Volume IV Special Issue I January 2024

Name of Author : Amalana K H

Title of the paper : Dubai in Malayalam Cinema: Garments and Gulf Narratives in the Tapestry of Pathemari

Abstract: Since the 1970s, Malayalam films have documented the history of Keralas migration to the Gulf, a phenomenon mostly brought on by the extreme poverty and joblessness of the states population. The paper examines cinematic memory as a tool for documenting the widespread migration of Keralas to the Gulf from the late 1960s onwards. Since the early 2000s, there have been more and more memorials to the Gulf in Malayalam culture, which highlights the individualized nature of the Gulf migration. On the other hand, cinema provides tools for carving out the mutuality of the two locations in Keralas communal memory. The present-day film depictions of dubai serve as one such location of memory, as the perception of Dubai and the characteristics of Kerala migrants have changed. Using Pathemari Salim Ahamed, 2015 as an example, this study traces the cinematic genealogy of the film to analyze how Dubai is remembered and how that recollection inscribes the Gulf as part of Keralas collective memory. The methods by which cinematic memory accomplishes this social memorialization are identified in the paper as the archival of the star body, intertextuality, and the persistence of filmed space. The mutuality that cinematic memory provides between Kerala and Dubai enables it to be an embodied and sensory act of affective citizenship on the part of the migrants. In the cinematic depictions, the discourses of migrants are intricately woven into different aspects, including clothing influenced by Gulf styles and symbols of wealth that serve as visual indicators of the migrants societal position. Through a thematic analysis of the Malayalam film, Pathemaris the study asserts that in Kerala culture, the Gulf motif relates to control and power. We argue that the substitution of the traditional Kerala mens attire, mundu, with trousers is just one of the various symbolic symbols of modernity observed in the films. These include the incorporation of perfumes and watches from the Gulf. The films highlight the performative and material aspects of clothing, constructing images of the Gulf through which predominantly male wearers from a mass social and symbolic capital, asserting dominance within the narrative.

Keywords : Dress, Gulf, materiality, migration, power

DOI :

Page Number : 78-84