Costume as a Character: Communicating Through Costume in Iyobinte Pusthakam

Abstract

Costumes which are the distinctive style of dressing is one of the many tools the film director has to tell the story in films. Costumes can communicate the details of a character’s personality to the audience and facilitate actors transform into new and believable personalities on the screen Brownie & Graydon (2016). Costumes give a visual impact on the film audience and more than just dressing an actor, costume design extends the main themes of the film in a subtly effective way, it can progress the character in a story without dialogue, costumes may not be memorable as dance sequences or banter but it can recreate time and space. While looking deeper into the costumes of the character it might be a surprise to explore a person’s politics, education, personality, social status, hierarchy, politics, and many more about the particular role played by the character. The need for communication is for the designers to effectively design the costumes. This article explores a Semiotic Analysis of how the costumes communicate the character development progresses in the Malayalam film “IYOBINTE PUSTHAKAM” the characters “IYOB” and “COMMUNIST MAN”. Semiotic Analysis is used to analyze the costume of the characters and gives an explanation of how costume designers design costumes in films that effectively communicate the character in films.