“He liked drugs, rock music, politics too at times. He was very confused when I met him. We talked politics. I tried to tell him political beings are basically human. He seemed to understand, but he was always evasive.”

This is how Hari’s roommate Ayyappan describes him to Purushan in Amma Ariyan – a man torn between rebellion and uncertainty, much like a generation of Kerala’s youth drawn to extremist politics during the turbulent 1970s.

Hari was not written as a triumphant revolutionary hero. He was fragile, restless and disillusioned, a failed hero carrying the anxieties of his time.

Four decades later, John Abraham’s radical yet deeply layered cinematic masterpiece is returning to the world stage. The restored 4K version of Amma Ariyan will have its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on May 16, making it the only Indian feature selected for a premiere at this year’s festival.

Made under the banner of the Odessa Collective, the film itself was an act of people’s cinema. Its production was funded directly by ordinary people across Kerala, turning the making of the film into a political and cultural movement.

John Abraham died at 49, a year after Amma Ariyan, his final film.

Speaking to South First, Joy Mathew, who played Purushan, remembers not just the making of the film, but an entire era, the dreams of revolution, the wounds of a generation, his dearest John Abraham, and his enduring creation, Amma Ariyan.

Red document of Kerala

Mathew reflected on why Amma Ariyan continues to resonate four decades after its release. He said he did not enter the film as an actor, but as someone deeply connected to the extremist movements of that era.

He described Hari, the tabalist in the film, as a figure shaped by police brutality, emotional collapse and Kerala’s turbulent Left rebel phase in the 1980s.

“John Abraham saw the film as a historical document of Kerala,” he said, adding that its cinematic language, costume design and narrative style still feel fresh to film students today.

Mathew said his association with the film came through the Odessa movement and political activism rather than formal acting........

© The Wire