THE GOLDEN AGE

By Natasha Block Hicks

In the course of his career, Indian cinematographer Madhu Ambat ISC has shot over 250 feature films across nine languages and received the prestigious Indian National Film Award for Best Cinematography three times over.

“This year will be my 50th year of service as a director of photography,” he marvels, writing from his home in Chennai. To mark this milestone anniversary, Ambat reflects back with us on half a century of immersion in the moving image.

Ambat was born in 1950 in Ernakulam, Kerala. He was raised by his grandparents, although his father K. Bhagyanath – a freedom fighter and showman magician – was an influential figure in his life, as was his sister Vidhubala, who was a popular film actress prior to matrimony. However, when he was a toddler Ambat became unwell. Whether it was polio or pertussis is unknown, but he was left with a permanent stammer.

“It was a blessing in disguise,” Ambat comments candidly, explaining that the impediment turned him to books for solace. The writer Ravi Vilangan would later fine-tune Ambat’s interpretation of prose, taking his understanding to the next level.

“My reading habit made me what I am today,” Ambat explains, “even now I read daily for at least half an hour.”

Vidhubala’s dance teacher Mythili, who later became Bhagyanath’s principal assistant in his show, was a guiding figure for the young Ambat. “Mythili taught me about empathy and how to understand human beings,” he recalls.

With the help of these guardians, and his tutor, Palaniappan, Ambat navigated school, then achieved a higher education qualification in Physics. Upon graduation, he was offered places at both the Indian earned Ambat his initial National Film Award for Best Cinematography in 1984.

Institute Of Technology (IIT) and the Film & Television Institute of India (FTII). His parents stood by his decision to choose FTII over the more prestigious IIT.

“They believed that ‘one can shine best who chooses a career he loves most’,” he remembers fondly.

Director K. S. Sethumadhavan was another influential presence in Ambat’s early career. “He was like a Godfather to me,” extols Ambat, who went on to collaborate four times with the respected Malayalamcentric auteur, on films such as Oppol (1981).

Mid-way through Ambat’s second decade as a DP, he shot Vaishali (1988, Malayalam, dir. Baharathan), a mythological drama depicting drought, ritual and saintly seduction. Production was tiring and occasionally risky; once the actress playing the titular heroine fainted during a fire sequence. But the themes allowed Ambat and Baharathan to get creative with their palette.

Post FTII, Ambat achieved industry-recognition as one half of the DP-duo ‘Madhu-Shaji’ with his fellow graduate Shaji N. Karun on Njaaval Pazhangal (1976, Malayalam, dir. Azeez). As a pair, they photographed three films together. After parting company with Karun, Ambat became busy as a sole cinematographer. Three of his early Malayalam films: Ashwathama (1978, dir. K.R. Mohanan), Yaro Oraal (1978, dir. V.K. Pavithran) and Sooryante Maranum (1980, dir. T. Rajeevnath), collectively earned the young DP the first of his four Kerala State Film Awards for Best Cinematography.

During this period, Ambat met G. V. Iyer, aka ‘The Barefoot Director’. Although Iyer was well established by the time he collaborated with Ambat on the drama Kudre Motte (1977, Kannada), he was to turn to Ambat for every feature film he directed thereafter, up to his last, Vivekananda (1998, Hindi).

Iyer’s experimental masterpiece Adi Shankaracharya (1983) – the first Indian film to be made in Sanskrit –

“We gave a tonal look of ‘Van Gogh yellow’ for the drought sequences,” explains Ambat, “the blues and greens we saved for when the girl chosen to seduce the saint reaches the forest.” The audience, visually tricked into a kind of emotional thirst for the first half-hour of the film, were known to give a standing ovation at this point, and the movie was a hit.

“Our combination worked well,” comments Ambat about his collaborative relationship with Baharathan, with whom he would ultimately wrok eight times.

Shortly afterwards, Ambat shot the Tamil-language drama Anjali (1990) with big-league director Mani Ratnam, the story of a special needs toddler and the way she heals her community.

“This was very stylised in its visual treatment,” illustrates Ambat. “We decided that the child should look angelic, so I used smoke and a lot of strong backlighting to create a heavenly feel.”

