| Director | Shiny Benjamin |
|---|
Perumpadavam Sreedharan's novel in Malayalam Oru Sankeerthanam Pole (Like a Psalm) was written in 1993 and dealt with 21 days in the life of Fyodor Dostoevsky. Those were the days Dostoevsky fell in love with Anna Gregoryevna Snitkina, who was his new stenographer taking down his novel The Gambler. In heavy debt to his publisher, Dostoevsky was facing a deadline that carried a big penalty, to deliver the finished manuscript. ‘Like a Psalm’ describes with lyrical simplicity those 21 days of love and despair, imbuing the theme with empathy and emotional insight. Sreedharan's novel, now in its 61st edition and 21st year, continues to be a best-seller in Malayalam.
The film takes Sreedharan on his first ever visit to Russia and St. Petersburg, a country and a city he had imagined out of almost nothing, except for his reading in translation of the great Russian novelists, including Dostoevsky. His journey of discovery starts from his village in interior Kerala as he recalls how, as he wrote his novel, those 21 days of Dostoyevsky had entrapped him as if his life had caught fire and how he was entangled in Dostoevsky's traumatic and troubled personality. His memories of writing the novel, presented through brief face-to-face encounters and voice-overs, are supplemented by enacted moments that flash forward to the present, crystallizing the dynamics of recollection.
The film follows him in St. Petersburg as he explores a city he had once imagined from nothing, looking at its great landmarks, visiting Dostoevsky's home, sitting on Neva's shore, wandering in the country side. As he immerses himself in the city recollecting Dostoevsky and his intense creative engagement with him, visions and moments from his novel envelopes his present and he becomes an eye-witness to them. Soon Sreedharan is back in his village, merged into its quiet flow and the journey into the far-away world of his novel turned into a beautiful memory.