T
his paper analyses how collective unconscious memory plays a dominant role
in conceiving the subaltern 1 and dalit 2 bodies and its consciousness within the
representational strategies followed by mainstream Malayalam cinema. 3 There
is a flood of stereotypical images when it comes to the representation of subalterns by
the mainstream Indian cinema. Movies that do take up the task of representing the
marginalized often end up redeploying the stereotypes: by casting aside the subaltern
as ‘uncultured’ and, now, as fundamentalist. Static images of tribals—and the otherness
of their communities, rooted in a peculiar notion of the body of the subaltern, have also
been reproduced. Popular Indian films often follow two schemas of visual or narrative
strategies to redeploy the static image of a social group. The first is through the visible
and direct representation of the physiognomy of the character as subaltern (denoted
with racial, class and ethnic features), and the second is through the deployment of
indirect, and sometimes, invisible social and cultural signifiers which mark the subaltern
identity of the character (name, language, occupation, habits and nature, which
connotes specific identity of caste or ethnic group). It is in this context that this paper
attempts to contextualize one of the south Indian film actors Kalabhavan Mani to
analyze how caste identity plays a dominant role in Malayalam cinema, and argue that
memories of caste become an integral part of the visual perception of the Malayali
spectator. Most of Mani’s films adopt a particular mode of representation that treats his
body and his persona as a cultural sign of difference. When compared to other
mainstream Malayalam films, the narrative and mise-en-scène in Mani’s films are very
distinct in nature. They commonly depict specific visual narrative methods and typecast
characters to recreate an imagined but subordinated world of the subaltern, which suits
to Mani’s lower caste identity and his dalit persona.