Anjali was shot on an external set, with the cast, a large proportion of them children, required to stand by until the smoke levels were just as Ambat desired. “They were very patient,” he remembers admiringly, “at times it could be very trying.” or temple. “Creating a period with lamp sources is something that I have always loved. The visuals were realistic, yet romantic.”

In the early 1990s, Ambat lit Praying With Anger (1992) for M. Night Shyamalan, then a Tisch School Of The Arts graduate filmmaker, who Ambat found to be “very talented and hard working”. This was not to be Ambat’s only film shot in English, see also the UK production Provoked (2006, dir. Jag Mundhra), the true story of battered wife Kiranjit Ahluwalia’s fight for justice over the fatal burning of her abusive husband, and Hisss (2010), a snake goddess horror from Jennifer Lynch.

Ambat cruised through his third decade moving effortlessly between genres and languages. He shot the period piece Amodini (1994, Bengali) with a “realistic feel” for film critic-turned director Chidananda Dasgupta. He enjoyed creating the “romantic visuals” for Badri (2000, Telugu, dir. Puri Jagannadh) and was thankful to “dream director” Rajkumar Santoshi for giving him “the freedom to do any experimentation without having to worry about the budget” on Lajja (2001, Hindi), a satire on feminism and the plight of women in India.

He also wrote, directed and lit a ‘cinema eats itself’ art movie 1:1.6 An Ode To Lost Love (2005) in which a director gets caught in a love triangle while shooting his debut movie called 1:1.6 An Ode To Lost Love.

Ambat’s third National Film Award came from his first digital film, Abu, Son of Adam/Adaminte Makan Abu (2011, Malayalam, dir. Salim Ahamed), shot in just 30 days using the ARRIFLEX D-21. The film was India’s official entry into the 2012 Academy Awards. The plot follows an aging Mappila Muslim couple’s desperate efforts to achieve Hajj, the mandatory pilgrimage to holy Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

“Finding a house with a big jackfruit tree which could be cut down for a key sequence in the film was very difficult,” explains Ambat, although they did eventually succeed. “The movie demanded realistic visuals; the ARRI D-21 gave me the clarity I needed.”

Ambat always seeks the best tool to tell the story.

In As The River Flows/Ekhon Nedekha Nodir Xhipare (2012, Assamese, dir. Bidyut Kotoky), a thriller about a missing social worker, he used Steadicam for the whole film “to create a feeling that someone is always stalking the protagonist”. He shot Fever/Pani (2019, Malayalam, dir. Santhosh Mandoor) handheld in its entirety, as he felt that the technique was the best way to relay the “gruesomeness” of the traditional Tamil practice of senicide by oil bath.

A veteran now, Ambat has sage advice for budding cinematographers. “Aim to achieve the highest level of cinematography,” he councils, referencing his five-tier philosophy, which starts with the basics of composition and lighting, followed by source lighting, then mood lighting, and peaking with mental landscape and the “metaphorical visual”.

Period drama Sringaram: Dance Of Love (2007, Tamil, dir. Sharada Ramanathan) earned Ambat his second National Film Award. “This movie was set in the age of the Devadasi,” Ambat illustrates, referring to the historical courtesans in life-service to a god

“Observation is the key to this,” he stresses of the last two stages, “observe how light creates emotions and try to go beyond that. Try to create mental landscapes and then try your hand at creating metaphorical images. Remember, even switching-off the houselights can be used as a metaphor.”

Entering his sixth decade of service, Ambat shows little sign of slowing down. He has two upcoming movies awaiting release and four self-penned scripts “ready to go into production”. He has also written two as-yet unpublished novels: Black Moon and Death Of Madhu Ambat. On non-shooting days he watches at least one film per day in his home theatre, both Indian and international “to keep up with modern trends”.

Throughout his busy career, his family of two married sons (one a budding DP) and his wife, Latha, have been the bedrock to which he has been anchored.

“Latha takes care of the day-to-day, which allows me to develop my creative talents,” Ambat relates warmly. “Ours was an arranged marriage and I feel lucky to have her. Living with a crazy person like me could be torturous yet she does it without any hassle. She is a great pillar in my life.”