Consented Servility and (Passive) Resistance: A Reading of Power Contestation in Adoor GopalaKrishnan’s Vidheyan

Abstract

The paper attempts to explore the dimensions of power operations at multifarious contexts in Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s film Vidheyan (The Servile). Adoor has rendered the cartography of post feudal Kerala by means of fictional representation with a realistic concern. The close reading of the film reveals how Adoor as an auteur interprets the cultural scenario of Kerala in a certain period, especially its impact on culture, action and attitudes of characters. The study of the select film Vidheyan conceptualises how the discourse of a particular time relates to wider systems of power and how it is textualised in a narrative. According to Michael Foucault, power is exercised from innumerable relations and plurality of resistances exist in the field of power relations.