Mapping of Power and Privacy: A Study on Domestic Surveillance and Power in Select Malayalam Cinema

Abstract

The idea of surveillance is not new to the world and its people. The history of surveillance dates back to the history of human civilization. Surveillance is closely associated with power, the one who can see everything can be powerful above all. The one who knows everything is the one who holds the power. Foucault in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison explains that since the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Western societies can be defined by a new form of power that is capillary and affects ‘the grain of individuals, touches their bodies and inserts itself into their actions and attitudes, their discourses, learning processes and everyday lives’ (Foucault 39). In simpler terms, the Surveillance is active in all systems of life, and these systems often remain hidden or unnoticed, precisely because they are found in the fibres of daily life, which is what makes them so powerful and ubiquitous. This paper tries to analyse the aspects of surveillance and its association with power in the Malayali household through the movies Android Kunjappan version 5.25 (2019) directed by Ratheesh Bhaskara Poduval and Ottamuri Velicham (2017) directed by Rahul Riji Nair. Both the movies represent the micro surveillance within the family and the hold of power between the characters of the movies. The paper tries to point out the system of power and surveillance using a close examination of the plot and character motifs identified through a comparative study.