Kothanodi: Visual Storytelling through World-building in Regional Literature

Anannya Nath 
^{Assistant Professor, Department of English, Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya Adarsha Mahavidyalaya- Behali, India.}

^{Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 16, Issue 3, 2024. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v16n3.02g
Full-Text PDF Issue Access}

Abstract

Visual storytelling is an ancient art. Television, radio, movies, and books fulfill a basic need of the human psyche- to make sense of the world around them. The sensorial experience of sight, which is also epistemologically significant to meaning-making finds newer modes of presentation with the turn of the twentieth century with the availability of newer technological modes of consumption. The pronounced shift within Media Studies towards a “world,” rather than the concerns of plot or character, reflects the increasing rise of trans-medial narratives as a norm. The upshot of an unprecedented rise of trans medial narrative has also made its presence felt in the Third World and within smaller regional cultures. These cultures, which have a rich panache of stories, mostly in their folktales, have exponential potential to utilise the same in creating successful trans-medial- narratives. One such significant production is the 2015 award-winning Assamese film, Kothanodi, which has, as its backdrop, four intertwining stories selected meticulously from the pantheon of Lakshminath Bezbaruah’s stock literature of folk tales retold. This paper studies the aspects of worldbuilding in the film vis-à-vis the literature that makes it. It entails that the movie is seen in juxtaposition to the stories. To this end, the paper demonstrates how the classic worldbuilding elements of setting, fantasy, visuals, and sounds are explored in both film and literature. In accessing the nuances, the study tries to see how regional languages can also produce successful story worlds from regional literature.

Keywords: Visual Storytelling, World-building, Folktales, Film.