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This is a movie for spiritually inclined people. Others might be terribly bored with it as it all about Hinduism and one of the greatest saints of Hinduism. The movie has the credit of being the first one to be taken in sanskrit.A language that is thousands of years old, but it has taken so long to make a movie in it.

The movie is the biography of shankaracharya.Born in the state of kerala,he becomes a monk at an young age and travels north, in search of knowledge and truth.It was a time period when hindus were giving importance to rituals and forgetting the all prevailing, one god.It was also the time period when Buddhism was on the raise. shankaracharya forms a new school of thinkers preaching the adhvaitha philosophy. Through his new philosophy and teachings he changes the views of many scholars and religious people.

The movie as i said before will be boring for non-spiritual people. The most interesting thing that i found in the movie was the usage of symbols by g.v.iyer. The movie is filled with symbolism.

For example two children’s join shankara when he is young. They are named "death" and "wisdom", they are the symbolic representation of death and wisdom."Death" arrives as soon as shankaracharya's father dies and "Wisdom" arrives during his initiation into brahminhood. Through out the movie these characters come and go again and again, symbolically meaning different things depending on the context. Details in the symbolism section.

G.V.Iyer

Director G.V.Iyer(Ganapathi Venkatrama Iyer) is a known philosopher. He had put in lots and lots of efforts into the movie. Apart from telling the story of a great saint without any commercial selling points in mind.He has also tried to tell his teachings in the most simplest way. He not only tells the story of the saint, he breaks up the big philosophy's and truth's told in the upanishads and vedas and has tried to give them in a way, even a lay man can understand. And off course his usage of symbolism in the movie is great.

In a scene where shankara is walking with his followers and a untouchable comes before them. All his followers ask the untouchable to move aways.He does not move. Shankara asks him to Keep off

The untouchable asks who should i keep off?
My body or my inner self(atman)?
All bodies are made of earth built alike and hence impure.
The inner self is all prevading hence immovable and inert.
Tell me who should move away?

shakara realizes his mistake and falls on his feet.

During this scene where shankara and the untouchable are on opposite sides."Wisdom" his friend movies aways from shankara and stands next to the untouchable, symbolically conveying who is wise and who is ignorant on that case.

The movie has very good subtitling. Apart from good translation, an explanation of the rituals that are being carried out and symbolic meaning of objects are also subtitled.

Music:
Music is by Dr.Balamurali krishna himself.He also sings many of the slogams in the movie.


Cast and Credits

Sarvadaman D. Banerjee .... Shankara
M.V. Narayana Rao
Manjunath Bhatt
Leela Narayana Rao
L.V. Sharada Rao
Bharat Bhushan
T.S. Nagabharana
Srinivasa Prabhu
Gopal
V.R.K. Prasad
Gopalakrishnan
Gayathri Balu
Balasubramanyam
Balu Barghava

Original Music by
Dr. Mangalampalli Balamuralikrishna
B.V. Karanth

Cinematography
Madhu Ambat

Editing
V.R.K. Prasad

Art Direction
P. Krishnamurthy

Dialogue
Benanjaya Godvincharya

Screenplay
G.V. Iyer

Directed by
G.V. Iyer

Madhu ambat has done a very good job in the movie.The movie has excellent cinematography(remember this was taken in 1983).



















Awards:
The movie won the covetted national award for Best Picture in 1983.It also won the national award for Best Cinematography, Best Audiography and Best Screenplay.


Links
G.V.Iyer on wiki
G.V.Iyer the saint who walked alone

Symbolism

Shankara's father fore sees his death, his funeral pyre.He then walks inside his house, next to the yaga fire.The camera does a low angle shot, which almost makes him look like as if he is on fire.



Crow and dove.Crow is the doer, the active one.The dove is the passive observer, the atman(inner self)



Shankara goes to watch a play.The Story is that of nachiketha who asked yama to tell him the secret of atma.Yama tests him and tells him the truth only after knowing that he is steadfast on attaining that knowledge.Shakara sets on with his travel to attain knowledge from govindapada.

Shankara with "Death" and "Wisdom"



Shankara goes to take bath and death is sitting on the banks.Shankara asks what are you doing?."Death" replies "Iam waiting for you". Shankara goes to take a swim in the river.He almost drowns, his mother prays saying that she will make him into a monk ,if he survives. Shankara some how escapes and comes out with a saffron(symbol of renunciation) cloth that was floating on the river, covered over his body.

At the end of the movie when shankara wants to attain moksha.He is all set to reach god, he goes on to the top of the himalaya's leaving all his followers. Death leaves him saying he cannot follow him anymore and wisdom embraces him.



shankara's journey which starts from the flat lands of the southern most state of india, kerala, ends at the northern part in the summits of the himalaya's.He is ready to leave the materialistic world and reach god.He has reached the peak.



The caged ignorant parrot