Martin Scorsese’s glowing praise for G. Aravindan’s Kummatty sends film buffs into a tizzy

American filmmaker posts about the Malayalam classic on his Instagram page

Malayalam cinema buffs had a surprise in store late on Monday night from none other than legendary American filmmaker Martin Scorsese. His Instagram page showcased a photograph of a familiar oracle and a bunch of children around him, a scene from a Malayalam movie made more than four decades ago.

Mr. Scorsese had glowing words to share on G. Aravindan's Kummatty, which was recently restored jointly by the Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project, a program created by Mr. Scorsese in 2007, the Film Heritage Foundation and Italy-based Cineteca di Bologna.

" Kummatty is an adaptation of a Central Kerala folktale featuring a partly mythic and partly real magician called Kummatty. A sweet and engaging story and a visually stunning film, Kummatty is a must-see, especially since it has been largely unavailable outside of India until now," wrote Mr. Scorsese, the maker of Hollywood classics such as Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Gangs of New York, The Wolf of Wall Street and The Irishman.

The post, which has received 1.4 lakh likes and counting, is now flooded with comments from Malayali film buffs thanking him for preserving a classic film from Kerala. The original print of Kummatty, which had lost its rich palette of colours over the years, was restored to its original glory through the international restoration project.

Filmmaker Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, director, Film Heritage Foundation, travelled to Kollam to meet K. Ravindranathan Nair of General Pictures, the producer of five of Aravindan’s films, including Kummatty. He agreed to grant permission for the restoration and for the team to access the prints from the National Film Archive of India (NFAI), which gave them both prints for the lab to check the elements.

"Aravindan’s films have been on the top of the list not only because he is a master, but he is also one who I feel has not got the recognition he deserves and whose films, sadly, are not in circulation. It broke my heart when I learned that all the original camera negatives of his films are lost and all we have are prints, not in the best condition,” Mr. Dungarpur had said last year after the restoration was completed.

Kummatty, winner of the Kerala State Film Award for the Best Children’s Film in 1979, tells the story of a Pied Piper-like character who materialises in a village one day, mingling with the children and weaving a spell of carefree abandon. He casts a spell and turns the children into animals. One boy, Chindan, is transformed into a dog, but misses the moment when the other children are turned back to human form and has to wait a year for Kummatty to reverse the spell.