The intriguing rise of south Indian cinema

The Kannada film ‘Kantara: Chapter 1’ is the most recent addition to the list of south Indian films enjoying box office success across India. Other films on this list are ‘Bahubali’, ‘KGF’ and ‘Pushpa’ franchises and ‘RRR’. 

Although rooted in specific regions, cultures and languages, they have achieved national fandom. Not only are they reshaping mainstream tastes, but also competing with the regular fare produced in Mumbai. Film experts offer many explanations for the unexpected surge in interest — some believe the films feed into the hyper nationalistic narratives originating in the north, while others say they represent rooted cultures contesting homogenising narratives.

Narrative diversity

Bollywood has been the face of Indian cinema for a long time. With the rise in ‘pan-Indian’ cinema, the diversity in south Indian cinema has come to the notice of audiences in other regions as well.

“South Indian films in fact give the audience some relief from the kind of nationalism that is being peddled in Hindi cinema,” says well-known film critic M K Raghavendra. “‘Bahubali’ is about a kingdom in south India. It is the same with ‘Kantara’. It is very local — local story, local deity, and it doesn’t claim to be national,” he says. 

He believes the characters in south Indian blockbusters are different from the heroes celebrated in Bollywood. “The policeman is the hero in the Ajay Devgn movies, but in ‘Pushpa’ (Telugu), the hero is a criminal. The villain, representing the IPS, is a north Indian. So there is a certain resistance to the nationalistic narrative,” says Raghavendra. 

With Bollywood catering to the ‘Hindutva constituency’ with its Hindu vs Muslim narratives, people are losing interest and shifting to south Indian films, he suggests. 

Search for identity

Film critic N Vidyashankar, artistic director of Bengaluru International Film Festival, says Indian cinema once told individual stories, but has moved on to stories of communities. He cites the examples of films such as ‘Upkar’ (1976) and ‘Bangarada Manushya’ (1972), which spoke about a commitment to agrarian roots. “Although they were talking about the country, and the Nehruvian politics of the time, they were all personal and individualistic narratives. Guru Dutt’s films were also about the existential crisis of individuals,” he says.

Beginning with the ’70s, the narratives shifted to the Indian middle class and their changing lifestyles. That was what Bollywood had stuck to for a long time. “Now, people are moving towards identity politics — we are Indians and we have these stories to tell, these are our beliefs,” says Vidyashankar.

He says today’s Indian cinema is defined by local content and global form. “The content is being defined by identity politics. The ‘Indian’ identity today is stronger than individual identity. The films are addressing the emotional need of modern Indian society and its search for an identity,” he says.

And identity in India today is about faith. If you look at the films in the ‘Kantara’ franchise, they are largely talking about folk legends and beliefs. They connect myth and culture. The same holds true of ‘Bahubali’. 

After ‘Kantara’’s success, the exploration of local stories is gaining ground in the Kannada OTT space as well— ‘Ayyana Mane’, ‘Shodha’ and the recently announced ‘Marigallu’ are all tapping into stories rooted in the region.

Passive storytelling

Raghavendra, author of several books on cinema, compares Hollywood and Indian cinema to understand why our audiences love grand spectacles.

“The grammar of Hollywood is individual motivation. A motivated individual is the key functionary, the one who carries the narrative forward. In Indian cinema, the narrative is more in the passive voice. I call it karmic causality,” he says. 

Taking James Bond movies as an example, he says, “The ruthless annihilation of the villain is not seen in Indian movies. If you take ‘Sholay’ for instance, the heroes, Jai and Veeru, are bounty hunters. They are out to kill Gabbar. But what happens is that it is Gabbar who comes their way and they respond. They don’t seek out Gabbar actively. So the entire narrative is in the passive voice. It is not in the active voice like in American cinema,” he says. He believes fatalism, and a belief in an invisible power, drives the narratives of our hit films. “I call it the karmic aspect of Indian thinking,” he observes.

Since Indian protagonists are not driven by personal ambition, an active community comes into play. The bhakti and heroism of the characters is heightened by grand visuals, melodrama and loud music. And most blockbusters are period dramas, so they need a fairly large canvas in terms of historical setting. 

‘Good versus evil’

Through fictional stories, films like ‘Bahubali’ and ‘Kantara’ talk about the triumph of good over evil. They make no intellectual commentary about society; they follow the larger Indian mythological narrative and the result is that the audiences get emotionally involved. 

“Our mythology has larger-than-life heroes. The same myth has been customised to the modern world in ‘KGF’ and ‘RRR’. These are local stories with an assertion of regional narratives but the belief and faith is pan-Indian,” says Vidyashankar, countering the argument that regional identities are contesting nationalistic ones. 

Mani Ratnam’s ‘Ponniyin Selvan’, made in two parts and mounted on a lavish scale, did not do as well as the other southern films, perhaps because it did not focus on the good vs evil narrative. Instead, it narrated a denser story with more complex characters.

Viewing culture

With the advent of OTT, says film educator and critic Basav Biradar, big screen audiences believe that only “ambitious visual spectacles with sophisticated production values are worth going to theatres for”.

“This is combined with a restless quest to rediscover and sculpt a new identity at a time when there is a proliferation of politicised ideas of religion, mythology and nationalism. Of course all this is enhanced with stardom and aggressive marketing,” he says. 

Only a decade ago, films running in theatres for 100 days were considered blockbusters. Today, the fastest Rs 100 crore at the box office is a benchmark of success.

Biradar reflects, “The audiences are being manipulated by a discourse which positions box office gains and production costs as sucessful filmmaking.” He believes this is a result of “film journalism turning celebrity-oriented and becoming a part of the marketing of movies”. 

Biradar believes the conflation of nationalism, religion and politics is creating a world of false emotions that deviate from the basic humanist emotions inspiring cinema earlier.