“The Changing Perspectives in the New Generation Malayalam Movies: A Content Analysis From an Ethical Point of View”

Abstract

Film is the appropriate medium that communicates most meaningfully to humanity.  Film has that capacity because it touches on almost all aspects of human life, its ethical principles, religiosity, philosophy, sociology, psychology, aesthetics, and so on.  In the film, man recaptures the centuries that have gone by and visualizes the future as well. Such familiarity with film in human existence makes it a matter of study and analysis.

Film history goes back to the 1890s and is spread across nations and various languages. So, an analysis of the film in general would be a Herculean task. Thus, this research is focused on the Malayalam films of two decades, viz, 1999 - 2018.  It is an attempt to study the New Generation Malayalam movies from an ethical point of view with the methodology of content analysis.

A film is like a retreat. Each and every frame in the movie, the words, actions, movements, costumes, and all other characteristics contribute, in one way or other, something to the story. Therefore, in this study, the researcher tries to analyze the so-called ‘new generation Malayalam movies’ which demolish the traditional style and reconstruct a new style of filming. This is an attempt to understand the changes, the reasons behind the changes, and the effect of the same from an ethical point of view.

This study analyses and compares 20 Malayalam movies which belong to two decades viz., 1999 to 2008 and 2009 to 2018. The dominant objective of this study is to learn about the changes in the ethical content of the movies than in their technical perfection resulting due to the technological developments in filmmaking. The content of a movie is more important as it reflects contemporary social norms and behaviour.