Chapter 1: Woah!

My husband and I had wanted to watch Kantara Chapter 1 ever since we saw the trailer on YouTube. His first reaction was “Hmm.. not what we expected, looks a bit boring?” but we decided to go anyway, giving in to the international phenomenon that it has become. Back home in India, both of our parents haven’t watched it yet — my mother-in-law called in the morning, “how is it?” to which we both responded “it’s good you should see it too”, without giving too much away.

We walked into the Klingenberg Kino at 20:15; I secretly hoped that it’d just be us Kannadigas at the venue. When we walked into the hall, we saw that it was quite a small screening (something that’d be ultra-luxe back home), but all seats were full. We met a couple of his friends, exchanged pleasantries and sat down when the lights dimmed.

We were met with the familiar primordial “Woah!” scream in the opening scene and we made ourselves comfortable on the sofa we’d booked. The pace of the film is quite fast and as we both don’t fully understand the Mangalore dialect and Tulu, we had opted for English subtitles. The film was an experience like no other.

The film operates at the intersection of fantasy, mythology, spirit worship, tantric ritualism, the workings of natural systems that’s eroded by civilization, and is fuelled by an epic type of narration. The mythical nature of Tulunadu — a land shrouded in mystery that has fascinated generations — is sort of unveiled to an audience with a devotional lens. Rishab Shetty shifts his position from the hero to part of a collective in this prequel. In Kantara, we’re introduced to him in the Kambala — literally behind two buffaloes in the muck, but in Chapter 1, we see him with friends, family and his tribe — his people.

Shetty’s vision is literally birthed — he builds a world where on one hand, we see the Kadambas as rulers of Bangra — a civilization that values beauty, art, literature and thrives on trade, commerce and bilateral partnerships, and on the other, we see Eshwarana Hoodota a wild, unforgiving forest that is home to tribals who fear/ worship the natural elements and interacts with the spirit-world. The contrast is quite hard to miss — we’re taken across both the worlds and asked to witness each of their beauty, each of their flaws, perfections, motivations and challenges. Up until this point, the film feels like it’s taken considerable inspiration from Game of Thrones, RRR, PS1,2 and Baahubali. But it is still Rishab Shetty’s movie afterall, and the main differentiators are how he showcases each character’s motivations, the ritualistic traditions, the age old argument of ‘Who owns anything anyway?”

Aniruddha and I sit through the first half of this visually stunning movie. We’re impressed with the VFX (everything looks almost real), the sheer grandness of the production, the costumes, the scenes, the dialogues, the spaces and positions that characters occupy — we recognised the effort it took to bring them from a faint idea to a realistic depiction. Aravind Kashyap, the cinematographer is excellent — the camera is a non-entity in this film — we feel like we’re witnessing the scenes as they happen (the camera is almost non-existent). The film follows a dense narrative and experiments with different genres, sometimes within scenes! We have horror mixed with comedy at times, romance with tragedy, horror with drama, thriller with comedy — all oddball combinations, but they somehow work together.

What stood out to me was how Berme and his gang of friends break open the spell and reach the outside world from their heaven, Kantara. In a way, this is a story about the loss of innocence. The tribals are wide-eyed when they venture into the capital and are quite surprised that the spices that they ‘borrow’ from the forest are critical for commerce and trade. Prosperity as an idea is established by the ability to afford. We see international trade too — it all seems hunky dory, but the main character realises that this kingdom, the “zenith of civilization”, is built on the worst of human horrors — slavery, abuse, trafficking and loss of agency. They bring back their observations to implement into their systems and introduce agriculture, irrigation and farming. But the price to pay is the concept of ownership to a system that believes that nothing is truly owned, and that they (= we) are simply custodians for a brief period of time.

These scenes were a reminder of my conversations with Pappa — he too believes that we don’t own anything, not even our own bodies and minds, let alone land, estate or property and that it is almost a sin to declare ownership on nature — they’re given to us as gifts, and the more we abuse these gifts, the more we’d suffer.

Similarly, in the book authored by Yuval Noah Harari, ‘Sapiens’, he argues that collective storytelling and agriculture are the roots of all civilization. The shift from foraging to farming is the bedrock of all advanced ‘civilized’ countries of today (we also have classifications like ‘Second world’, ‘Third world’, ‘Developing’, ‘Developed’ and other such notions) and the sharing of simple ideas until the advent of organized religions, unfortunately determined our descent to slowly losing our reverence to the natural systems. Kantara explores this theme quite deeply — the gradual necessity for independence rather than trusting the ‘natural way of things’ is evident in the way Berme responds to instances throughout the film.

What brings him back to reality is the extreme form of voyeurism displayed by the newly appointed Bangra king, Rajashekhara, who wants to visit and see Kantara for himself. His evident guffaw, disdain and cruelty to the tribals, their systems, their gods, everything they hold dear, are quite sadistic — my husband’s hands were tight fists by the time — oops, no, I’m not going to give it out.

Kanakavathi is a diabolical character — right from how she’s introduced, her position in the court, her place in the royal family, her costumes, her dialogues, the way she carries herself, everything has a transitive nature; her character arc is the steepest of all, and the most surprising. My jaw had dropped for at least 10 minutes (which explains why I was thirsty towards the end) and I had to physically remind myself to close my mouth — the disbelief is stunning.

Bramhakalasha as a song is a visual and musical spectacle. The rhythm, the background score, the lyrics all add up to the splendour of constructing a temple and a chariot on screen. Abby’s voice is melodious, the cymbals, chande and the nadaswaram have an ancient-ness to them, the lyrics are a mix of Tulu, Kannada and Sanskrit — a happy mix of 3 languages working seamlessly together. We heard these notes and lyrics with such joy (and tears), we almost folded our hands to what was unfolding on screen.

I’m not going to give away the climax — it deserves a separate standalone essay. Some of the fighting scenes were a bit overdone and indulgent. The film peaks quite early in the second half, unlike the prequel, but for Shetty’s opus, this Chapter 1 is just the beginning.

Hand in hand, my husband and I came home at 23:45. Our bed is made and as we lie down, he’s snoring softly, exhausted from that intense yet exhilarating film. I’m unable to sleep so I read more and more about Tulunadu and its mysteries. My mind doesn’t want to leave Eshwarana Hoodota yet.