Director: Vishnu Mathur; Producer: C.S. Lakshmi; Cinematographer: K.K. Mahajan; Cast: Savithri Rajan
Summary: A beautifully crafted and meditative
documentary portrait shot on 16mm of the 80-
year-old Madras-based Savithri Rajan, a
virtuoso veena player who never performed in
public. She was the disciple of the legendary
musicians Tiger Varadachari and Veenai
Dhanammal. The film is built around her music
and family memories with K.K. Mahajan’s
sensuous camera gliding through the spaces of
her life or simply recording the aged but lively
Rajan’s voice and music. Savithri Rajan’s
extraordinary presence is the film’s focus, but
Mathur manages to convey the complex
interrelations between personal, familial,
artistic and social rhythms of change, achieving
the rare feat of doing justice to the
accomplishments of the individual artist while
at the same time suggesting how social
elements constrained as well as nourished her
life and her art.
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