Malayalam directors Satish Babusenan and Santosh Babusenan on their new movie, ‘Anand Monalisa Waits For Death’

Malayalam directors Satish and Santhosh Babusenan on Anand Monalisa Waits For Death

Satish: Life is full of uncertainties. The only certainty is that we must all die one day, sooner or later. This thought can be scary because it messes with all the plans we make for the future. We build dreams about one’s life, the future of our children and family, or about a million things that we hope will make us happy. Then we hope that these dreams will come true. Across centuries, society has made hope into a virtue. But, in my understanding, it is just the opposite. Hope is fear dressed up as something pretty. It is what we use to escape facing the reality of facts. These are the thoughts that my brother and I decided to explore in our new movie, a story about a young man facing imminent death.

Santosh: We were trying to deal with the human problem of uncertainty. The regular escape route is Hope, but that only adds to the problem. The better option is to keep the mind free of hope and to accept reality, however hard it may seem. This is the thought we wanted to discuss in the film without sounding too pedantic or preachy.

Satish: It was quite a good feeling when the award was announced. It also won our lead actor Kaladharan chettan a Special Jury Award, and Best Actor at the New York Indian Film Festival. Actors and technicians deserve praise when they do a great job. Also, our films get screened at good film festivals. Without those screenings, who would see their hard work?

But, for us personally, recognition doesn’t mean much. There was a time when appreciation mattered. Experience has taught us that cheering and booing are easily interchangeable and have little to do with the quality of one’s work.

Santosh: Awards certainly make us happy. But we try not to let that blind us to the immensity of the task we have set before us. We are in pursuit of quality — mainly artistic — and we know we’re still far away from that thinly populated stratosphere where it’s really hard to breathe. We’re truly glad that over the years we’ve accumulated a bunch of actors and crew who share that vision with us.

Satish: Indeed, a film needs a market, it needs to earn its upkeep. People who slog on it need to be paid. Our films are not made for entertainment.

Consequently, they can only be thrown into the arthouse market. That market has its requirements too. The world over, it is issue-based art that succeeds there. If you look at the films from India which make it to these major markets abroad, they are all about issues that Indians face — gender, inequality, corruption, infanticide… There are good filmmakers who make films on these themes. However, such themes don’t excite us.