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After a long Kannada movie-watching drought, I watched Kantara last week. Recently, I also watched the Tamil movie Ponniyan Selvan: 1, and some months ago, the Telugu movie Pushpa. Of course, movie-watching for me entails going to the theatre.
Kantara is an amazing movie set in coastal Karnataka along the Western Ghats. The movie depicts the festivals, the beliefs, the gods, and the daily life of the region. The plot of man vs. nature and tribals vs. mainstream is not as important as the picture the movie paints. The authenticity of the pan-chewing characters and a magical narrative with an unexpected ending is what makes the movie an all-time Kannada blockbuster.
The hero, Shiva, is an arrack-drinking, pot-smoking tribal strongman. The other characters include Shiva’s female interest, who is the first educated tribal girl of the village and who aspires to join the forest department; Shiva’s womanising friend always found in a stack of hay; Shiva’s god-fearing younger brother, who takes on the mantle of tribal priesthood since Shiva recuses himself; Shiva’s mother, who is always cursing and chasing people around with a broom. Then there is the boar spirit that descends on and speaks through the priest during Bhoota Kola. The narrative starts with the classic “once upon a time, there was a king…”, and ends with “…and then there were none”! There is a little bit of Harry Potter and his interaction with his dad’s Animagus; and there is a bit of Avatar and listening to the spirits of the forest. But the most memorable part of the narrative is the wide-eyed wild scream of the Bhoota Kola.
Ponniyan Selvan, the movie about the emperor Rajaraja Chola, is a kaleidoscope of characters including kings, queens, princes, princesses, a boat woman, a horse-back travelling messenger who goes beyond his remit, a comical Vaishnavite priest, and a guardian angel on an elephant. Watchers of House of the Dragon will certainly sense the similarities of the narrative, which is about the battles and politics around the succession to the throne.
Ponniyan Selvan has very strong female characters. The movie recreates the magical time of the peak of the Tamil Chola empire when the Brihadeeshwara Temple was built, administration was streamlined, the military was strengthened, including a powerful navy, the markets were booming, and the arts were at their pinnacle. The narrative is better in the book, is what all those who have read the book say. It was heart-warming to see an old bent-over gentleman in his traditional dhoti and white shirt being helped into the theatre to watch the movie. It must have been a long time since the old man had been to a theatre, but this Tamil movie, made true to Kalki Krishnamurthy’s work from the early 1950s, was perhaps a must-watch for him.
Pushpa is based on characters set in the Eastern Ghats of Andhra Pradesh. You have the lorry-driver hero, Pushparaj, aka Pushpa, who looks at crime as a creative profession. Pushpa is a realistic and raw character with a shoulder stoop developed as a defence mechanism when being called a bastard as a child; he alpha-male swipes his beard when he threatens his opponents, and he knows how to strike a bargain with cops and smugglers alike. The plot is again man vs. nature, while the narrative revolves round the smuggling of Red Sandal. The movie is a hit because of the songs, the native characters, and the mystical charm of the setting in the forests. The narrative is fast paced and meets expectations.
That these movies are big hits shows that the audiences want to watch real characters and local stories. South Indian movies seem to have found a way to bring the audiences back to theatres. The big-budget Bollywood productions that are generic, formula-based, and pastel colour-themed movies can learn a few lessons here.
(Gopichand Katragadda, the former CTO of Tata Group and founder of AI company Myelin Foundry, is driven to peel off known facts to discover unknown layers.)
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