Media Review (Excerpts) See Asian Theatre Journal, vol. 18, no. 2, Fall 2001 for complete review.BORROWED FIRE
reviewed by Kathy Foley
The University of California-Santa CruzBorrowed Fire is a clear and poetic documentation of tol pava kuttu, the shadow theatre of Kerala, India. The film communicates the cultural context of the theatre and documents its changes in this generation, focusing on pulavar (master puppeteer) Krishankutty and his sons, whose work has been discussed in Friedrich Seltmann's Schattenspiel in Kerala (1986) and Stuart Blackburn's Inside the Drama House (1996).
The camera work is visually pleasing and the coverage deft. The video gives pertinent information on the text, drawn from Kampan's twelfth-century Tamil version of the Ramayana. Focus is given to the life and training of personnel, while the making of puppets is treated briefly...
... It is admirable how concisely the story line is conveyed in a few brief episodes from the complex epic.
The video ends on an equivocal note. A wish for the art's preservation is contrasted with the likelihood that Krishankutty will be the last pulavar. In one image we see the oblong palm leaf from which the puppet master memorizes his text dissolving into the oblong screen on which the shadow figures actualize the story. The voice-over quotes a line from the epic: "Here one can see everything in the world. There is nothing in the world that is not here." Thus the connection of the textual and performative tradition is valorized. In the following scene we see the aged puppeteer standing in the surf as the voice-over, representing his thoughts, states: "This art will never die, that is my hope."
Overall the film is an admirable accomplishment.This film offers a useful insight into the shadow-puppet theatre of Kerala and will be of interest to anyone interested in puppetry, Indian performing arts, and social change in Kerala.
KATHY FOLEY
University of California-Santa Cruz
Webmaster: Salil Singh
©2000, Kathanjali Productions Inc.
