Rishab Shetty’s ‘Kantara’ is a solid masala-myth that, despite its issues, finds new ways to tell an old story about ‘The Chosen One’

Spoilers ahead…

In short, we are either in a masala movie disguised as folklore, or in folklore disguised as a masala movie. Either way, everything has a touch of symbolism. 

Rishab Shetty writes, directs, and delivers a joyous and very exuberant performance as Shiva, the protagonist of Kantara – but he’s absent from the opening stretch that is set in the nineteenth century. We hear a tale about a king who had everything. He had the love of his family. He had the love of his subjects. What he did not have was peace of mind. There’s a second time period, in the mid-1970s, and a third, in 1990. The screenplay uses many devices to tie the past and the present – or rather, to bring the past to the present and show how the two are always intertwined. There’s the sound of anklets heard in a forest. There’s a near-mythical sword passed on from the days of the king to the days we find Shiva in. There’s the reference to Vishnu’s third incarnation, Varaha Avatar, where the god became a boar.

You can read the rest of the review here:

https://www.galatta.com/kannada/movie/review/kantara/

And you can watch the video review here:

https

Copyright ©2022 GALATTA.