• Greek Title Ο μπαμπούλας
  • English Title The boogeyman
  • Original Title Kummaty
  • Year: 1979
  • Genre: Fiction
  • Country: India
  • Duration: 90'
  • Director: Govindan Aravindan
  • Scriptwriter: Govindan Aravindan, Kavalam Narayana Panicker
  • Cinematography: Shaji N. Karun
  • Editing: A. Rameshan
  • Music / Score: M.G. Kavalam Narayana Panicker (song), M.G. Radhakrishnan, Govindan Aravindan
  • Cast: Ramunni, Master Ashokan, Vilasini Reema, Kothara Gopalkrishnan, Sivasankaran Divakaran, Vakkil, Mothassi, Shankar
  • Production: K. Ravindranathan Nair for General Pictures Corporation
  • Color: Color
  • Audio: Sound
  • Language: Μαλαγιαλάμ
  • Format: DCP
  • Restoration: Ψηφιοποιημένη σε 4Κ από το καλύτερα σωζόμενο υλικό, μια κόπια προερχομένη από αρνητικό φιλμ 35mm, φυλασσόμενη στο National Film Archive of India. Μια άλλη κόπια 35mm με αγγλικούς υπότιτλους χρησιμοποιήθηκε ως σημείο αναφοράς. Αποκατεστημένη το 2021 από το The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project και τη Cineteca di Bologna, σε συνεργασία με την General Pictures Corporation και το Film Heritage Foundation, στο εργαστήριο της L’Immagine Ritrovata. Χρηματοδοτήθηκε από το Material World Foundation. Digitized in 4K using the best surviving element, a vintage 35mm print struck from the original camera negative and preserved at the National Film Archive of India. A second 35mm print with English subtitles was used as a reference. Restored in 2021 by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project and Cineteca di Bologna in association with General Pictures Corporation and the Film Heritage Foundation at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory. Funding provided by Material World Foundation.
  • Print Source: Cineteca di Bologna

Invoked by children’s singsong, Kumatty enters the scene with the sound of clinking bells, leaving behind a blazing sunset piercing through the clouds. A sly sorcerer Kumatty is an old pied piper who returns to the same village every spring, attracting children and tranforming them into animals. In this poetic work informed by Malayalam folklore and early cinema alike, Aravindan’s synthesizes mythology and documentary, alchemically conjuring a singular kind of magical realism through the glorious accumulation of sensually photographed details and a delightful array of Méliès-esque cinematic sleights of hand.


Govindan Aravindan (1935-1991), also a painter, cartoonist and musician, was a self-taught filmmaker who experimented a great deal with genres, styles and film grammar throughout his career. Thirty years after his death, an editorial in the Times of India remembered him as an iconoclast who changed the trajectory of Malayalam cinema: “However, he is like one of his most famous characters, Esthappan, about whom everyone talks and whom no one has seen: his masterpieces are disappearing like they never existed.” (Cecilia Cenciarelli)


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