Nationalists, Loyalists or Spoilers?

RRR (Telugu; 2022)
Director: S.S. Rajamouli

Week after week, this film seems to be roaring to greater heights at the box office. And the reviewers are going gaga over the offering from Tollywood and giving the Bollywood mafia and their chamchas a run for their money. The recent spate of blockbusters from the South cinema has evoked has started a Twitter war that may be related to the rekindling of the national language debate. RRR also reaffirmed the fact that the Baahubali duology was no flash in the pan.

In keeping with Baahubali's drift, RRR also threads along with big bucks on CGI and historical slunt. In RRR, the storytellers decided to create a fictional account loosely based on the lives and times of two freedom fighters from India.

Alluri Sita Rama Raju

Alluri Sitaram Raju (1897-1924) opposed the 1882 British Forest Act, which restricted movement in forests. It interfered with the tribals' practice of the 'slash and burn' style of farming (podu). The reason for the British legislation is to usurp the land for mining. Alluri used to ambush local police stations for British weapons to arm and lead his revolt against the colonialist. He grew up in Andhra Pradesh, gave up college, pursued spiritualism, found Christian evangelists annoying and found the purpose of life amongst the tribal people. He himself was not from the Adivasi community. After two years of terrorising the British, the British had to dig deep into their coffers with their special force to employ extreme measures to violate, kill and torture his sympathisers. Alluri was executed by a firing squad.

Komaram Bheem (1900-1940) is a member of the Gond tribe in the princely state of Hyderabad. He led an Anti-Nizamite rebellion in the 1930s against the monarch's feudal and oppressive Zamindar system. Restrictive regulations hampered the tribes' way of podu farming. Failure to comply with the state law saw brutal killings and forced amputations. In reality, the Nizam was just another British conspirator in the field of Indian who played lackey to the invaders, sold their motherland and continued to be immersed in the loot of yesteryears.

Komaram Bheem
© Praveen Kumar Myakala

After failing peaceful negotiation, Bheem went underground, linked up with the Communist Party and created an Adivasi guerilla army to protect their lands. It took the British, all its local police, and local turncoat Muslim aristocrats (taluqdars) to capture him in an ambush. Bheem's battle cry was 'Jal Jangal Zameen' (Water, Jungle, Land). [Note: Jangal = Jungle; another Anglicised Indian word.]

 

In reality, Bheem and Alluri Raju probably never met. With the creative artistic licence, the storyteller portrayed Bheem as the protector of the Gond going under disguise in search of a young girl appropriated by the British Governor's wife just because she could do beautiful hand painting. Raju is seemingly an obedient British bulldog scurrying around doing his Master's dirty job. Unbeknownst to anyone, Raju holds a dark secret. His father died fighting the British, and Raju has big plans to sabotage the British and defeat them at their own game.

The plan sees Bheem and Raju finally discovering each other's identity, and after many mind-boggling and gravity-defying acrobatic aerial fights, the heroes come out victorious. Bheem unites the abducted girl with her mother, and Raju smuggles British guns to the revolutionaries.

It is a question of whether one is a nationalist, a loyalist or a collaborator. A nationalist may be one who does everything to preserve the honour and dignity of his flag. A loyalist is loyal to whom - his country, his paymaster, the powerful, race, religion? The list goes on as schism amongst the population becomes more acute. The nationalist may look at someone who works against his interest as a collaborator. At the height of the rein of their empire upon which the sun never set, the British were master planners in planting collaborators amongst their subjects. During the pre-Independence era, in and outside India, the British successfully planted informants among the rank and file of the RSS movement and the Gaddar movement in the USA to thwart their planned ambushes and mutinies. In fact, Chandra Bose and Homi Bhabha's mysterious air crashes are said to have British handiwork written all over them.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Every system needs periodical revamp

Rangasthalam ( రంగస్థలం, Theatre, Telugu; 2018)

You think he is alright as your leader. He seems well composed to hear things out. He exudes an aura of confidence. He always has people around him who love him. He gets things done. He must be doing something right. He is even to be personally partaking in religious functions. He appears charitable enough. The same divine forces that govern your life must be the same one that runs his. The Ruler of the world must have sanctioned him to rule over this piece of land.

Then you realise one or two things do not match. It does not seem fair; not proper. You pass it off your own naivety. After all, a person with so much public support and approval cannot be wrong. Then it hits you. Your liberty is snatched away. You scream injustice, but then it dawns upon you the whole administrative machinery has been turned to suit him. You and the ones wronged by the once thought to be the saviour of the land is actually a wolf in sheep's clothing.

You have no recourse to highlight your plight. What do you do? An uprising at the risk of losing everything you have accumulated like a sparrow slowly building its nest? A violent revolution causes the destruction of lives and property. Psyop needs time and resources. What avenue is left when the powers that be controlled the amenities that were created to serve you, anyway.

