A ★★★★½ review of Kantara: Chapter 1 (2025)

Triumph of the Indigenous Subaltern

What happens when centuries-old tribal traditions are challenged by a confluence of capitalistic greed, imperial ambitions, and royal supremacism? What happens when a kingdom’s ambitions encroach upon sacred forest wealth protected by an Indigenous divinity? What happens when the spirit of the collective, inherent among Indigenous groups, comes into conflict with the individualist ideals of the city? “Kantara,” set firmly in Tulu Nadu along India’s southwest coast, stages these collisions with both mythic intensity and anthropological intimacy.

The film embodies what Ranajit Guha describes as a subaltern version of history, one told from below, not from the throne. Here, tribal customs, everyday rhythms, and faith in the local divinity take precedence over royal conquest or the state’s authority. Rishabh Shetty, who writes, directs, and stars in the film, becomes not merely a filmmaker but a truth-seeker. His portrayal of Berma feels less like performance and more like invocation, the outcome of patient listening to the land and its people. The movie comes most alive when Berma surrenders to something greater than himself: guided by the tiger, possessed by the deity, and transformed into the medium of divine justice for his community.

This, however, leads us to a deeper tension. Does Indigenous justice require a hero-figure and, if so, must that figure be male? Is the mythic masculine saviour a necessity of faith or a concession to mainstream cinematic grammar? By centring resistance through a singular male vessel, “Kantara” risks translating collective memory into the language of spectacle.

Another question lingers: do subaltern traditions need validation through alignment with pan-Hindu mythology? Can they not stand on their own, outside the gravitational pull of majority religion? In revering the Bhoota and Daiva traditions, the film also flirts with the danger of subsuming them under broader Hindu iconography — a gesture that can feel as much like homage as appropriation. “Kantara” honours Indigenous spirituality with sincerity, yet it leaves the viewer uncertain whether it celebrates difference or integrates it into a larger national myth.

The first half of the film feels expansive, rooted in ritual, rhythm, and community. The story’s focus shifts from the collective to the chosen one, from lived experience to divine revelation. In doing so, the film limits its subaltern vision. What began as a meditation on land and belonging becomes a more familiar tale of heroic justice.

Still, “Kantara” remains powerful in exposing the “othering” gaze of urban modernity. City dwellers treat the tribal community as laborers and curiosities, romanticizing and exploiting them in equal measure. Their casual use of terms like brahma-rakshas (demonic spirit) to describe a revered local deity reveals both ignorance and the urge to own what they cannot understand.

Originally published at https://letterboxd.com.