History as we know is kinder to the dead. Perhaps Gopi or Bharat Gopy as he was popularly called knew it best. Reducing an artiste to an essay or article is trivialising his work as an art form but it's also best for keepers of legacy. And so it must be done.
Great actors get under the skin or their audience and stay there. And that's what gopi was best at doing so seamlessly. Be it the wastrel of Kodiyettam or the cuckold of Panchavadi Palam, the ruthless contractor of Adaminte Variyellu or the professor or Kaatate Kilikoodu, Gopy inhabited his characters and invested in them as much as they grew into him. This synergy was perhaps the trick he hit upon to beguile us with his art time and again.
Blessed with average looks and a bald pate, his monumental talent was a whiplash on the screen. He riveted you and it was difficult to take your eyes off his onscreen persona. See him ravenously wolf down the food KPAC lalitha cooks for him or his absolute joy at muddy water being splashed on him in Kodiyettam. Gopy's character of Shankaran Kutty remains indelible with his beautiful half child-half man portrayal.
Almost in sharp contrast to Mamachan Modalali. When Mamachan Modalaly in KG George's Adamnite Variyellu looks at his beautiful wife Alice with disgust you are also disgusted by his avarice and indifference. Alice is a making of Mamachan's own over vaulting ambitions. His eyes convey helplessness and yet a reluctance to give up giddying power.
You see the same narrative in George's Irakal where the head of a rich dysfunctional turns a blind eye to his hyper sexual daughter and psychotic son. As the priest Gopy masterfully delineates through his performance a tale of destruction and hubris.
Was it sheer coincidence that like Mamachan in Adaminte Variyellu, the novelist Sreeprasad of Rachana too uses his wife as a Guinea pig for a human experiment in love and attraction? The revulsion you feel is Gopy's master stroke as an actor. You hate him as much you revel in watching his sordid descent.
You marvel how he morphs his body language to play the cuckolded Dushasana Kurup in KG George's Panchavadi Palam. He plays it by making voice shrill, and almost like a caricature of a politician. A biting satire on Kerala politics, Gopy draws up a fine portrait of spineless politician and his petty ego. That he was a versatile actor can also be attributed to his salad days in theatre which held him in good stead while working with directors like KG George especially in films like Yavanika ( where he learned the Tabla specifically to play Ayyapan) and Adaminte Variyellu.
The jury's still out on if he was muse to director Bharatan but there was always a special something that Bharatan gave to Gopy. Gopy reciprocated with heart and mind. The unhinged judge of Sandhya Mayangum Neram or the deaf and mute artiste of Ormakyaayi were masterstrokes on canvas. Watch his expressions at the naming ceremony of his child or his rage at seeing his wife's molestor in Ormakkayi. More rousing are the scenes with Jayabharathi in Sandhya Mayangum Nerum where his demons leave him crazed and sexually impotent. Gopy's body language and nervous energy during his farewell party scene and in the climax take this performance to greater heights.
Gopy's displays demons of another kind in G Aravindan's Chidambaram. To atone for his illicit relationship with the beautiful Sivakami played expertly by Smita Patil, he assumes the tenor of a fugitive. Watch the scene where he runs through the forest unable to grapple with guilt and reality.
He conveyed sexual politics and ambiguity through his eyes and sneer but never through his leer. You could see it in Professor Krishna Pillai when he takes his student Revathy to a guest house in Bharatan's Kaatate Kilikoodu. There was restlessness and uncertainty. You could see his depravity garbed as a tabla player Ayyapan in Yavanika or plain lust for his sister in law Zarina Wahab when he asks her to give him a massage in Palangal. Violence, depravity, amorality were just tools in Gopy's shack of acting ammunition.
He probably gave to the movie business much more than it gave him. Which is why reruns of Akkare and Irakal make more sense posthumously. In a time when malayalam cinema was rife with melodramatic acting and stylised performances, Gopy's lack of guile adds to our abiding fascination for him. Even his directorial ventures like Ulsavapittenu stand out. Especially the bleak last scene where Mohanlal seeks redemption through his hanging in front of the children.
In an endeavour to create art or hone his art, an artiste goes through his trial by fire. He makes movies, he loses money, he loses health but he never loses his art. Bharath Gopi was a beacon of that quest, that exploration. Shorn of any style, he found his substance. In his art he found its naked truth.