One website described this movie as one of those movies from South India over the last few years that changed the cinema landscape. This is just baloney. In the 80s, so many movies came out highlighting the nonsensical administration of the village panchayats and the cruelty of the land zamindars. Now it is the cooperatives, that is all. This formula of a lone wolf fighting a corrupt system, coming out unscathed and winning the heart of the beautiful lass is as old as the industry itself. The redeeming factor must be the excellent cinematography and its soothing melodies.

The film tells the story of a young hearing-impaired agricultural worker, who after seeing too many injustices happening under his very nose, takes the Village Cooperative Society President head-on. Mysteriously villagers who opposed the President's decisions committed suicide or went missing. The last straw came when his learned brother was killed when he decided to stand against the President in the local elections.

Can give it a miss but the massive box office earnings and the remake in Kannada may mean that the producers are just riding on its financial success.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Love is a four-letter word?

C/O Kancharapalem (2018, Telugu)

In Nature, the union of sexes exists solely for procreation. It has its check and balances to ensure continuity of progeny and survival is only of the fittest. It does try to prevent chimaera monsters by minimising extra-species exchanges of the seeds of life. Invariably, the union across species tend to be infertile and slow to respond to environmental changes, thus resulting in self-destruction. Mules, the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse, are mostly sterile. So is a zorse or a zebra-horse hybrid.

Even within species, through innately developed hierarchical dominance, Nature tries to ensure that over generations, the young will be hardy to face challenges of the environment. The strongest of the males get to mate the healthiest of the female to this purpose. The weak male has to do with the weakest or the deformed female, which would result in failed descendants. It appears like Nature is inherently nihilistic in its outlook of the future. 

Now, homo sapiens are all supposed to be of a single race and species. Barring a few subtle insignificant differences, DNA analyses reveal that we are all the same- black, yellow, brown or white. Even though humans proclaim to be all one and the same, calling each other 'brothers' and 'sisters'. The fact that they are calling each other siblings only means that there are restrictions on their choice of mating partners. They are divided by race, sub-races, locales or religions, they have devised various impositions on such unions. We have social mores and regulations to ensure that the young are taken care of. 

This low budget Telugu film is a refreshing offering with multiple international accolades under its belt. It takes its viewers on a rollercoaster ride which will all make sense in the end. Extraordinary things happen to ordinary people, but we are hoodwinked about its timeline; maybe because the backdrop of a typical Indian village had hardly changed over the years.

When young tweens explore their sexuality, it is considered a taboo. The society says, "there is a time for everything. Do not put the cart before the horse!" When young couple show interests in each other, the question of class, economic status and religion become a stumbling block. When love morphs in middle age, it is frown upon again. Apparently, it is socially unacceptable when a widow or a person in advanced of age is smitten by Cupid's arrows. The society takes upon itself to ensure that arbitrary social norms and religious dictums are held up at all costs.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

It is all in the presentation!

Baahubali #1 The Beginning (One with strong arms, Telugu; 2015)

Move over Pixar, Dreamwork, Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson and Hollywood! The land where the word 'Avatar' originated had arisen. This is Kollywood's answer to all the megalomaniacal productions with mammoth studio sets, computer wizardry, graphic imaging, tall fabled stories, macho men with crafted bodies and gravity defying stunts. Baahubali, the most expensive production from India has made its mark in the international arena. And made it presence it did, with much pomp!

Stories like in 'Baahubali' had been made many before in Indian cinemas, of stories of kings, revenge, loss of kingdoms and duels. However, what makes this offering different is the sheer work of cinematography, picturesque scenery, CGI expertise and well choreographed stunts and fight scenes. Never before, the war in Indian movies been fought with strategies and various traditional armamentarium. The mammoth structures like the palace and statues add on to the splendour of the set. This movie must be the first instalment of the two episodes of Baahubali.

The story starts with a lady drowning in the process of saving of infant from the sprawling mean soldiers hellbent to kill both of them. The child grows adopted by a tribal community living below a gargantuan waterfall. As the child grows, he is determined to get to the top of waterfall to see what is on the other side. After repeated failures, as an adult, he succeeds after being lured by what he thought to be a raving beauty.
At the top, his old memory returns as he comes to find out his real identity; a prince. In between all that there a lot of computer graphic aided swashbuckling sword scenes and romantic scenes.

The acting department seem to be deficient and I tend to get confused with the characters. I think, in the modern day movie-making, gone are the days for elaborate character acting. Why waste time on story and emotion when there are so much what modern computers, airbrushing and sculptured torsos and limbs can do.  With a plethora of stories lined up in the Indian Vedic scriptures and now with the expertise of pixilation, one can only wonder what is next from the Indian cinema! Sky is the limit what they can scale next.