Tracing Emotions: A Sentiment Analysis of Mental Health Representation in Balu Mahendra’s Cinema

The research investigates the affective and psychological aspects of representation of mental health in Balu Mahendra's cinema, a highly reflective Tamil film director. With the inter-disciplinary integration of sentiment analysis and thematic film analysis, the research seeks to follow the trajectory of how emotions, from melancholy and alienation to resilience and compassion, are inscribed in his narrative structure, lensing, and character enactment. The collection includes sampled films like
Moondram Pirai (1982), Veedu (1988), and Sathi Leelavathi (1995) that prioritize themes of trauma, isolation, and recuperation of emotions. NLP tools are used to subject dialogues and narrative descriptions to computational sentiment mapping, and qualitative
analysis interprets the results in cultural and cinematic frameworks. The findings identify a consistent pattern of muted emotional hues and self-reflective character trajectories that reflect the tensions of mental health in real life. The research is theoretically
additive to film studies through the combination of digital humanities practice and psychological narrative theory, demonstrating
the ways in which computational sentiment analysis tools can enrich interpretive analyses of film. Finally, the study highlights
Balu Mahendra's sensitive representation of emotional pain and healing, and suggests wider implications for an understanding of
mental health discussion in Indian visual culture.