Abstract
Studies on city and cinema have become a major field of research. This article tries to focus on the representation of the city Kochi in Kerala, and Malayalam films. Kochi being a port city has been the point where people around the globe arrived to develop trade relations with India. However, curiously enough, the city still appears to cradle the western influence in nostalgic manner and also seems to cherish it through many newly organized events and customs. Kochi has also been attributed a status as the center of many underworld activities by the tinsel town and films over the last decade have celebrated to a phenomenal level. This article critically analyzes the representation of Kochi in a few selected movies like Big B, Chappa Kurishu, and Chotta Mumbai. Big B focuses entirely on the corrupted city life, crimes and revenge while Chappa Kurishu tries to juxtapose the lives of an upper-class and a lower-class representative. On the other hand, Chhotta Mumbai is a story told in a lighter vein about the lives of small time goons in the street old Chhotta Mumbai in Fort Kochi. This image of the colonies is constructed by the dominant institutions of our society. The media thus reproduced the viewpoints of dominant institutions not as one among a number of alternative perspectives, but as the central and ‘obvious’ or ‘natural’ perspective.

Indu P. (2017) The Cinematic Discourse of the City: A Case Study of Kochi in Contemporary Malayalam Movies , Journal of Media Studies, Volume 32, Issue 1.
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