats around him and only his silhouette is visible.
Swaroop lit the scene, and it was shot, but Swaroop said, “I need to take an intercut.” Hari said yes, because he didn’t want to disturb Swaroop's flow. He framed it and said, “Hari… let the man sit on the chair.” That became the block shot of just the shadow, Hari's favorite shot in the entire film. Hari had similar aha moments with Shilpa, Mahesh, Nikhil and others.
Onammanu released on YouTube on the very day of Thiru Onam, 2020. The world was still locked inside. Malayalis across the globe, distant from family, aching with the particular loneliness of a festival lived indoors, found the film and let it find them. It spread not by algorithm but by the quiet, urgent grammar of genuine feeling. People who had never met Hari called him from cities he had never visited. They told him about their guilt, their unspoken grief, the parents they had meant to call, the Onams they had missed. After three days, Hari switched off his phone. The weight of their stories was too much to hold at once.
In the months that followed, he launched a conversation campaign: a series of interviews with couples and friends exploring how conscious relationships shape the quality of a life, how passing wisdom to the young, about loneliness and the dignity of solitude, is imperative for the larger good.
Hari is still processing, still listening, still making work from the depths of the heart. We are more than sure he is more than capable of making great films on existential issues including themes of loneliness and solitude where the aging characters are not objects of pity but subjects of a deeper probe, which is so rare and precious on celluloid.
His films are not minimal, they are optimal.
We would like to see him work towards joining the league of legends known for masterpieces which don’t invite mainstream attention for obvious reasons. The list below is only indicative and not exhaustive: Vittorio De Sica’s Umberto D, Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali, Yasujirō Ozu’s Tokyo Story, Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru, Ritwik Ghatak’s Jukti Takko aar Gappo, Michael Haneke’s Amour, Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years, David Lynch’s The Straight Story, Uberto Pasolini’s Still Life, Sarah Polley’s Away from Her, Abbas Kiarostami’s The Wind Will Carry Us, Shaji N. Karun’s Piravi, Salim Ahamed’s Adaminte Makan Abu, and Girish Kasaravalli’s Gulabi Talkies.
