'Empuraan' and its easy postures

The film retells inconvenient history but its politics is reductive and used only to justify violent payback

L2: Empuraan – an overstuffed, template action film starring Mohanlal that celebrates a mysterious crime boss with allies and armies across continents – is close to attaining the stature of agitprop art. The irony is striking but is it, really, a surprise that this patently fan-service blockbuster is being lauded for its bold political position, its apparent dissent against the right-wing establishment?

There are answers in the film’s first act where a 20-minute prelude shows, in graphic detail, the targeted killings and rapes of Muslims, referring to the 2002 Gujarat riots, and establishes the backstory for one of the film’s supporting characters. This, of course, is important because it takes courage for the makers of the costliest Malayalam film, dubbed in multiple languages, to talk about a point in recent history where the alienation of a community further reshaped the designs of a new militant Right, and its eventual imprint on the dispensation.

The outrage of the right-leaning camp has been intense, also because the film’s makers – actor-director Prithviraj Sukumaran and writer Murali Gopy – chose against spelling out in clear terms the origins, the triggers, of the riots. Sangh supporters unleashed hate for the film on social media. Mohanlal and Prithviraj were targeted, screenshots of cancelled tickets were shared, Organiser said the ‘anti-Hindu’ film peddled a message of anarchy. There were no open calls for a boycott from the BJP but these are simple times – you know pressure when you see it.

Mohanlal expressed regret for having “pained” those who love him. A bizarre act of self-censorship followed, with 24 cuts made to the film. Scenes were trimmed, lines were muted, text on the title card showing the period of violence was replaced with “A few years ago”, and the name of the antagonist was changed from Bajrangi to Baldev, while the producers maintained that it was all voluntary and intended solely to heal the hurt caused by the film’s contentious portions. The messaging was mixed; the film was not disowned but there was admission of an error in judgement.

Empuraan, like any film, shows only what it wants to show and its makers have the right to these omissions and creative choices. This is a country where historicals and biopics are being increasingly used to further propaganda, as tools for othering and political appropriation. Their commitment to facts will be questioned, their agendas for discord will be criticised but they are films cleared for public viewing by a State-appointed censoring body. So why censor the censors?

In its defiance of the establishment, Empuraan has found endorsement of the liberal ecosystem which appears to have ignored the film’s aesthetic inconsistencies. By complying with the ‘hurt sentiments’, and by agreeing to the cuts, it has also accorded the fringe elements a sense of importance.

A convenient backdrop

The problem with Empuraan is that while it appears to be speaking truth to power, the treatment of its politics is stagy. It is emotionally distant from the men, women, and children dragged out of their hideouts by armed mobs to face certain death. Empuraan milks the setting for effect; the riots are a punch-line, a rallying cry – there is no intent to explore the hurt or the generational fallout of the violence. Even for the lone survivor, the tragedy serves only as a playback for the climactic retribution. It is man against man; no angst, no word spoken, just gunshots and glorious bloodletting.

The film’s broad-stroke engagement with politics is also evident in the segments set in Kerala, where the Left and the Congress are shown without a semblance of ideological heft, merely sharing the spoils.

But should a film that pitches itself as escapist entertainment be dissected for nuance and sub-text? It should be, if it postures without clarity or as in this case, if it finds acceptance for its purported political leanings.

The film’s prequel, Lucifer (2019), was a rooted political thriller with the right servings of massy moments. It ended with a glimpse of what its protagonist, an MLA from central Kerala, really is: a dreaded, Keyser Soze-like ganglord who leads a global crime syndicate. Empuraan takes forward this franchise-mode world-building with ambition but its politics is one of convenience. It has resonated with a politically entrenched audience, with the hype around the controversies also propelling its box office to record highs. A sequel, of course, is on the way.

In other news, on Friday, the Enforcement Directorate conducted raids at the premises of a chit fund firm owned by Gokulam Gopalan, one of Empuraan’s co-producers, in connection with alleged foreign exchange violations.